[Greenbuilding] slinging dirt

[Stephen Collette]

Hello Chris,

It's been done actually. A system exists in Ontario that I know of  
and they put it on a school roof in Windsor, ON. A nice LEED school.  
I saw a powerpoint from someone involved. It was cool. The dirt was  
sprayed on, not slung, and yes the key component is not to overweight  
anywhere specific. They used a pretty hyper light type soil (loam?)  
and it had the mix all made up in the truck. Neat for sure. Beats all  
other ways, hands down.

You are smarter than you thought. I'd have to dig up the specifics of  
the build, but if you want, I will dig it out, so to speak.

Stephen

Stephen Collette B.B.E.C
Principal

Your Healthy House
Indoor Environmental Inspections & Building Consulting
www.yourhealthyhouse.ca
stephen at yourhealthyhouse.ca
705.652.5159


>
> I had a revelation at work today while discussing things with a
> co-worker. We have been hiring an operator with a "precision  
> aggregrate
> placement machine" called a Super Stone Slinger to place sand and  
> gravel
> for under the flooring slab, and to place crush for drain rock.
> On another site with another company, the same operator placed a 1'  
> lift
> of top soil over the whole back yard (from over 50' away, since he
> couldn't drive over top the natural gas pipeline placed there...) in
> maybe an hour.
>
> A Stone Slinger is basically a dump truck with a variable speed  
> conveyor
> belt underneath it which can be aimed. It's vaguely like having a fire
> hose to blow anything from gravel to fine topsoil to wherever you  
> want it.
>
> To see what one of these machines look like, this company makes them:
>
> http://www.superstoneslinger.com/
>
> So, my revelation was that this machine in the hands of an adequately
> experienced operator could carefully place the topsoil you need on  
> most
> residential roofs built to carry the load of a living roof.
> Very quickly.
> Place, say, 9 cubic yards/18 tons in 20 to 40 minutes.
>
> No need to hump the soil up there in buckets or jury-rig some kind of
> hoist..... and the service would probably cost a lot less than manual
> labour, if you're paying for that.
> For the really brave, you can stand in front of the stream of material
> and direct where it lands with a sheet of plywood (that's how we kept
> the crush out of the footing forms on Friday...Rob and his helper  
> didn't
> seem to be too badly sandblasted afterwards... :-) )
>
> As a safety matter, you would want the soil distributed fairly  
> evenly as
> the placement goes, rather than pile lots in one place and none in
> another. I once saw an arched roof/ quonset hut type building (a  
> curling
> rink) where the snow softened up on the sunny side of the roof and  
> slid
> off, leaving a deep layer of densely packed snow on the cooler  
> shaded side.
> The building then collapsed due to uneven loads.
> Fortunately, no-one was inside at the time.
>
> Just thought I mention this if idea if anyone can use it.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris Green.
>
>
>