Equipment Focus: Making the Cut

When Denver’s Interstate 25 and 84th Ave. bridge needed replacing, Performance Equipment Service stepped in to help its client contractor get the job done on time.

Performance Equipment is first and foremost an equipment rental house, but it provides extra workforce when its clients are in a pinch.

The strict timeline for the project required the bridge to come down in just two night shifts, with the area open to traffic by 5 a.m. each morning. The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) would impose stiff fines if these times weren’t met.

Performance Equipment Service is a store that started out as a family venture 13 years ago in Erie, Colo. Donnie Fetters, owner and president, says client contractors on jobs requiring an excavator with an extended boom sometimes ask Fetters or one of his operators to jump in.

To help meet the strict time requirements, Performance Equipment brought in an Atlas Copco CC 3300 Combi Cutter to help speed things along. “I could have done it with just the pulverizers, maybe. But that was a hard deadline to meet,” says Fetters. “The Combi Cutter got us off the freeway faster. Maybe it only cut a little more than an hour off each night, but an hour makes me look better.”

Fetters had two five-hour windows in which to complete the work. He arrived for the first shift just before midnight and finished by 4:15 a.m. The next night he arrived shortly after 11 p.m. and was done by 3:30 a.m.
 

This completed the final demolition phases of the 44-foot-wide 1960s-era bridge. Two Atlas Copco HB3000 heavy-duty breakers turned the 44-foot concrete span into “the better part of 60 semitrailer dump loads” of rubble, Fetters says. He recycled the material to provide a base for his company’s 7.5 acre equipment yard area.

“I’d guess it would have been a six-hour-a-night job for the pulverizers. What’s nice about the Combi Cutter is I could slice the bridge up, take it down whole chunks at a time,” says Fetters.

Fetters adds that he liked the capability of the Combi Cutter, with its independent jaws and metal shearing knives. “My first impression was, the knives were sure wearing well. In fact, there’s no sign of wear yet, except for the paint that came off the jaws. No nicks—and this was big No. 9 rebar.”

“You nibble at it with the jaws, take the end 10 inches, and then get in there with your knives for the exposed rebar,” he says of the demolition process.

Fetters looked at other equipment for the job, but he says the Combi Cutter was the top performer. “None of those others have the teeth the Combi Cutter has. One on top and two on the bottom.”
 

He found the action to be a unique design advantage. “The self-leveling really impressed me. The jaws don’t put pressure on your tractor. One side stays put and the other comes around, balanced. No one else could tell me they had that. [It’s the] first one I’ve seen like that, and it makes it stronger. The other cutter I have doesn’t have nearly the strength of this one.”

He says he believes there is something to be said about a difference in weight. “This unit is about 2,500 pounds lighter than that other one. That’s easier on my tractor, too. Easier to work with.”

The article was submitted by Ellenbecker Communications on behalf of Atlas Copco, Commerce City, Colo.