I get asked this question a lot: What is moisture conditioning? Well, this is my explanation of what it is, and why it is done. Also why I am not in a dozer much anymore. #moistureconditioning
It’s cool to see how things are done in other parts of the country, here in Maine we would never in a million years put a building on the clay soils we have, anything that turns to mud like that is dig out and hauled off or used elsewhere. I’ll use a Lowe’s store they put up recently in what was basically a swap as an example. Obviously we do what the engineer says but we typically dig down till we get to either something harder or a spec’d depth, then add what we call type D gravel, (which is 3” minus rock and course packing sand, lol, I noticed down south what you guys call gravel we call stone:) we’ll put that in in 12” lifts and keep going till it’s 8’ - 10’ above finish floor grade, all the gravel to sub base the parking lot will go on the pad site itself and they let it sit for two years and have the frost go in and out of it. Then they take and box cut the parking lot, move gravel from the building pad to the lot and dig the frost wall etc. I did a Jared Jewelers down the street that i was lucky and hit good hard pan on so I didn’t have to deal with all that bullshit but the hard pan slopped off hard, from finish floor grade in the right front corner I had a 8’ cut that tapered to a 19’ cut in the back left. We made bank on that job because the engineers only accounted for a 6’ cut and fill with gravel so all that was a change order extra 🤑🤑🤑
Can't clean mud out of the tracks when the soil is dark brown/black clay and 35% moisture - TX is miserable for these types of projects. Thanks for this video - explained a little bit more about my regular density testing job and why it is necessary. Idaho has no issue with this - easy sandy top soil with little conditioning required.
I operate a D6N building building pads and yes it sucks to clean out the mud daily. So, I get the water truck operator at the end of the day to blast the mud off with the canon mainly around the rollers and segments.
Thanks for the explanation I can understand now what you are trying to achieve I haven't seen that done here in NZ but they may do we have some clay areas as well.
Just finished building 8 km of tailings dam at a new gold mine the entire clay core and blanket was conditioned high plasticity clay. 30 cent lift max thickness water blend disk flatten pack nuke rinse repeat 14m high with 3to1 slope then a blast rock blanket was placed over the the clay core to prevent erosion with all the ponds seepage collection ditches dikes spillways sand filters it was a interesting nightmare.
Thanks for the explanation. I guess I wasn't the only one who didn't know what that was in your other video lol. One more question. If it hasn't rained to help you with the mud do you just bring in water trucks? Thanks for sharing great videos.
You're very welcome. Not by water trucks... but with a water cannon that is supplied by a frac tank and pressurized by a 6 inch pump reduced down to a 4 inch. It will put the water out in a hurry for sure!
When they certify the pads then they will allow the digging of the footings... it depends on the engineering of the building how deep the footings will be.
With the dozers or excavator... I know it is difficult to even understand but that is how it is done and density tests prove compaction being where it needs to be. I still can't wrap my head around it but it works.
soldierofdirt81 so you guys track in lifts?!? 😳 shit I don’t blame you for not wanting to run a dozer. I told my forman about you guys doing soil conditioning and showed him some of your pictures. My whole crew thinks you guys are nuts lol no such thing like it in New Jersey
