Barn Demo Cleanup Question

CampyVA · Jan 8, 2020

Hi All,

I recently demoed two falling down pole barns and I need some advice on how to clean up the leftover debris. I had all the metal siding hauled away, and I burned all the junk lumber after it was pushed into a big ol' pile. What's remaining is a bunch of ash, masonry block, and piles of dirt, all with about 2,000,000 nails mixed in. (Pictures attached)

I have a magnetic sweep which I've used to remove a ton of the nails, but there are still a bunch in there I'm sure.

I'm looking for advice on how to clean up what's left. I don't think I want to go near it with my tractor on account of all the nails. I've asked the guys who tore down the barn what they would charge me to haul away what's left and regrade the site, and their quote seems pretty high, $900. Any advice on what I should do?

So far I've come up with renting a mini-excavator for a day ($400), digging a hole, and pushing everything into the hole with the blade on the excavator. I've never used one before though, so I don't know if that's even possible. Or getting a dumpster and loading it (very carefully) with the tractor, hoping to not puncture a tire. I have R4's filled with Rimguard, so puncturing one would be real expensive.

Any other ideas? Thanks!

Industrial Toys · Jan 8, 2020

My first question when seeing the pictures, was, what about nails? lol

$900.00 is cheap, but yeah, who wants to pay that?

I am always going over my fire piles with a magnetic sweep from burning skids and building material. Then dig the stuff out and use it as fill in a spot that won't see traffic. Then start with a new fire pit.

That's about all you can do.

I burned a roofs worth of cedar shingles. You can't have more nails than that. lol

RNeumann · Jan 8, 2020

Yep something with tracks. The next time you burn a huge trash pile (that’s a joke as I assume this is a once in a lifetime event!) dig a pit before the fire and put everything in it so you can bury it with your wheeled tractor. The contractor may be able to bury the stuff for less than the machine rental cost.

I made the mistake of offering to burn a few of my neighbor’s pallets in my landscape burn pile. Even a few pallets created an hour or so of work with the magnetic rake etc....I feel your pain! But no flats so far.

Industrial Toys · Jan 8, 2020

Did the same thing last summer for a good friend. You could just keep raking and magnetic sweeping. It's not that big an area. It's always fun to find one more nail!

As well as a wheeled magnet I also put a powerful magnet on the end of a broom stick, to limit bending over. Funny how many people don't know certain models of magnetic sweepers have a release handle.

EddieWalker · Jan 9, 2020

$900 is cheap. Agree to this before they change their mind!!!!

Renting equipment, spending days working it doesn't make sense when you have somebody willing to do it for such a small amount of money.

jmc · Jan 9, 2020

Looks pretty flat. I might try skimming a little dirt up along with the debris to get under most of the nails. You could go forward about 5 feet without driving into the thick of it. Then use your magnet on the exposed dirt before the next scoop. (Tractor dealer told me that you get more tire punctures when it's wet than when it's dry because the bars keep the carcass off the ground.)

This was probably child abuse but the clay I brought in for fill on my pole barn pad had hundreds of tennis ball sized geodes in it. I made a deal with my 10 year old that I would pay her some amount per geode that she gathered up. She worked hard at it for an hour or two and to her, it was like finding shells on the beach!

jk96 · Jan 9, 2020

Dig a hole, fill with burned debris, cover remaining foot with good dirt, use the remaining clean soil to fill holes or for future projects. Otherwise $900 is cheap.