D_I_Y American style!

[Peter Crosland]

Health and Safety American style!

Silo Demolition Sledgehammer Style

[Bill]

In message , Peter Crosland writes

Sheeeeesh. It must have been Darwin's day off.

[ss]

They need to get Fred Dibnah to show them how its done properly .

[Huge]

To quote one of the morons involved; "Holy Shit".

[Onetap]

My thoughts exactly.

How did he get away with that?

[Tim Watts]

On Friday 26 April 2013 09:53 Peter Crosland wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Interesting failure mode - it did not do a Dibnah and fall over (like I was expecting and he probably was too).

How the f*ck did he get clear of the exploding concrete?

[Onetap]

More simillar on here;

Note the approved redneck method, starting at 0:40.

[GB]

I thought I saw another silo in the film, so hopefully Darwin struck lucky the next day.

So many ways to do that job safely......

[Baz]

They are all at it.

Baz

[GB]

Anybody know why they'd want to pull down what looks like a perfectly good silo, then have the job of disposing of all the bits?

[Tim Streater]

Useless effin' cameraman.

[Broadback]

Those were my thoughts Tim.

[Huge]

He fit right in, then.

[Nightjar]

Hold up the weight with wooden supports as you take bits away. Set fire to the supports. Then run like mad when they burn through quicker than you expected, IIRC.

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

Yes indeed. Interestingly, you could see that it was essentially a gravity structure with very little strength in bending, unlike a proper British brick chimney. So when it finally gave way at the bottom a lot of it came straight down (and then out sideways), rather than toppling gracefully like a tree, which is probably what he expected to happen. The slats dropping vertically at an earlier stage should have been a give-away.

[newshound]

I can't think of that many.

Explosives. Big chain round it pulled with a digger from a safe distance. Gas axe on the rings, while dangling from helicopter (starting from the top)

Couldn't do it with props and fire, and I wouldn't fancy working from the top and dropping those slats down.

[GB]

They could do something incredibly dully, like erect scaffolding and chipping bits away, starting from the top.

However, I had in mind just pushing/pulling it with a digger.

I can't quite see why props and fire would not work?

[Onetap]

They probably would, I'd suspect the US farmers don't watch programmes about demolishing factory chimneys. I think they make it up as they go along.

Wikipedia says they're built of concrete staves, with the rings holding them together, like a stack of casks.

[Bob Eager]

Bloody lucky.

[newshound]

No, they wouldn't, the whole structure is only one stave thick, much thinner than a brick chimney, and there's no bonding other than friction. See how some of the staves dropped when he took out the lower one. You would never be able to prop up the structure in the way Fred did with brick chimneys that were getting on for two feet thick at the base.