The Construction Gang

Green Pastures In A Tough Economy

Mike Green of Green Construction has worked in heavy construction since 1992. Over the years, he has seen many fluctuations in the economy and has learned to adjust to them. But this recent downturn has caused him to diversify in some unexpected ways, just as it has done for almost every business owner today.

he focus of his work had always been private residential work, but since the market dropped in 2007, he has taken on many jobs for local governments: “I never even looked at municipal work before, but when the larger private work dried up, I started bidding them.” Over the past year, he has taken on projects for the City of Camas, Washington; the City of Washougal, Washington; and the Underwood Conservation
District among others. For Underwood, Green Construction installed a bridge near Trout Lake, ripping out an existing culvert, doing stream restoration, and adding the bridge. The timing was critical because they had to complete the project between salmon runs in the stream.
 
Green also found a surprising amount of demolition business in 2008, including work for the City of Camas, the Port of Camas/Washougal, and Tarr LLC in Portland. Using the machine he calls the backbone of his company, a John Deere 120C, Green and his crew make quick work of these tear downs: “ We can put it in a house, tear it down, and separate it in no time flat.” Recently, they demolished two houses and a couple of out buildings for the Port in about 12 hours total. Doug Ziegler is typically at the controls on these jobs, a young operator with lots of talent as Green puts it.

TCG recently caught up with Green and crew at a demolition site in the rolling hills outside Washougal where a fire in December had gutted a beautiful multi-level home.  Using the thumb and bucket Zeigler easily separated large chunks of debris into piles, nimbly moving through the interior of the house as he worked his way toward the chimney stack. The 120C may be small by comparison to the larger machines, but its good sized reach comes in handy. After maneuvering the 120 up on to the second level Zeigler he easily brought down the chimney with a few swipes of the bucket.

The 120C, which has been replaced by the D series, is a very mobile 30,000 pound machine and as Green put it: “We don’t need flaggers to move them, and they’re more efficient than our 200.” He has been very impressed with its power: “It’s only a four cylinder but it can pretty much dig out and knock down anything you throw at it.” It’s clear that Green’s equipment allegiance lies squarely with John Deere. The company has a 35D mini, and two 120Cs with about 1,000 hours on each, certainly enough
time to get a solid read on their value. Green also had the foresight to invest his money wisely right down to the additional plumbing he requested as part of the purchase. “Even though I knew it was unlikely I would utilize the additional plumbing I did it anyway for the machines resale value.”

Each machine is fitted with the Irish manufacturer Dromone’s hydraulic quick hitches which is distributed through the Canadian manufacturer CWS. The Dromone quick hitch is a fully automatic locking system that’s visibly safe without having to leave the cab. The quick hitch hydraulic kit uses five port system which only permits operation when attachment is in the safe (fully curled in) position, and the lock is independent of hydraulics and will not drop the bucket even in the event of a complete hydraulic failure. Another great cost benefit to this coupler is that it will pick up attachments of varying pin diameters
within the same weight class therefor reducing your bucket inventory.

For a small company like Green’s, the John Deere line of mini and midi excavators has been a smart choice but equally important has been the support from Pape Machinery. Over the years he had developed a strong relationship with his salesman but a couple of years ago the salesman left Pape Machinery to break out on his own. “But that was ok because the salesman set up shop just down the road from my yard, and he regularly comes in to give me a pep talk especially during these tough times.”

Cowlitz County Habitat For Humanity

Our latest project is the startup of the Cowlitz County Habitat for Humanity Restore. We will be selling new and gently used building materials, appliances and furniture. The proceeds will go straight into our affiliate to help build low-cost housing for those in need. Please donate items to the Restore.

We also welcome volunteers to work on clean-up of donated materials, cashiering, stocking, intake, pricing etc. 

Our aim is to be open to the public in March with retail hours from: 9.00am to 5.00pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Question?  Donations?

Call us at 360-636-6765
We’re located at
1145-11th Av
Longview WA 98632
www.cowlitzhabitat.org

NUCA meeting April 21, 2009

The next NUCA dinner meeting will be held April 21, 2009 at the Embassy Suites Hotel at the Portland airport.  Labour Commissioner Brad Avakian will speak on workforce training and Ron Sloy, co-founder of Sloy, Dahl & Holst will provide an update on the economy and financial markets.

For information on this this event or membership packet please contact Melinda Dailey by phone at 503-742-8877 or by email at nucaorswwa@aol.com.

RSS1000 Snowblower on Mt. Rainier

Zig-zagging 5,400 feet up to Paradise on the RSS 1000 Stewart & Stephens, a 27,000 lb snowblower, can be a hair-raising experience, unless you are in the safe hands of a veteran, the experienced and knowledgeable operator Jim Hooper.

Hooper joined the Rainier Federal Park Service in 1984 as a mechanic, and in 1999 he hung up those boots and moved one building down to start a new phase in his life as an equipment operator. According to Hooper the hydrostatically driven RSS1000 arrived at the park in 1996 and he has either worked on the machine as a mechanic or operated it on the mountain ever since.

The average snow fall for Mt. Rainier is around 600” a year but in the few days I was up there a whopping 82” had fallen. Sitting in the cab you’ll see the snow cutters on the front cutting piece dead ahead. They measure around 8’ tall, and during the height of the snow fall the depth was higher than the snow cutters. The RSS 1000 is rated to blow 3000 tons of snow per hour with a throw rate between 30ft and 125ft. “But that was in its prime.” Jim points out.  The Discharge Chute or Blower Head rotates 130 degrees: 45 degrees to the left and 85 degrees to the right. 

When the RSS range was first introduced to North America they came fitted with a Volvo TD131G but when Bill Myslik established Rolba North America he was given permission to Americanize the machine. So, out went the Volvo engine and in came the Detroit 60 (Diesel 6V92TA, DDEC III).  According to Jim, “The only thing that has gone wrong with this machine has been ribbon wear and the shear pins doing their job.” If you are cutting through “Cascade Cement (high water density snow) it’s not surprising that you’re going to have to rebuild the ribbons three or four times over a 6000 hrs period. The shear pins are purposely located on the drum, two on the left and two on the right. If the ribbons hit any kind of debris other than snow the shock load hits the shear pins halting the machine before hitting the gear box. But, when the pins do their job it’s a half hour job out of the cab for the operator to replace them. No thanks.

The single engine front-discharge unit incorporates ALSS (automatic load sensor system). When the blower is in automatic the computer knows that its peak rpm is 2100 and peak torque is 1500rpm. The system is designed to know what speed the operator is going so when the rpm’s drop the computer slows the machine’s forward progress, and when the rpm’s drop below 1,600, it will pretty much stop the blower. When that happens the chute chokes up with snow and ice and you have to get out there and dig the chute out by hand. Only a timid novice allows that to happen.  Any normal thinking person would assume that the wellinsulated cab and the heating unit would come in handy up the mountain in blizzard, freezing conditions. Not so. The heat in the cab gets so bad you can have heat off and the windows down and you’re still dripping with sweat. “Remember, you’re sitting on a ton of hydraulics,” Hooper laughed.

One of the very first Rolba snowblowers to enter North America was put to work on the North Slope in Alaska. I had opportunity of speaking to Bill Myslik the of Denver, Colorado, who is credited with introducing and developing the RSS range of snowblowers in North America about 25 years ago. Myslik spent three years working up on “the slope” as a heavy equipment mechanic for an oil company. At the time he operated the R3000 cab over snowblower which pushed around 5,000 tph. He loved the machines so much he approached Rolba in Switzerland to act as a dealer, and in 1985 he set up Rolba N.A.: “You know, in the 80’s Rolba snowblowers really were the Cadillac of snowblowers. They were the snowguys,” he recalled nostalgically.

In 1988 Myslik was awarded the license to manufacture and Americanize the RSS range, and in that same year he sold to Stewart Stevenson and was employed as the Snow Removal Product Manager. However, that relationship came to an end in 2000 when Stewart Stevenson moved their operations from Denver to Texas of all places. Two and a half years later Stewart Stevenson discontinued the line.

Myslik is well respected in the industry which is not surprising considering his attitude: “I would listen to my customers. If they said change this or change that, I knew that incorporating their ideas would only make our snowblowers stand out more in the industry.”

Myslik has seen big changes over the years: “I see the market for loader attachment snowblowers increasing. The reality is, budget wise, there’s a big move to loaders and attachments. They’re multi functional that way.” However, Myslik quickly pointed out that in order to move 3,000 to 4,000 tons per hour you’re going to have to be looking at 4 to 5 yard loaders, so you can quickly see your package cost increase significantly.

If the line has been discontinued, what about parts for all the snowblowers sold in the past? Well, after leaving Stewart & Stevens, Myslik formed Myslik Inc based in Denver, Colorado, in 2004 to supply parts for the RSS range, a big relief to RSS customers.

NUCA Engineers Night

The some 250 NUCA members and guests who attended the annual Engineers’ Night checked their doom and gloom about the economy at the door. The social hour was friendly and relaxed as members caught up with friends, customers and competitors. The program featured staff members from several local agencies who described upcoming bid projects. Helping to raise the collective spirit of the group was the message that money for new infrastructure projects will start flowing soon. For example, the State of Oregon Department of Transportation hopes to release two to three times more projects this year than it would in a typical year.

Chapter President John Kalkhoven concluded the evening by recognizing the 2008 board members: Chapter President - John Kalkhoven – Rio Underground, LLC; Chapter Vice President - John “JT”
Tenneson – Excel Excavation; Chapter Secretary-Treasurer - Steve Dukart – Duke Construction & Excavation; Immediate Past President – Bill Martinak – Emery and Sons Construction; Contractor
Board Member – Hank Lane – Coffman Excavation; Contractor Board Member – Kendall Moore – Moore Underground, Inc.; Contractor Board Member – Greg Parsons – Parsons Excavating, Inc.; Contractor Board Member – Dave Short – S-2 Contractors, Inc.; Contractor Board Member – Billy Stimpson – MEI Group; Associate Board Member – Rick Day – Advantage Precast, Inc.; Associate Board Member - Matt Gebarowski – DirtLogic, LLC; Associate Board Member - Geoff Brown – KG Specialties; Associate Board Member – Joe Yazbeck – Yazbeck, Cloran & Hanson, LLC; Past Chapter President – Roy Moore – MEI Group; Past Chapter President – Jim Gonzales – Gonzales Boring & Tunneling; Past Chapter President – NUCA National President – Lyle Schellenberg – Armadillo Underground, Inc.