Fortunately our excavator operator, Jason, either has the right equipment to do the job, or he can locate a good alternate from one of his many contacts in the industry.
For our shoring project, we had to fill dozens of deep and wide holes (12 inch diameter) with concrete. Options included:
- A ready mix supplier (best price but not much waiting around with the delivery truck allowed)
- U-cart supplier (very expensive per unit of concrete, plus you must pick up and return the trailer containing the mix)
- Ready to mix bags (just add water, but we don't have water on site, costly for larger volumes and lots of labour to move and mix the material), or
- Use a large mixer and shovel in sand and cement (lot of work and prep/clean up).
The best option wass to use a ready mix delivery truck and absorb the cost of the small load fee, if it was applied. Fortunately we have a contact at the supplier (Knelson) and he was willing to send us a micro load (2 cubic meters), these are trucks with a 10 meter capacity. What wouldn't be negotiable was waiting time for the truck while we hauled around by hand and wheelbarrow the mix to fill our many holes. In this case we had almost 5000 kg of wet mud to move and very little time to do it. Our solution was to use the skid steer chute attachment to receive the mud and deliver it quickly and precisely into each hole. The entire process was complete in less than 40 minutes, no clean up needed, no waste, and the cost of the material was the lowest of any option possible. The best part may have been the minimal labour to move the mix around the perimeter of the job site. Hiring the right people for these tasks is always a huge relief because the time and cost savings can be enormous.
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Concrete pours out by gravity into our skid steer lifting chute, and then is easily deployed into the post holes
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| The concrete is quickly delivered with minimal labour, and this is appreciated when there is 5000 kg of quickly drying mix |
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