Got to take my guys on a field trip today, a 2 hr each way drive to a ski resort. The job was to place a modular home to be used as a sales office for a condo development.

Background: head office promised developer that show suites would be ready for all-important Christmas holiday season. Recently the job shut down due to excess of snow and lack of labour. Parkade slab is poured but framing has not commenced. Company owner heard of local modular home builder about to go bankrupt and did a grey market-type cash deal for a semi-completed unit that my crew was dispatched to ‘liberate’ before receivers arrived. It was then finished in our shop and trucked to site. The company decided to use its own labour for installation rather than contract out. The project manager gave details of unit size, existing building and general site slope etc.

We spent a day building cribbing and assembling equipment. We had 4 company vehicles: 2 pickups, a one-ton, and a 25-ton crane truck. The day itself was 4.5 hours of driving plus 8.5 hours on site. There were 6 workers in all, including crane driver.

We arrived on site to find 2′ of compact snow still on the site, and no concrete pads for cribbing. The site was right in the main village area and was very cramped – the semis carrying the modular units were unable to get closer than 120′ from the site. There was a small existing sales offce which we were add on to. We arranged for village snow removal and then proceeded to lay out cribbing locations and attempted to level them. There was a thick ice layer over compacted gravel which was of course frozen. We had a tiger torch but it only penetrated slightly into the frozen soil, so it was a very slow process.

In the meantime, the units were unloaded from their lowbeds and the crane proceeded to hopscotch the first one closer to its position. After several hours we had cribbing ready and flew the unit into place. Stayed 2″ back from existing building so as to be able to remove slings. Used hydraulic jack to shim the unit level, bolted unit to existing foundation. Took about 5 hours from arrival.

Second unit was less time consuming as half its cribbing was already in place – shared with first unit. Used the crane truck outrigger hydraulics to push the two units tight together after removing slings, and then moved the truck to end of untis to align them that way as well. Levelled second unit, checked floor height alignment, bolted units together. Another 3.5 hours.

6 guys, 4 vehicles, paid travel time, dinner for the crew after a tough day, and a lot of 2x4s. My rough estimate: $6000 actual cost. Yet they could have hired the installer that the modular home outfit uses – and they would be laid off since the company has gone bankrupt – for half of that. I know those guys would have done a better job than we did in half the time. First time we’d done it, and I hate to think what that thing will look like when the thaw comes. We only had the one day to get it done, so close enough had to be good enough.

This is what we used to refer to as a WAFTAM – Waste of F***ing Time And Money. Funny how people think they can save a buck and end up blowing way more. Oh well, we all got dinner and some OT out of it. I just hate doing substandard work.

Wally