What happens to used shoring timbers when they are removed from a job ?
I have been watching the construction of a new sports arena being built on one of our old power plant site. I think I counted six semi rigs of shoring timbers being delivered there. I can’t even guess at the number of 8×8 timbers now in place around the site. It must be fifty foot deep on the high side tapers down to ten to fifteen feet on the low side as well as taking up a whole city block. That is a bunch of timber.
Where does it all go once the foundation walls are poured. Can it be reused after being in place for over a year or is it sold off as scrap ?
Doesn’t look like any of it is treated stuff, so I’m guessing it must be some type of graded hardwood. What could it be reused for ?
Ant thoughts or anyone know what they do with it?
Replies
the building movers just stack it and reuse it from job-to-job
What I'm talking about is use to shore the excavation area for a basketball sports arena. 8x8-12'. Trucks full of them. They set steel I-beam type forms and stack them one on top of the other to a heigth of 40 to 50'. Ever so may feet there appears to be a horizontal line of steel, then x bracing cables.
I guess you could use it for gribbing, but I've seldon seen any gribes over 4 to 8' max.
I worked several big commercial jobs but never one where we had excavation deep enough or so site restricted that we had to shore the hole to drive pylons or pour footings and walls. I have been on our newest power plant site when it was being build, but they didn't have to shore anything. The site was so huge they just over dug enough to get everything done in a more normal way.
There are literaly a couple of thousand 8x8-?' stacked in the hole for this new stadium.
all the deep shoring jobs are doing that around here
i think they have standard lengths so they can reuse the H-piles and the horizontal timbers from job to jobMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I've got no idea where they go but it reminded me of some big timbers from years ago.
When they were putting the metro (subway) system in Washington D.C. in the 70's they would dig up blocks of city streets and when they got deep enough to work in the hole with equipment, they'd cover the excavation with what must have been 16"X16" timbers. Then traffic would resume on the surface while they built the subway below. There must have been thousands and thousands of those used.
That was quite a project. Installing a subway system under an existing city.
The industrial repair /conveyor belt/machine shop company that I worked at and co-owned for a few years usually bought used cribbing from construction outfits for a couple of years, from what I remember we bought semi truck loads of the stuff fairly cheap, the deal we had is we would have to except delivery of the timbers "as is".I felt we got porked a few times as we had to except delivery of a trailer load or two of some truly marginal stuff.
We used it for cribbing under massive gearboxes and all sorts of industrial equipment . One of the biggest uses was making crane leveling pads and cribbing for our truck and track cranes that were of too short of mast or boom. we always tried to keep it under cover as wet wood equals slippery wood -nothing like watching a 15ton gearbox decide to act like a ice skater.
It depends on what your needs for the next job are: Sometimes you move it to there. Sometimes, you have the laborers sort out the bad pieces and send them to the dump, and store the rest of them.
The big boys who play in the game at that level have uses for it on quite a few jobs, and if they loose the bid on a job where they knew they would have needed it, they call the guy who won the bid. You sometimes see adds for it in the magazines.
Generally if you don't have a need for it, or a place to store it, then somebody else does.
I have about three areas where I could but in some low retaining wall if I could score half a truck load of those things. These would 18-24" high and 150-200' long.
I have had excellent results with untreated oak 8x8 s that I got several years ago. With an extra deep drainage plane behind them they are staying in remarkably good condition. In a few more years I'll likely take them out and do a rolling terrace in place of the short wall, but for now they serve the purpose of erosion control guite well. I leave about half the top timber above grade and with the 2' gravel bed behind the stack it really slow down the run off.
I was wondering if those shoring timbers just got sent to the dump, auctioned, or were reused somewhere else.
Gonna be a nice bonfire when I pull that wall out and burn those puppies.
You'd be surprised how much will end up in the dump. It's relative ofcourse to the loads being brought in but allot hits the dump.
I've been the laborer handling that stuff and so much is caked up with mud, split, twisted etc... it gets tossed. If they brought trucks of it in to use they'll load,haul and reuse all they can.
As a general Forman I got all the trades together to keep all tonnage,cribbing, and pallets stacked in a central spot for everybody to use. Worked pretty good and saved allot of dumpsters. All the hard wood was easy to get rid of, guys that heated with wood came and asked about it and I'd just give it away to them. Even stay late to let them come back with a trailer or truck to pick up.
Pallets not as easy. 2 semi trailers worth all kinds and conditions. Tried giving them away to pallet companies, they wanted to charge for odd sizes and pay for good 4x4 4 way ones. Said look I don't know what all is out there, whole range of stuff stacked and ready to load, bring a trailer and it's all yours free, we'll load it too. Even tried giving to a maple syrup farm I knew burned all that stuff in their boilers. Next step, got an all wood dumpster. When it was nice out and slow I'd take a chainsaw and excavator to all the pallets. Price brake on wood dumpster just didn't really make it worth it.
It was more economical to wait until the regular dumpsters were about topped out and smashed down to lay two layers of pallets across the top. Guys still took allot off site for bon fires/camp fires though.
But if you want some from that job I'm sure you could get it. Ask until you ask the right guy. You'll get allot of "don't know", "not mine", etc... Case of beer usually works best when you find the guy that can give it away.
Thanks.
I'll start my inquiries this week. They should be wrecking them out about late spring.
Dave,
I am a commercial carpenter and I could not tell you how much of that material I have taken off jobsites in the past....all of it with permission. If I were you, I'd go to the job trailer and ask the project manager if you can have them. He sets the schedule so he will know when they will not be needed anymore. Some pm's like to keep some of them on site until the rough work is completed and all the heavy equipment is shipped out.
I have gotten some nice white and red oak, even some hickory. Some I used for furniture and some for the wood stove.
Good luck.
It isn't uncommon for it to be rented.
Most jobs I have seen their left in the excavation . It' too dangerous to take them out.I'm sure in some cases their taken out and reused.