Hello all, just wondering where most of you washout your pumps. Not so much pumping out because there is usually always a spot to pump out but just the washout. Up here in Alberta we suck a ball 98% of the time and dont break the law by driving wet. We have annual overweight permits that dont include a full hopper.

Our option A plan is to dump on that site, option B is to dump on that site builders other site if he has one and option C (which no one wants or uses because of cost) is an enviro bag setup. It should be mentioned we religiously rake out our piles super skinny to be easily broken up and hauled away. We also try to washout out along dirt piles or where a hole would be dug and soil hauled away.

With option A: Pros:  mess stays on site, concrete can be buried or hauled away, excavator usually end up there   anyways, cost is reduced

                      Cons: front yard of lot is nearly off limits most of time due to sidewalks, services and greenspaces. Rear of lot if there is an alley can be full of dirt, narrow and more of a risk to get stuck in trenches etc.

Option B:       Pros: if dump where new basement would be on new lot, thin concrete can be hauled away at time of digging, easy access, reduced cost, less risk to drive over something or splash concrete on adjacent houses or generators etc.

                    Cons: Empty lots can become littered with concrete over time as the rest of subdivision develops. Owner of the last lot ends up paying to clean up other peoples concrete. This is especialy so if doing a job for someone who only owns a few lots and has nothing setup on his site to washout at. ie doing a patio for small builder and cant wash out on finish grade.

Option C:     Pros: no real mess to speak of with the enviro bags.

                   Cons:   cost more money, need a service to pick em up. If builder dont wanna pick it u then we would have to get a small picker to pick it up or something. also would need another labourer to perform thi function. Then have to take it somewhere too.

I operate 6 boom pumps in a community of roughly 100,000 people with another 50,000 people in surrounding communities. This problem is really only when doing residential work which is about 50% of our work. Builders have been asking us to come up with a solution to this problem and thought I would see what you guys with boom pumps do. I know some of you might drive back to base or go wet everywhere but here thats breaking the law which i dont do for any customers.

If you really can't drive wet its the customer problem isn't it? So you will have to let him decide how he wants to do it. Some people use a smal inflatable swimming pool to wash out in which you can buy for a few dolars.

Or some would say you should waterwash. I wouldn't do that though. 

my 2cents:

we make half yard concrete blocks in the back of our yard.

we sell them for 40bucks.

our clients are more than happy to pay 40 bucks for an offsite cleanout, if it means they dont have to clean up our sloppy mess!!

its usually a half hour drive to the washout yard, we get paid for that too

no pans, swimming pools, or department of natural resources problems.

if you are worried about getting to the yard, put 5gallons of water in the hopper before you pull the sponge.

if your customer complains about the 40 dollar charge, put 10 gallons of water in the hopper, suck a sponge, washout in the driveway, empty the waterbox in front of the jobshack while you are in getting your ticket signed[insert big smily face here]

We have the contractor provide an area to put his concrete washout. It's on our quotes. We're not liscensed by the DOT to haul any materials. We don't want overweight tickets or the liability of concrete or rocks splashing out of the hopper. It's really pretty simple, contractors concrete, contractors washout. There are any number of ways the contractor can handle it other than trasferring the liability for his mess to us.

I totally agree doug. Any else second that? how many peopleare actually driving wet bak to the shop or a washout location. We average 20 jobs a day where we can really only move wet on 3-4 of them due to distances. The block thing would be cool. Think most problems occur on residential jobsite

yes thats the way we do it , your concrete your problem , its not a pump companies responsibility to dispose of the contractors concrete , we came there clean we should leave the site clean , I live in a fairly congested area where you just about always encounter some type of traffic delay and the majority of work is 45 minutes to a hour away , if I am 5 minutes from the yard and have a hole or soft spot to drop it in I will oblige if possible but that is not the Norm. 

Yes understand the problem big time, we are Vanc west coast. Dumping onsite create liabilities in our area. We dump into a sealed containment area, and our laws state who ever dumped it is responsible, and the contractor or site is also responsible for proper dispose. I think all over North America it would read the same, if it went to court. We run wet. Done, the overweight is 10 times cheaper than that enviro fine. Critics will blast you, but loosing your job house and so on,is a pretty good reason. Here it is a grey area, and allot still dump on site. We just don't, any excuse the government can nail a world wide firm, they will. Being a owner operator or solo firm is much less a fine. That's just us, I hear Calgary you can't wash you car in the driveway, that would be my first clue, as to how strict high ph run off, is.

In saying all that, our rule state we can put high ph water in permeable soil, ph left exposed will go normal within 24 hrs, so you could lawfully do it in a gravel situation with no chance of it running to a fish habitat stream. I know I sound like a fisheries guy, but we had hundreds of meetings over this, and had to wine and dine the government on best practices. 

If your drive to the job site is an hour and half, driving back to the yard is pretty much out of the question.  Usually the contractors have to take care of the washout.  They normally have an area set aside to cleanup.  If they don't, we take the extra step and rake the concrete out flat and extra thin so it is easier to dispose of. 

I dont ask our guys to drive wet because first off its breaking the law and second they dont want to because its thei ticket too, so I get it. However their are times when we pour job an their is no option and we have to drive somewhere to washout and that usually ends up being a vacant residential lot that is near by. Unfortunately I do feel bad that we are dumping on someone else site but when it come to either risking mud setting up in the pump or at the worst I have to go load up a washout pile in my pick up( we rake ours skinny too for this reason) then we do drive and dump somewhere else. But there is times where I get a phone call about someone foaming at the mouth about us washing out on his vacant lot. So then i explain that we had no real better alternative and the only real solution would be enviro bags. At that point seems like everyone i talk to says no f-ing way their gonna pay for enviro bag service. Then 2 mths later we end pouring that guys lot and he has dirt and crap everywhere and we have to washou somewhere else....

those of u using washout bags what do u charge and who picks it up after?

The wash out bags I have seen are not very operator friendly. They require a lot of bungee cords and such to use properly. The other problem is that they are made of nylon. When you cut the bag off after the concrete is dry, there are still nylon fibers and material trapped in the dried folds of the concrete. The concrete recyclers do not like the nylon pieces. (SEE DOUG"S POST ABOVE) The industry needs to stop conceding to every whim of the contractor. Have them put in a spot, use it. How many tickets are the operators going to get driving around and dropping rocks or spilling loads? The trucks are very close to being overweight as it is. With a full hopper I know a lot of trucks are overweight. I know the contractor is going to jump right in and say,"I KNOW YOU GOT A TICKET. I AM SORRY ABOUT MAKING YOU LEAVE THE SITE TO CLEAN OUT. LET ME TAKE CARE OF ALL THE EXPENSES FOR YOU."

Unfortunately, the pump company owners will mostly not help out the operator either. So in the end, the operator loses money the day he is caught.

Alberta pumper: you obviously care about your business, and your customers. The simple fact that you are exploring ideas to answer your customers concerns, strays from the all too often attitude of "whats the least i can do to still get paid" that runs rampant in this industry!

Let me give you two examples from my experience that may or may not help:

We have two lake resorts that are exactly one hour from our shop. Its a struggle to get back to the shop with a hopper full on a 30 degree day, but i do. Why? The weight is on the back end and my trucks are always front axle heavy. Talked to insurance about it and got that figured, but I MAKE MONEY doing it!

I always go look at those jobs because of powerlines, septic tanks, and trees, and i have a clause on my contract that says: i get one hour paid pump time to bring mud back to town, one hour wash, and $100 offsite cleanout. sound expensive? its half the price to get that pancake back to the dump and everyone knows it

#2 there is a local cleanout yard that readymix and pumps have used for as long as i can remember, everyone assumed that a readimix plant owned it and just let everyone use it for free! Turns out it is government land, and they want it cleaned up! What does it cost to clean up 12 acres of concrete 30 feet thick? millions, and what is my share gonna be? the readimix plants will have better lawyers and it will probly get split equally among users. yikes!!!

my 2cents: i know it belongs to the contractor, but dispose of it for him, and charge him for it, and smile doing it. be proactive.and make $$ doing it(blocks, gravel)

i mean large industrial sites are different, very large cities are different, but my market is quite similar to yours, if your customers are asking you for a service, give it to them at a price, its an opertunity!they are asking you because they know the true cost of disposing that pancake you left behind! bobcat/loader time, trucking and dump fees are not cheap!!

i hope you come up with a really good plan to help out your clients, then come back here and tell me about it!!!

In Florida the EPA is starting to fine all builders for any concrete left outside the forms of any house. Some times when you are stretched out and you have to bring your boom in you get that inevitable plopping coming out of 3 and 4. Builders are even starting to backcharge for that minimal concrete. So I ask each super that mentions that " How come it is hazardous waste when it is on the ground over here but across the street you are dropping 15 yards directly on the ground for a driveway and it is not considered hazardous waste?"  Most just shrugg and walk off. They still don't want it though.

Im with crazy creater,explain to customer ahead of time wash out arrangements, give him the good guy rate! (charge the shit out of him) he'll find you a spot to wash out. If he doesn't your in the money. In my 25 years of travelling wet, and all the times i've been pulled over for one thing or another, while with a hopper full of concrete,that was never the concern on the parties pulling me over. Yes it might be braking the law, and you've said that bothers you. But your still braking laws by dumping on empty lots that arent owned by youself or the home builder you just poured for. I'm just guessing that when you wash on a vacant lot, and nobody is of the wiser, im guessing your still not going there afterwards to clean your raked out concrete pile. Just offering a solution to correct the issue after property owner finds out, doesnt seem right either. i'm not trying to sound negative here but, I'm guessing your residing in Alberta somewhere,again, just a hunch. There should always be somewhere you can wash, yes you may have to travel, but thats been going on for way more years than i've been pumping. If theres no where for you to wash in your area, sounds like a profitable business adventure to me. jmo. Curious to know if you deal with road bans in your area or not? 

This has been an issue all over. the contractor has to provide a wash out area in ordinance with SWPPP's. They are still trying to get over on pump companys that are willing to take the risk. So us operators need to stand united so all contractors provide wash outs.

Water wash into the mixer.

I showed up to a city job last week, it's 90 out. The maintenance guys outsmarted me they said, kiddie pool was only $4 at Walmart. Now I can't charge cleanup. After it drys their going to roll it out of the street (sure 1500#)

anyway I planted horse tails and ivy in it to make a lovely city of Seattle street container garden, lovely right?

Anyone ever forward blow out your boom pipes with a ball?  I haven't ,but if you pumped all the way down then blew out forward it would be minimal mess.

still the same amount of concrete either way , now just in two different spots

Yeah but you could place it in a hole or over a sand pile,  then for wash out there would only be about one third the mess.