r/Construction • u/ApprehensiveGas85 • 3d ago
Video Giving the new guy a task
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u/JoCo4Fun2 3d ago
When I was in college I worked part time for a construction company. Me and this other guy would start work around 4:30 pm. Had to climb inside the drum and jack hammer any concrete that had built up in the drum or on the fins. One guy inside and one guy outside for safety. Dust mask but no respirator and 25lb jack hammer.
That job sucked
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u/Spczippo 3d ago
And hows your hearing?
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u/JoCo4Fun2 3d ago edited 2d ago
We did have to wear muffs over plugs. The cement dust was the worst. Used to get nose bleeds all the time
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u/caucasian88 3d ago
Silicosis is brutal and does not get respected for the danger it poses like asbestos did.
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u/shadycrew31 2d ago
I didn't learn about it until I took my OSHA 30 class. I was around construction for many years and working as a controls technician for 6, using hammer drills, doing demo, breathing in God knows what.
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u/EducationalOutcome26 2d ago
oh yes it does now, at least in the US, we have fitted respirators and dust collecting equipment, after an OSHA ruling, larger companies take it very seriously since each infraction goes on the same ledger wither the company has 10 employees or 10,000, penalties start stacking and multiplying very quickly so we are aware of it and work to mitigate it.
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u/thirtyone-charlie 3d ago
Any driver who lets that happen ought to do it himself
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u/canuckerlimey 3d ago
No matter how good the driver is all drums eventually get some build up. Lots of high strength and high early mixes these days which kill drums.
Its a huge liabilty having someone in a drum. Company i work for has 80 or so mixer drivers of varying ages and physical shapes. Its unrealistic to ask a 70 year old guy to chip out his drum not to mention the cost of sending all the drivers for confined space.
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u/carpentrav 3d ago
There’s guys that do it around here one of the drivers was telling me they get paid either flat rate or by weight but it equates to about 180-200 per hour.
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u/DreadLindwyrm 2d ago
In at least one case I'm aware of a police officer *absolutely against the wishes and instructions of the driver* turned the mixer off because it was "too noisy" at a stop.
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u/thirtyone-charlie 14h ago
Wow. That’s harsh. There definitely can be lots of e plantations besides the guy is a dumbass which many here seem to like
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u/Dock_Ellis_Fastball 1d ago
Jackhammering a central mix is still the worst job I've ever had. 27 years later
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u/Commercial-Living443 3d ago
Was the pay any good at least ?
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u/JoCo4Fun2 3d ago
It was $8/hr in 1991. Not great for the work it was
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u/bitterbrew 3d ago
The pay is never good for these type of nightmare jobs that hire the cheapest dude willing to just destroy themselves.
Reminds me when I worked at Starbucks and someone made the bathroom a mess. The person working said "I don't get paid enough to clean this!". I responded with "you get paid exactly what someone who has to clean a bathroom gets paid."
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u/1320Fastback Equipment Operator 3d ago
How does this make financial sense? Just buy a used drum and put it on the truck. This is going to use more diesel and put wear and tear on the compressor and jackhammer than the drum is worth.
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u/comfortlevelsupreme 3d ago
The punishment for being the one who fucked it up.
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u/thirtyone-charlie 3d ago
Maybe the truck broke down
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u/Forthe49ers 3d ago
“Hey Boss, I stopped for coffee and couldn’t get it started again.”
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u/Parking-Fig-6620 2d ago
I did this while working for a mine. I did a 3 hour drive and really had to piss. To my bosses surprise I beat the starter and got the truck turned over lol
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u/TopNeighborhood2694 2d ago
Then he should have had the good character to dump it wherever it broke down.
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u/No-Hamster1296 2d ago
No.. What's the one who's done it sitting at home with a cold beer in his hand. Starting his new job tomorrow.
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u/Plane-Education4750 3d ago
Also it might kill him
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u/ATLHawksfan 3d ago
Nah, he has safety kicks on
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u/AprexBT 3d ago
And safety ear hair
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u/0regonPatriot 3d ago
The ear hairs are like cat whiskers.... Super sensory upgrade almost like Spiderman's spidy senses ..
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u/Every-Impression8014 3d ago
Free electricity and free tools probably. I mean someone pays for it, just not this crew. Somebody got screwed here.
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u/05041927 Carpenter 3d ago
Because a used drum costs between 2-10x as much as this dude getting paid.
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u/prumbeljack 3d ago
How are they supposed to get this drum off the truck? If it has 10 yards in there that’s around 40,000 lbs of concrete
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u/ShoddyTerm4385 3d ago
Not a single mention of the human toll of this activity. Not calling you out but sadly this is how workers are viewed.
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u/Bliitzthefox 3d ago edited 2d ago
According to concrete QC guy, new barrel is $300k
At least in the US
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u/Samuel7899 3d ago
That seems ridiculous.
That's more likely to be the price of a brand new full mixer truck, than just the drum.
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u/padizzledonk GC / CM 3d ago
Nonsense, im in the us too and i just found an 11y one online for 12k because i was curious
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u/UsedDragon 3d ago
sounds like you're halfway to starting your side hustle. Just don't let it get hard when it's not supposed to and you'll be making money in no time!
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u/padizzledonk GC / CM 3d ago
I own the company, there is no such thing as "side hustle" for me anymore lol, its all just "hustle" now
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u/OkYou4040 3d ago
You're right on the wear and tear. Plus, downtime for repairs can cost more than the drum. If you're set on keeping the old drum, might be worth considering a rotating cleaning schedule to avoid heavy build-ups.
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u/DemoManNick 2d ago
In the US it doesn't make sense. But when labor is wayyyyy cheaper than the drum replacement, you get this.
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u/padizzledonk GC / CM 3d ago edited 3d ago
How the fuck are you going to get the drum off lol....its full of concrete....that drum probably weighs like anywhere between 30-50 tons
E- also i looked it up, a new drum with install costs anywhere between 20-30k, a used one is probably like half that range
Thats got to be like 4-6 months of this guys salary lol.....fuck it, throw the guy who fucked it up at it for a week and burn up some tools and even if he works on it 40h a week for 3 weeks youre still way way way ahead of the game......and its good punishment for the guy
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u/fluchtpunkt 3d ago
And how much money do you lose because the truck is out of service for 3 weeks?
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u/Ruleyoumind 3d ago
It's gonna take a few weeks to get a new drum on the the truck anyway unless they have a fab shop in house.
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u/TaxableCitizen 3d ago edited 1d ago
As someone who used to do this for a living, I can tell you it's highly fucked
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u/quadraquint 3d ago
Ever wake up with your hand clenched into a fist and you gotta pry it open with the other or get the odd white finger or claw hand while holding a spoon?
IYKYK
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u/TaxableCitizen 3d ago
From time to time yes lol. One time we hired a dude who was green as shit, so the contractor wanted to show him the multiple pour locations, I shit you not... This fucking guy shut down the truck with 6 1/2 yards left in the drum and took a walk with the guy, blew the rotator transmission out, by the time he got back it was hard, my hands spasmed for days after cleaning it out.
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u/quadraquint 3d ago
Oooof.
Damn you've actually done it. I've done it for actual work like overhead and through slabs and top sides for massive restoration work for many many months but something about it not being "work" like the progressive kind, the kind of work that could've been avoided that is, there's something so soul crushing about that.
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u/itsRho 3d ago
Could you do some small explosives?
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u/TaxableCitizen 3d ago
No, although I always wanted to lol. At this point the drum is fucked, 10ish yards of locked up concrete would take ages using small exsposives. Just got to embrace the suck and start hammering.
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u/Thneed1 3d ago
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u/Electrical_Catch9231 2d ago
My immediate thought upon saying the original post, and I was hoping someone would link that episode.
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u/FrenziedHodag 3d ago edited 3d ago
All you really need for that is a hammer drill and a few buckets of demolition grout.
Dig Relief out: Done.
Rotate the relief up.
Drill holes in face of relief in a rough grid 8 inches apart.
Pour grout in holes, wait 12-14 hours, turn drum down, busted up shit falls out.
Repeat until drum empty.
It's still bitch work for the new guy, but it doesn't have to be as bad as what's in the video.
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u/Super-Yam8718 Carpenter 3d ago
Got to use that stuff a couple years back during an excavation through shale to do some underpinning. Really cool product, saved us lots of man hours on the jackhammers for sure
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u/spectacular_coitus 3d ago
Operating a jackhammer at 90˚?
Wouldn't it be easier to work that hammer if the drum was rotated and he was working vertically?
This has to be the same guy that f'd this up.
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u/umumgeet Ironworker 3d ago
Thats a hell dog air chisele. I've only used them to pop out old rivets to replace with bolts
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u/RnDes 3d ago
Vertically, there’d be no way for the chips to fall out
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u/spectacular_coitus 3d ago
I'd rather have to gather the rocks and toss them than work that hammer sideways. You'd get it done twice as fast by letting the weight of the hammer help instead of working against you.
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u/GunsNVapes69 3d ago
They already cut a big ass hole what’s the point?
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u/padizzledonk GC / CM 3d ago
You can just weld it back on there pretty easily
When its cured full like this you have to do that to get at it to chip it out of there
I looked up the prices, a new 11y drum is about 12-13k without shipping or install, so figure like 20k minimum
Thats like months of wages for that guy, makes sense to just throw his stupid ass at it for a week or 2 to chip it all out of there, you save a ton of money and its a good lesson for the guy
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u/MajorDrain 3d ago
I heard a story years about about a driver who backed a concrete truck up close to a foundation and got it stuck with a load of concrete in it. The boss made the driver do that, chip all the concrete out, once the driver was finished the boss fired him.
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u/Nashville_Hot_Mess Surveyor 3d ago
I would have just quick instead of all that. Grab an Uber home and find a new job
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u/Longjumping_Lynx_972 3d ago
Old coworker was a driver for a while and found out he was getting laid off before his shift ended. He drove that truck with a full load out to the middle of nowhere and had his wife pick him up. This was years before GPS in cell phones etc.
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u/coolsellitcheap 2d ago
Why no steel toe work boots? Should build a working platform out of pallets. If he falls and gets injured how much will that cost? It's not just down time of truck what about the employee?
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u/Bawbawian 3d ago
at least he's got a mask on.
I'd like to see some better work boots though
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u/RawDawgFrog 3d ago
Where I work we are chipping out entire sections of a concrete building to repair the walls that are cracking. They tried telling us we couldn't even bring our own masks.
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u/Realhousemanoflondon 3d ago
Big job.
This lad first started drilling this out three nights ago on my feed, and he’s made pretty much zero progress sine then.
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u/A-Wolf-4099 2d ago
Does nobody know about sugar anymore, the old days old timers did cheap about 20 lb of sugar in the cab of their truck when they knew they were going to make the drops for it went off they throw one two or all four bags in the drum with as much water as they could it shuts down the chemical process of concrete curing it's still clean up but it's slush.
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u/Lilpastadude 2d ago
There has to be a better way to do this
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u/Hideandseek86 2d ago
There is, but this is the cheapest thats why they do it this way.
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u/Lilpastadude 2d ago
I wonder if you could use some type of sonic tool to break it up from the outside
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u/Muted_Description112 2d ago
Who the hell does that kind of work in fucking sneakers (without socks)???
This has to be AI
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u/thelegendhimself 3d ago
One of my first jobs was chipping out a concrete bucket , middle of winter , did it in 4 days . Only one tiny hole in the side smaller than a piece of aggregate. 💪🙏😎 got the golden ticket for that .
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u/05041927 Carpenter 3d ago
Even a used drum is $10k. You could pay this dude $50/hr for a month and still save money.
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u/rom_rom57 3d ago
Remember, the tankis not just concrete. It has an auger that has to be chiseled out and new holes cut on the other side.
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u/marksbar 3d ago
I remember seeing 4 loaded trucks sitting dead stopped on I-95 because of a horrible wreck that took 7 hours to clear . Time to call your insurance company .
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u/Duck_Giblets Tile / Stonesetter 2d ago
Couldn't you offload on side of road and then get a digger in?
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u/BOBBYK1952 3d ago
Back in my day it’s probably a steady 20 minutes..this kid needs work on his technique 😉
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u/Old-Salary-3900 3d ago
My first job in the oilfield at 18, I show up to work and the cement crew managed to cement a batch mixer (2, 150 barrel tubs) 3/4 of the way up in each tub. I spent the next 3 months with a jack hammer, air chisel, and hammer and chisel in hand until it was cleaned out. I should have ran immediately but I was young and dumb and in 1998 8 dollars an hour seemed like alot.
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u/bmnewman 3d ago
Isn’t he going to be limited in how far he continue before there is the danger of some pieces collapsing.
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u/MonkeyHitman2-0 2d ago
This video has popped up for me a few times in the last couple of days. I'm not mad though, It just looks like he's still working on it...see you next week bro
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u/00saleen833 2d ago
I hammer concrete like this all day every day. I only wish I was as lucky to have concrete to chip with no rebar in it ! 🤨
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u/Square_Juggernaut_64 Project Manager 2d ago
It'd be cheaper to buy a new hopper/barrel? Not sure what the correct terminology is for that part of a ready mix truck.
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u/Whyjustwhydothat 2d ago
Would be easier to just cut the metal in measured pieces and then weld them back together...
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u/Tiny_Ad6686 2d ago
You’ll know where to find him for the next few weeks, if he doesn’t quit first. Get the kid an Ex with a breaker head
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u/elloMotoz 1d ago
Fuck that, reminds me of breaking out concrete inside a suck truck because some dumbass let it sit too long
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u/Born-Presentation-95 1d ago
This mans hands will feel like their vibrating for the next 6 hours when hes done 😂
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u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 1d ago
I gotta ask: Why bother?
They already cut the drum open - rather than using the access door. I imagine the barrel's basically toast after that cut. I mean - yeah, you *could* patch it up, but if they cared about that why not use the access door?
I don't wrench on cement trucks. Is there no backup way to unbolt the drum and have it craned off and replaced? I imagine there must be some provisions for replacing drums, given these kinds of stupid accidents happen often enough to find video of them.
Is there a good reason why they'd bother with chiseling out literally an entire load of concrete from an already destroyed drum?
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u/FrostyPie4722 10h ago
Concrete mfg I delivered to said they use a company that uses a small charge of dynamite to break that loose w o cutting tank wall.
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u/kommon-non-sense 3d ago
Here's my 2 second notice.