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General: Excavation on tricky site.

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      CommentAuthorrichy
    • CommentTimeSep 23rd 2007
     
    I have a job coming up hand digging some foundations for a cabin at the top of a small hill in the woods. The 4 -5 cubic metres of earth which is removed will need to be taken away from site, there is no choice, the owner insists. Getting it to a skip will involve negotiating a wheel barrow over drystone walls and down bankings.

    I just came up with an alternative idea; to rig up a zip wire or arial runway from a tree at the site down to some scaffolding sheer legs next to the skip and making a sort of hopper or scoop out of a plastic barrel. The idea being to fill the barrel by hand shovel and then let it wing it's way 30ft or so to the track where another line pulls it into the tip position just above the skip! Then it's gets hauled up by a line for the next load.


    Sounds wacky and will cost about £100 in kit to try it, but it will have minimum impact on the surroundings compared to dumpers or tracked vehicles.

    Will it work? Anyone any experience of anything similar? I'm hoping it will save a lot of really hard work!
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    No experience of such kit, but it seems a splendid idea. If British Waterways can re-gate huge locks using sheer-legs, I reckon you can get rid of spoil. Go to the top of the class for lateral thinking! Haven't thought of potential probs yet, but will post again if I do!
    • CommentAuthorTerry
    • CommentTimeSep 23rd 2007
     
    If you position the sheerlegs just beyond the skip, or even partly braced on the skip, you could run the bucket straight over the top to a stopper on the zip line and dump straight into the skip.
    If you rig the bucket up so that it can pivot relatively easily you can use your back haul line to empty it from the top and save traipsing back and forth.
    That is in theory anyway. No doubt a few technical details to iron out :bigsmile:
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeSep 23rd 2007
     
    The main difficulty with the idea will be the tension generated in the wire: Let's say you have a 50kg load and tension the wire so that it only allows a 1 foot deflection from its normal shape (a flat catenery). If you don't get the gradient right and do not control the descent of the load, there will be a large lateral force generated that you may not be able to stop. It will also generate some 750kg of load or so in tension (3/4 of a tonne) which the scaffolding, even if it is fully braced shear load carrying scaffolding, may not to be able to carry (and might also damage your tree).

    If the gradient is large, you might alternatively consider using a chute (pipe) providing that you have access to water & a pump

    Good luck whatever you do.
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeSep 23rd 2007
     
    I think that all the concrete for the Hoover dam was 'flown' in on aerial runways.
    • CommentAuthorchuckey
    • CommentTimeSep 24th 2007
     
    I had a similar problem, 1 ton of bricks from a Victorian chimney stack from a first floor window to the garden. I used a ladder with hardboard filling up the space where the rungs are. These were bolted through with roofing bolts and the whole lot was also covered in old carpet (to increase the friction). The bricks, even over the carpet (ladder = 30 degrees?) went like rockets and so many were damaged. Why?, I was on a stool in the loft putting the bricks down the flue, my Dad was in the bedroom lifting the bricks out of the flue and putting them on the ladder slide and my son was in the garden stacking the bricks from the bottom of the ladder.
    Depending on your slope, I was wondering if the above system with DPC plastic instead of carpet and a squirt of water, would make the friction low enough for the stuff to flow?
    Frank
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeSep 24th 2007
     
    There are commercially available conveyor belt systems too.

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