On a job today was watching two young Brazilians putting down a hardwood floor..the speed that this guys were working was simply unbelievable. They bend over, pulled the next piece with his right foot and placed it into the slot, hit it with his banger, then hit the “nail puncher”. One old timer said to me “I’ve never seen anyone work so fast and hard” to which I said “these guys are unbelievable. Then about 10 of us stopped our work and watched them..one guy seemed like a mafioso type so I said to him “someone got to buy these guys a beer”. The guy in black said he’s never seen anyone work so good and fast.
Which brings me to the question – what is the toughest job in construction?
After waching these guys..gotta admit even my back hurts.
Replies
asphalt.
carrying hod for masonry.
remodeler
I think this has come up before, but my vote is for hot tar roofing during the summer.
You're getting soft, shep.
hot tar on a hundred degree day is a day at the beach.
remodeler
I may be getting soft, but I don't care. I'm getting too old to work like I did in my 20's.
We are supposed to get smarter as we get older, aren't we?
We are supposed to get smarter as we get older, aren't we?
Or we are supposed to catch things . . . <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Jobs I really like to run away from include:
hanging 5/8" sheetrock at 12' long on ceilings
Hot asphalt ( i ran a kettle all summer in temps above 110°F my first year) roofing
Tearing off multiple plys of roof shingles
And concrete flat work - hump 'till you puke, then hump some more
but for me the biggest winner was demo work. I spoent half a year in Hamlin, Texas teaing down old structures. The kicker was the day we took off a low pitch roof that was three inches thick, done in pitch instead of aasphalt, and the temps were around 115° that day. I spent the nicht in a bathtub full of ice cubes drinking Seven Up and fighting the fever. Pitch is wicked stuff! I learned to clean used brick that year too.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Pitch sucks , smokes so bad that you can't see the grade stakes while carrying the buckets to waterproof abasement. It splashes right up your shirt sleeve and solidifies but stays hot for a long time .
For me one of the hardest days I've had was a few years ago roofing a house on an island. Dog Island is about a 15 miles boat trip from Carabell FL. south of Tallahassee. All materials have to be taken out there by boat or an old LST owned by the island homeowners. I was doing a 25 square roof three storys up where most of the old roof had blown off in a storm. First day we installed 2 x 4 purlins with insulation in between... in about 35 - 40 mph wind... pretty exciting. Roofing was on order and promised the next day.
The next day the roofing was at the dock on shore, but the LST was broken down. By the third day, when we could finally hire a boat to go get the roofing, the wind was really getting stronger. So we ended up installing 25 squares of Ondura roofing panels in 50 - 60 mph winds with stronger gusts. It was also hot and kind of like a sandblaster with the wind picking up sand from the dunes.
Basically, you had to sort of "fly" the roof panels into place, then stand on 'em while somebody got some screws in. If a panel caught too much air, you just let it go... rather than be blown off the roof. We finished it just in time for the brunt of the storm to come in... That night wind gusts were over 85 mph. Roof held up fine though ($700. worth of stainless screws... It better stay on!).
--- BRICK
"They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
Edited 6/15/2004 9:52 pm ET by Brick
Ondura??????????
Too bad you'll be doing it all over again in five or six years
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Ondura... Could be we will get to re-do it... but, it has been about that long, and it still looks like the day it was installed. HO chose it... said it had a lifetime guarantee! Who's lifetime I don't know... Quite a few roofs on the island have Ondura on them; it seems to be holding up well? Not much else holds up very well in that environment... most roofs blow off. This was guaranteed to 150 mph if we screwed it to their specs... Who knows. People that can afford Island Retreats... Don't care.
Example: To take my truck over on the LST: $150. each way... Lumber yard truck loaded: $600. each way... Is crazy expensive to build out there. I get double too.
--- BRICK
"They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
Edited 6/16/2004 12:47 am ET by Brick
hmmm. which is worse- laying hot tar or tearing the last &*%$#*%& layer up before you can redo it? i used to think laying it wins hands down until three of us had to tear off only about 2000 sq ft- but it was on top of the office, built on the south front face of a warehouse. it had a 7' high wall around it to hide the enormous freakin hvac unit and related mechanicals (plus the 15' reflector oven wall of the warehouse on one side). about 95 degree day, NO BREEZE, and the dust was absolutely incredible- you literally could not see from one end to the other sometimes. we had to keep changing dust masks because they got caked with mud in no time at all. the previous layer was over two inches thick where they gave it extra 'insurance' around all the ducts, supports, etc. we had to use a chisel to cut it away in spots. it took about 13 hrs of sheer hell to finish and dry it back in with a layer of felt. i think i was making around $7.50/hr. those were the days...
m
Its amazing the type of work we did in our younger days. I'd take on almost anything if someone said they'd pay me. Demolition, roofs, 16' sheetrock with 2 guys- no problem.
Now if its too hot ,too high , or too dusty I ( usually ) say no thanks.
BTW, I've only done 1 hot tar roof, although I did help with the tear off of another.
WAY too much like work!
Ever used a spud bar on gravel roofs? Now There's a punishing job!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
maybe- but not by that name. what are you calling a 'spud bar'? i've used about every implement conceivable to get that evil crap off- including the occasional retorching to soften it enough to get it away from tight spots. no easy way- it all sucks.
m
Everyone's talking about working in the heat, but what about the cold? I know some electricians who do high rise construction here is Chicago. I can't imagine being on an open deck 40 floors up bending pipe all day when the wind chill factor is below zero at street level. They do get paid pretty well, though.
Heavy steel bar (guesss I could go out and shoot a picture) with steel blade anywhere from 2" to 8" wide for scraping the gravel loose while leaving the BUR plys under. Always needed for repairing splits and small holes but there were times we did whole roofs that way. The gravel chips off easy when cold and the asphalt is brittle. By ten AM, you are in hell though because the sun has it warmed up. The name Spid bar comes from the noise made by it and by you when it thuds into a bad spot. Four letter words leave you Spuddering.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Yessir... I've been behind a spudbar a few times back in my roofin days... Has got to be the most grueling job on a roof...
Reminds me of a roof about 20 years ago... 2/12 pitch house with a built-up roof. I went to the usual corner 7 AM where you could always pick up some day laborers. Hired three guys. We got on the roof and I handed each of them a tear-off shovel. Told them to start at the back end of the roof and start pushing the roofing toward the truck backed into the carport.
One guy was real big... over 300 lbs, about 25 years old. I watched as he got a place started with his shovel... Then he sort of stuck the handle in his belly and walked across the roof... old roofing flying everywhere! He walked back, started another pass and did the same thing, all the way across to the truck! I grabbed the other two guys and said get the push brooms and shovels and start pushing the loose stuff in the truck... Let the "Refrigerator" there do the tear off! The big guy tore off that whole roof in less than an hour... All 27 squares was in the truck in less than two!
Man... What a BULL this guy was! Turns out... that was exactly right... He was an ex-tackle for the Jacksonville Bulls football team that had just gone under. I only had him for that one job... but what a trip that was. I paid him double what I paid the other two. --- BRICK
"They say that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. I like to color outside the lines...and then eat the crayons." ~ Me
He sounds like a helper I had in NC.
Ralph was from NYC..got scared after 9/11..moved to the mtns. of NC. He was 6'9" 340 lbs. He'd work for 10 bucks an hr..and I mean WORK. On a deck I was doing, he handed me a 16' 8x8 PT post..he carried it like a two by four on his shoulder..footing holes? no problem..he used the digging bar ( you know solid steel 6' long with a tamper on the head) to chop through the quartz..sparks flying outta the hole..we had an old beater shovel..he says " hey boss..care if I break this?" I said not really why? He then snapped the handle off, and scooped the dirt out of the hole with the shovel head...like a clam shell.
I miss Ralph.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Lucky batch I guess, I hear the copmpany is out of business and they have had to replace a bunch of them around here.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I'm 35, and the wife's 40. We had our first baby last year. I wonder how well I'll keep up with him as he gets older...
I'll have to keep the smarter not harder thing in mind....
remodeler
Good luck with keeping up, but I'm sure you'll handle it.
You can try the smarter thing until he becomes a teen. Then all bets are off. I know I didn't think much of my dad's IQ during my teen years, after that I got smarter.
It's a tie: getting the next job, and collecting the final payment.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
Hardest job I ever had was a flagger on a road construction job. Standing in one spot for 12 hours a day with temps over 100 degrees and no shade. Very happy when that job was over.
Dan
"Life is what happens when you are making other plans." - John Lennon
But you got to fawwwwaaaapppp out of line drivers...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Edited 6/15/2004 9:16 am ET by IMERC
dan
My son just quit a job as a flagger, he was bored out of his skull! I told him that he wouldn't like it.
I worked road construction one of the summers between college, had to give the girls their potty breaks, man 1/2 hr. of that crap and your ready for something else. I would rather scoop the hot asphalt than stand there with the sign.
Doug
The guy that cleans the port a pottys on a 200 unit apartment complex!
<<The guy that cleans the port a pottys on a 200 unit apartment complex!
You really should look in to indoor plumbing.
hardest job I ever worked was the 2 years I worked for a concrete guy ...
who had a rep for taking the "hard jobs" no onve else wanted ...
and it was usually cheaper for him to have us all hump the concrete into unaccessable areas than pay to have it "machined" in ....
plus ... he out worked us all right along side us ...
so there was no room for bitching and moaning!
Job I absolutely couldn't do for more than 5 minutes ...
Tar.
Can't stand the smell ... instant headache.
Combine that smell with physical labor ... I'd be absolutely useless.
Last big concrete job I did with the guy ... the truck was at the curb.
he poured into a wheel barrow ... which dumped it into 5 gal buckets ...
The buckets were filled a little more than 3/4 full ....
Then ... we humped the buckets up a huge set of front stairs ....
If ya stopped halfway ... U were done! Making that top step and setting them both down was like stepping into heaven. I did mention we had to hump 2 buckets at a time ... the extra weight killed ... but the balance was necessary.
Then ... walk your buckets to the end of the widewalk ... and pour into the waiting wheel barrow.
That was wheeled around this huge old place ... all the way to the back .... about a 5 or 10 minute wheel .....
then up the planks .... across the new framing ... and into the chutes.
All this for a rear addition.
We had a coupla days there ..... most guys stopped showing after the first or second day. The boss was friends with my older brother ... I had no choice in the matter.
A week later ... I started my second attempt at going to college ...
Was a little easier to stay focused the second time around ....
I knew what was waiting me in the real world!
Jeff
Buck Construction, llc Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
i think a concrete pump runs like $350 a day..............
i gotta go with the flagman job.
i did picket duty with our local about 5 years ago for 8 hours
if i had had a pistol in my pocket, i don't think i would have made it. the boredom was deadly
carpenter in transition
I worked for a mold remediation company. Imagine working in a sealed off room, wearing a full Tyvek suit, gloves etc and a full respriator (you can only suck in 80% of your lung's volume). Now add an air scrubber (running hot). Damn HOT...
OK do demo and bag everything. Once bagged seal it with duct tape. Now shove that into the airlock and rebag it. Remember to wipe done all your tools before leaving the airlock.
Not fun..
Peace,
MartinHeads I win, tails you lose.
Ok, I think being a roofer is the toughest..reminds me of a job we were doing 4 years ago, there was snow and ice on the roof and about 8:30AM we see these guys putting ladders up and going up to the roof..we thought they were nuts. While me and another guy were drywall finishing on the first floor my partner says to me who was working near a window "I think I just saw someone falling fromn the roof". Sure enough, we open the window and the guys in agony..only a broken arm and head bleeding..heard later he was Ok except for the arm. And when i see these guys on black roofs with 105 degrees and the tans they have..I do feel sorry for them!
Laying on your back, under ####60' house trailer , in the sand, at the Carolina coast, at noon, slathering a cosmoline/burnt motor oil concoction on the under carriage. You're wearing full body suit coveralls, that are totally waterproof(hence airproof) from all the grease, and there's a whole park full of trailers left to go.
Oh yeah, the hard part...trying to keep the black widows and fire ants outta your pants<G> Don't worry, we can fix that later!
But its a "dry" heat.
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
Great.....I see the thread title....open up in the hopes of finding some inspiration as I`m in the midst of doing the hardwood install throughout my house, only to be reminded of what a miserable day I have in front of me.
Started yesterday....I`m stiff in muscles I didn`t know I had.
Digging footings by hand is up there with toughest. (Round here anyway....more rocks than soil)
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
roofing a witche's hat with slate..
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
what is the toughest job in construction?
1. Drywall sander during the summer in Texas (nothing like being in an airless closet when it i 98-100° outside, creating clouds of extra fine mud dust while sweating rivers--watch where you lean, or you'll waterspot the DW, too . . . )
2. Hot mopping roofs in the summer (closely followed by torchdown roofs). Very few things as much fun as tiny (or not so tiny) globules of asphalt stuck in one's leg hairs (or just on the skin, or part way down your sock, or through the thin spot of your 'roofing' shoes . . . )
3. Getting respect as a skilled framer (instead of the still foolish bias that "all carpenters is the same" . . .
4. Finding the next job without losing the current one.
5. Doing real work instead of being on BT . . . <g>
Welding screw tabs on equipment stands on a 40,000SF galvanized concrete roof subdeck in 110 degree summer heat.
Packing/moving watermelon for 14 hours.
Unpacking ducts after a jam in a cotton gin. In the summer, of course. Mole in about 15', pushing cotton out behind as you work in. The cotton is hot 'cuz it's just been dried prior to ginning.
Did I mention this was in the summer? At the top of the building?
15 yo, making $8/hr for 8, $12 for 12, $16 for 24 and $32 thereafter. Yeah, I worked one 56 hour shift. That check cleared all my mothers bills and that summer set us up for a year. Loved cotton.
SamT
Loved cotton
Ugh, just had a Panhandle flashback . . .
Painting the fence around my grand-dad's drive-in in lovely June, with the wind bringing the grit in from some nearby place, like Nebraska or Colorado . . .
Foolishly figuring an "inside" job had to be better (sweeping at the gin was not . . . ) Back to D-I, get to relay the roof on the projection booth--how fun . . . This would be the 70's so, I'm raking in the big bucks, like $2-2.5/hr. Young & dumb, what a combo . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Young & dumb, what a combo . . .
Young & dumb & gravity, what a combo . . .
Young & dumb & beer, what a combo . . .
Lot of words fit in there.........
Joe H
Young & dumb, what a combo . . .
Young & studly says it all.
SamT
When I was 15, one of the summer projects I had was working for a WWII vet who had been paralized from the waist down on Omaha Beach. Nicest man in the world, but absolute hell to work for. The job he had me do was to clear a stand of bamboo in his backyard using, at best, a hacksaw, while he watched from his wheelchair and yelled at me every 5 minutes that I wasn't working hard enough. I think I made $20, and the bamboo grew back like a week later.
Just a wimp, I guess.
I aproach "wimp" as temperatures reach the ninety degree mark....anything over that, dry or not, there`d better be an ocean breeze and a frozen beverage in hand. A buck fifteen is a buck fifteen....unless you`ve got lizard in your genes thats too damn hot for much of anything!
J. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
A buck fifteen is a buck fifteen....unless you`ve got lizard in your genes thats too damn hot for much of anything
The scary part is that you can get used to it. Heat index is supposed to hit 105° tomorrow. Which will be a bear for anybody who has spent the year in an office. If you've been outside the last 3 months or so, it will be bad (going from around 95-98° HI today to 10° more can't help but be a little bad), but not that much more (with all proper heat precautions, etc., of course).Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Just about the time I start getting used to it...its October and I gotta start getting used to wearing extra clothing! LOLJ. D. Reynolds
Home Improvements
"DO IT RIGHT, DO IT ONCE"
The poor ba$tards who blow in your ceiling insulation on a summer day. At least the hot tar roofers get a breeze. The next runner up is the guys who crawl around in a crawlspace putting in plumbing, electric or HVAC lines where animals have problems walking.
where animals have problems walking
That's funny! Well I'm mostly a drywaller..just last week was in an AC job and in the winter we are indoors with heat. I fell sorry for many of the other trades until they say "can you rock and finish this in 3 days".