Construction site advice....Please!!!

In my area they are buiding a new suburb, thousands of new homes in different stages of construction. Who would you guys recommend approaching? The site foreman, the companies head office, or what. Also will I have to contact each contractor (plumbing,electric, etc) individually for their scraps? Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi totalfish.....yes here where i live you should approach any person on the site for more information about it

A) Don't bother coming to my site, cause anything that makes it as far as the dumpster belongs to me!

B) Don't be surprised if you're told "no".

Two stories...

I worked for a buddy of mine, doing the site work for a new store, one of the "Dollar" store brands. It was an all steel building, and I was on pretty good terms with the super, and he was happy to have me saving him dumpster space. We were all done with the site work, but I'd still stop by every few days. One day I got there, and they'd tossed most of the rest of the leftover metal into the dumpster already. I gave the super heck, in a friendly way of course, and he explained that they were finishing up, and he didn't know when I'd be back. I backed the truck up to the dumpster, and began un-loading it into my truck, when this "suit" looking type walks over and tells me I'm not allowed in there. I told him I had permission, and he tells me, "I 'm with (Dollar Store) corporate, and no you don't. That's our dumpster." By that time, my buddy the super walks over and explains that yes, I do have his permission, and I've been there since day one.

Point is, Mr Corporate would've tossed anybody else off the site, because that's how they think.

Story two...

Did another job, not at a construction site, per se, but at a place that rents office trailers. They refurbish them to customer specs and send them back out. I couldn't help but look in their two 30 yard cans. Unbelievable the amount of goodies in there. Water heaters, furnaces, lots of aluminum. I asked the shop foreman a kinda leading question. "Do you guys always throw away that much scrap?" He looks me right in the eye and says, "Take one thing out of that dumpster, and you'll be arrested." "How come?", says me. "Company policy", says he. All I could say was, Wow. That's a **** shame." Later, one of the truck drivers told me they'd had guys fighting over who got to take the scrap. Now nobody gets it.

Point is, you're likely to run into that as well.

Also, and it's sad to say, a lot of construction guys have been robbed over the years, more than once. Chances are that whether it's stated or not, the mindset is going to be, if I let this guy get familair enough with this place, after he's done cleaning out the dumpster today, he's going to come back and clean out the tool trailer tonight...

@ditchdigger I live in australia can't imagine my route will ever be large enough to cover Pennsylvania so your site is safe!!! I am sure there will be lots of NO's but any YES will be a start. My fulltime job is in Law Enforcement so getting the Super to trust me not to steal shouldn't be a hassle. I was going to give it a try today, but had to get my daughter, sick from school, early this morning. Anyway I'll let you guys know how my success goes. Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I've been to some really large constructions sites, also (chain store) where they do their own scrap recouping that's calculated into their contract (at least that was what I was told at both a grocery store and hardware store construction sites).

Skippy - my boys, ages 5 and 8 like your Spongebob avatar.

on some jobs it's the responsibility of each individual contractor(i.e. plumbing, electrical, hvac, painters etc) to remove their own trash, or at least get it to the dumpsters. On those sites you'd need to speak with the individual sub-contractors

Originally Posted by mikeinreco

Not to give away all the secrets but weekends are a good time to hit these dumpsters....No super to get in your way....Do the right thing only take what;s in dumpster and you'll be ok....I always have

Mmm, still sounds like theft by unauthorized taking to me; besides, alot of sites are fenced in.