you would think they would install a heavy cable to the upper section of the structure and pull it down from a safe distance after undermining the lower structure of the building. safer, less risk, same result.
Man, i would love to be able to walk through old buildings like this before they get destroyed. Its cool finding old nick backs of times gone by. Recently i was at a sawmill auction. An elder gentlemen in the crowd was walking through offices, looking at all the desks. He walks out of the room with an old faded picture. He shows it to me, it was him as a much younger man working in that very plant. Pretty cool i thought, that some of these tools would go full circle and end up in his garage!
I bet he had to change his shorts! I can't believe the people in the background didn't get excited when it went over towards the machine. They must not have known how dangerous this demo was. Hopefully this video will make others plan similar work a little differently. Thanks for posting.
there is still a bunch of wood there to burn. it can easily warp the rails on the rail line next door. I wish they could bring the one in town here down like that. It is constructed with 2 by lumber stacked flat. 2X18 at the bottom and getting smaller towards the top. They usually cut them into 8ft by 30 foot sections and haul them out for salvage of the wood.
There's obviously a lot of stuff around this building. If they set it on fire without bringing it down first, it would burn and fall uncontrollably. I guess common sense just isn't that common. The way he caught it was very impressive.
The problem burning the standing structure is that it would pose a risk to the active railroad line. Once the structure is lowered to no longer pose a risk of blocking the railroad was it possible to allow a safe burn.
It looks like a gallon of gas and a couple of matches at the beginning could have saved a lot of time and trouble. I have to hand it to the excavator operator on a job well done though.
Sad thing so many of these historic structures are being torn down. I have tried to find one close enough to move but the bill for the electric wires alone is over $25,000 just to move 50 miles. In another 50 years nobody will remember our agricultral herritage. :-(
In Philly one day an excavator crew came in a did a clean job of taking down an old house. Pretty quick too. Turns out the company that sent them gave them the wrong address! The guy cam home from work like WTF????
@borderraven hehe :D you have an excellent point however, the majority of the dwelling exterior was corrigated steel/metal. Burning the house in this case would use far 'more' energy as it has simply been wasted in the sky. They chose a suitable method, the owner is generally charged an hourly rate; which can be cost effective in this building type. The added benefit is actually recycling the torn material to compensate the demolition cost and removal. :D peace out
excavators have a strong cab around the operator for this exact reason. you could drop a brick shit-house on one of those things and the operator would be ok.
At 6.21 there is a train passing. How close to the track was the building? Was the RR aware that it was being torn down? I wonder what the engineer thought as he approached the scene!
Surprised that you find it surprising that old shit was built to last. This building was built with profit in mind, There would be no gain from cutting corners.
All that's needed is for 4-5 guys wearing hardhats and tool belts to run up to the top of the crushed elevator pile and plant a big "Komatsu" flag...maybe pose for a quick Mt. Suribachi-style photo, then call it good.
Thank you for your sensible, courteous reply. Unlike several other assholes who think they have to try and prove some kind of pathetic superiority issue, you chose to simply answer my question with a quick, courteous reply. Unfortunately many people on RU-vid would rather act like a total douchebag to others instead of just answering a valid question. So thank you once again my friend. You're a kind individual who clearly knows how to respond to other human beings and I greatly respect that :)
Guy started to have some serious second thoughts about 7:30... Suddenly got real slow and quiet... And what the hell, they burn it at the end anyway... Could of saved themselves some work and just burnt it to begin with..
surely that would of been alot safer and easier if he had pincers or a big grab or something.he could of just picked it apart then instead of trying to pull a 40foot building towards him
Shit, I coulda stood up there and had one last smoke before coming down! But wow he got lucky on the fall on catching it. In a machine like that you invincible, but in a heartbeat things can change. All the sharp stuff in that, there are about a few million ways to get impaled. That lil glass bubble isn't gonna stop shit.
buring it while it was standing... it might have fallen across the railroad and the penalties for that would probably be more than the rental of the komatsu
I guess that was a rental, who treats their excavator like that? A piece of sheetmetal falling from 40 feet in the air, gliding around and entering the cab from the side didn't scare him. That train looked awfully close. What place allows you to burn something like that? If it's ok to burn that, why did they start burning it before he's even got the excavator off the pile. Why does he do more pulling than pushing? Why, like the rest of the posts say, didn't he just burn it in place? bleh
To bad there wasn't another angle, I will concede that he deflected alot. and this guy was lucky not good. If he was good then he would have done this in a safer manner. The cabin may be secure, there also could have been heavy motor or equipment in the top if the lathe and plaster that could do serious to permanent injury. Again to bad there's never enough camera angles or detail given in the description. cheers
