What's New At Murco
Demo Field Trip! (5/4/10)
I got to take a field trip today!
I know, the words “field trip” conjures up images of permission slips, belching buses, and the “what does one wear to the museum” fashion crises. In fact, the only shining spot of the day was the unusually bountiful lunch (please let it be pudding, please let it be pudding) your mom prepared as if to overcompensate for you
leaving her zip code. Yes it was all about the lunches, until today, when my trip proved to be far more interesting than any field trip I’ve experienced.
Today I met with my old friend and confidant Bill Moore of Brandenburg Demolition. The guy has been in the business since the wheel was square and he is a wealth of information. His company was wrecking an old plant about 5 minutes from my house, so I grabbed my camera and went a-running. Most women enjoy shopping at craft stores, getting manicures and the like, but for me, watching a demo is like watching a deconstruction ballet. Seriously, the intent is to make it go away, but the way the whole process is choreographed is where the beauty lies.
Demo operators are not, by and large, the most delicate people. But put one behind the controls of a grapple and the guy turns into Baryshnikov. A guy I watched was taking down walls and sorting through the waste simultaneously. With the grace of a dancer he could spy a piece of metal in a pile of wood waste and pluck it out of a pile of sticks(taking no other sticks with it, just the metal mind you), pirouette it around to the appropriate pile, and deposit it with a flourish. Quite a show, quite a show.
In tearing off the front eves of the building, the crew inadvertently knocked down a family of raccoons who had taken residency in one of them! We heard the little yelps under a pile of aluminum siding and there they were. 5 babies-- a bit dazed, but alive and well. We relocated them to prairie lot next door and all vowed never to wear raccoon again.
After watching the demolition and talking with Bill I was reminded of how much demolition companies really do recycle. They don’t miss a thing. Steel, non ferrous, wood, concrete, common brick-- you name it and chances are there is a developed markets for most the items. Demolition contractors often get a bad rap for being wasteful and hauling all off to the landfill, but nowadays nothing could be further from the truth. Thought you’d want to know that.
- Jodi
