Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Having spent over 3 months watching 5no 13tonne excavators peck and break at my structure level by level (my first blog) a change in tactic has excited me enough to share.

Effectively due to the phone masts fixed to the central core not being decommissioned in time the central core remained upright while the rest of the building was demolished down to ground floor. This left the quandary of how to demolish the remaining core after the masts were finally decommissioned 3 months late.

The same tactic could not be employed as there was no ramp in the core which the plant could drive down so a crane would need to have lifted them from floor to floor. Also an entire scaffold wrap would have needed to be constructed around the core to offer edge protection, dust suppression and access to the workers. All of this was not impossible but potentially long winded.

Instead the decision was made to pay for a 110tonne monster to come to site with an “extra long reach excavation arm” and demolish everything from the ground. This raised issues such as trying to suppress dust from the ground would have been impossible and flying debris at 40m flying around site. The solution- the long reach arm has a host attachment that sprays water from the breaker onto the slab as it goes. A large crane will hold up a rubber Matt to prevent debris hitting adjacent construction with an exclusion zone at ground level.

The site of this bad boy on site has produced a bit of a viewing gallery and some buzz on site so I thought I would post pictures. Any questions on the decision making or added risks feel free to ask.

2 concrete sacks preventing the rubber matting twisting or glittering into adjacent construction