Was visiting a buddy out in MS and one of his clients asked him if he could take the porch off of house they were doing a total gut on.

It looked like this



But he wanted it to look like this



It was great timing since my buddy had just picked up a couple of these and wanted to try one out (manspeak for play with it). A little over 2 hours and almost 2 dumpsters from start to finish.

I give it a thumbs up. The thumb makes it really handy.

Put some big googly eyes on it and pretend it was a dinosaur going for the kill.

Nice location looks like. Right on the gulf.

Short work of that porch.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
Nice location looks like. Right on the gulf.

Short work of that porch.

Good catch. It sits right on 90.

That's going to make it harder to get into the house. Actually.

The problem with this sort of fun is knowing when to stop!

I take the lower entrance and whatever's inside of it are considered to be sacrificial in the event of a storm?

^^^Those look to be block walls which would not be sacrificial. The interior is probably water resistant, but easily replaced if it isn’t.

The first living space floor of our house is 15’ASL. All of the walls on the ground level are breakaway walls including the entry. Breakaway means in the event of a moving wall of water the walls are sacrificed to save the columns holding the house up. That space can also flood with slow rising water, so we don’t have a lot of fancy stuff down there that can’t get wet, be moved, or be replaced.

Great view!, what's the going rate for a gulf of America view property in MS....

Nice new machines did he let you play?

EDIT: trapper189, I am sorry I didn't read your post before responding.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
I take the lower entrance and whatever's inside of it are considered to be sacrificial in the event of a storm?

Yes. Other than the concrete pillars, everything else on the lower floor is designed to break-away. The idea is to provide very little resistance on the lower level in a storm surge. This lets the water pass through, rather than create a large area of resistance that would bring-down/carry-away the entire structure.

People do put garages, storage sheds, and sometimes even some living quarters on the lower level, but they know (or should know) that they cannot count on those things lasting.


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Nice work, SpinZone! I would love to see the "after" photos when your buddy completes the remodel.



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quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

Nice new machines did he let you play?

The first rule of shinny new expensive heavy equipment is you don't let the blind guy play with it.

quote:

Originally posted by TigerDore:
Nice work, SpinZone! I would love to see the "after" photos when your buddy completes the remodel.

He is not doing the reno, he is just setting additional piles. They are going to extend the front out to where the porch ended, and then add on a new porch.

quote:

Originally posted by TigerDore:
EDIT: trapper189, I am sorry I didn't read your post before responding.

No problem.

I got it wrong. Looking at the pictures on my phone, I thought the stairwell was block, but on my tablet it doesn’t look like it.

Having only glimpsed at the blueprints of our house once, I’m completely fluent on the breakaway walls. I can say there’s only a couple of Tapcons holding them to the slab, there’s no hurricane straps on them anywhere, and there’s no wires or pipes in them. Any wiring or pipes are run on the concrete columns.

We don’t get flash floods, so we should have plenty of time to move things including vehicles.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I give it a thumbs up. The thumb makes it really handy.

The link style hydraulic thumb is a beautiful thing. The guy who got me started on excavators and helped me land on the Cat 312B that we bought for the ranch used to say that you shouldn’t even be able to call it an excavator if it didn’t have a thumb. I get that, and for almost all the stuff we use the 312 for on the ranch, the thumb is vital.

Every once in a while though, when one has a straight digging project or straight digging and loading, I’m reminded of the contractor who said, “Yeah, thumbs are great for a lot of stuff, but on a significant dig, they’re just extra weight and in the way.” When I have the oversized bucket on (4’* on a machine that came with a 32” bucket that was probably about right for it), a decently full bucket teally limits how far you can reach. Not having the weight of the thumb and associated hydraulics out on the stick would give a tiny bit of that reach back. Like everything, I guess it’s a tradeoff.

*Tom wasn’t crazy to want a 4’ bucket on a 30,000 pound machine. We had a few thousand feet of 4’ culvert to install, and having a 48” bucket made to fit the “quick coupler**” hitch with the teeth timed to work with the existing thumb paid for itself quickly in being able do dig the trech in the width we needed in one pass.

**quick is a relative term. Not a hydraulic or pneumatic “pin grabber”, but a wedge and bolts style. The half hour or so to change with air compressor, air impact gun, breaker bar, impact socket, and sledge hammer is a lot quicker than pressing the pin out, lining it up on another bucket and pressing it back in, but it’s a lot slower than a pin grabber. A lot more secure than a pin grabber too though…

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
He is not doing the reno, he is just setting additional piles. They are going to extend the front out to where the porch ended, and then add on a new porch.

Thanks!


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quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
...I can say there’s only a couple of Tapcons holding them to the slab, there’s no hurricane straps on them anywhere, and there’s no wires or pipes in them. Any wiring or pipes are run on the concrete columns.

We don’t get flash floods, so we should have plenty of time to move things including vehicles.

That sounds about right to this layman, and I agree on the likelihood of being able to get out in time.



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quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
who said, “Yeah, thumbs are great for a lot of stuff, but on a significant dig, they’re just extra weight and in the way.”

Even worse when one is working in a crowded trench trying to tunnel around existing pipes, trench boxes, etc.

to be clear there is nothing big boy in that size excavator But that's not a judgement, as any size that works is what you need!
But not once in the 4 decades I've had a series of excavators of many sizes at my farm have I once said the thumb is in the way on a project. I'd never own one without it. But in my current two excavators Cat was smart enough to plumb it into a shutoff valve and QD so it would be pretty painless to ditch it.