Getting Material to Difficult Block

[Flyboy]

Thanks everyone, all excellent ideas.

Will have a chat to the builder and see which way he wants to go.

Normal access is by water and we're still looking at barges. 2-3 tonnes should be no problems, but there might be an issue with getting a bigger barge under a footbridge. Yep, on this job the fun never stops.

Cheers

[ian]

Acid sulfate soil could be as much a problem with a slab as it might be with pylons.
You can often combat the potential corrosion by using the right sort of cement in the concrete. Talk to your engineer about whether you should be specifying Sulphate Resistant cement.
Personally I think pylons and suspended floor is preferable to slab on ground, especially if you're that close to the water.
As for access, if you plan out every step of the construction it should help you decide between barge or truck. With a barge you would want to be organised but you could also deliver an excavator on the barge and use it as a crane to unload the materials.
As for using an all terain forklift to travel down the fire trail, those things don't travel very quickly so it might take quite a while to tram everything in.

good luck with the project

Ian

[kiwigeo]

Yeah, I'd thought about the helicopter option, even got a phone no. But every time I go to get a quote my hand shakes too much to dial the number, when I think about how big it's going to be


P.S. Anyone know anything about Manitou All Terrain Forklifts?

Man I'd be demanding top dollar to jump in the pilots seat of a Chinook...even more with a load dangling off the hook. Rig boys hate the things..have a habit of dropping out of the sky and theyre hard to get out of in a hurry.

Alot of the paver companies in Adelaide seem to be towing Manitous around with their delivery trucks....saw one in operation at a buliding site across the road from my house and it seemed to move pallets around in the muck pretty well.

[Wildman]

If the ground is acidic or otherwise bad for concrete, there is an additive from Cementaid called Caltite which is designed for this very thing, as well as general waterproofing and salt protection. You simply add it to the aggitator with a relatively stiff mix of concrete (very little water, almost zero slump) and use superplasticisers to make it workable. It stinks of Ammonia but does a great job. I used it a few years ago when replacing a number of 8000 litre waste pits in a woollen mill that had very acidic residues that had completely destroyed the old pits. 10 years on and the surface of the concrete has barely pitted with near continuous contact. It doesnt look new but the steel is still completely protected.

re the transporting, you could try to pick up an old Rough Rider concrete dumper. 2 cylinder air cooled diesel with a 1 cubic metre hydraulic bucket on it with 4WD. No good to transport mixed concrete that far though as it would spill and separate, but it could be used to tow in pretty much anything.

BTW, concrete can be pumped horizontally over 2500m through a 125mm pipe with Line Pumps, however it would be hideously expensive and you would have to pay for approx 25m3 of concrete just to fill the pipe before it started coming out at the other end! You would also have trouble finding a company in Aus that could handle that kind of distance for a small job.

[Eastie]

A good tractor could do everything you need and more. If you're not too close to the smoke stacks see if theres a local ag machinery outlet nearby and see if they would do a short term hire arrangement on a tractor + attachments for between 1-12 months.