New JD4520 cab is destroyed

[beenthere]

Let us just hope the Ins. Co. doesn't wiggle out of a claim.
I just renewed my house insurance, and was aware for the first time that there was some language in there about not covering rot, decay, and mold. I can understand their not wanting to cover mold, but can imagine them extending that non-coverage to ground-line decay in the poles in the shed (no idea if that might have been initial cause of failure that triggered the collapse, but from the pic of the shed I can guess that the unprotected poles in the ground may have had decay).
I don't trust these Ins. Co.'s even a little bit.

 

[jenkinsph]

About the insurance company, I am concerned too, I am hoping to hear good news about all of this. I too would expect the recovery to be part of the insurance claim.

 

[eepete]

Talked with the insurance company today. This is coming down to covering the tractor, the building, and the recovery/cleanup. An adjuster will be out here this week.
I'm calling around finding companies that do recovery, it's not looking good. I think this will be a Fire Department buddies effort. I will have some outside group do the demolition of the collapsed structure once the tractor and implements are "rescued". Part of this is I know what needs to be done, part of this is a lot of "Yeah, we can probably figure out something" responses from people. As you can see from the pix, it's opened up now so it's easy to see what's going on and have a plan of attack. They will pay any out of pocket expenses I have for the recovery, and they did authorize me to do what it takes to get the tractor safe be it me or a contractor.

As for the not covering rot, decay, and mold: the building roof landed intact as far as the roof line and overhangs, so it wasn't in too bad of shape. It just had too much load on it. While a few of the shed extension poles have some wear on them, the main poles are still OK. They came out of the ground intact. The discussion there will be about depreciated value vs. full replacement cost. It was maybee a 40 x 60 shed, and I only need about a 30 by 40 area under cover. So even a large deprecated value will have me back up and running. I don't want to take advantage of them, I just want the functionality I had before this happened. In the long run all "insurance money" is really my (and yours) money. Also the new 30 x 40 Morton building will ready soon and then all the high dollar stuff will have a safe place to be. I just have to be alert so that my goodwill and common sense don't translate into "lets take advantage of this guy" at the insurance company level. beenthere, I know what you're saying. I'll let you know how State Farm does.

It doesn't matter if a tree, building, or space station landed on the tractor, it is covered. We had the personal use vs. business discussion, and that boiled down to a hay farmer does all the hay work, I get zero money for that (I don't even charge to use the land), so no money in = not a business. I have a $2500 deductible, but that's OK- the reduced premiums have me still out ahead of the game even if you look at just a ten year average. That deductible applies to the entire incident. It sucks, but it's not real money. I saved much more than that on premiums over the last 30 years.

Demolition and clean up is pretty straight forward and not much to go wrong there. If the insurance company doesn't have any leads, I'll use a general contractor in town.

I'll post as stuff happens, thanks for the concern and advice!

Pete

 

[MarkV]

Pete I am glad everyone is OK and it looks like the tractor damage could have been worst. Sure glad no one was in there at the time. It is kind of hard to get a perspective of exactly how the building is resting on the tractor so this is just a thought. Would it be possible to shore up that beam without jacking and then let the air out of the tractor tires to pull it out? The load looks so unstable I would not want any jacking to cause things to shift.

MarkV

 

[Dutch445]

The discussion there will be about depreciated value vs. full replacement cost. It was maybee a 40 x 60 shed, and I only need about a 30 by 40 area under cover. So even a large deprecated value will have me back up and running. I don't want to take advantage of them, I just want the functionality I had before this happened. In the long run all "insurance money" is really my (and yours) money. Also the new 30 x 40 Morton building will ready soon and then all the high dollar stuff will have a safe place to be. I just have to be alert so that my goodwill and common sense don't translate into "lets take advantage of this guy" at the insurance company level. beenthere, I know what you're saying. I'll let you know how State Farm does.
Pete

Pete, as a fellow insurance consumer, (aren't we all) it's very commendable
that you wish to return only to the functionality you had. So many times in
this situation,there ends up a bigger, better building in place, with
all sorts of new toys inside. We all pay premiums that cover
these losses. But when you see it taken advantage of it makes you wonder.
Especially when there are multiple claims by the same people.

 

[Cidertom]

Pete:
Urban Search And Rescue drill? Treat it like a person. Mr Deere is trapped and we have to rescue him. That way the folks that are helping are insurance covered. You get real world shoring experience, which at least for us is hard to come by. You would have to do more than you might otherwise in terms of PPE, shoring, safety officer etc.

Just the Training Officer in me looking for the silver lining.

Tom

 

[eepete]

MarkV, the PHD is still on the tractor and it is holding up a big chunk of barn. So I think the only way to approach this is slow de-construction after shoring it up.
Dutch, I knew of a guy who patched a water pipe in his basement many ways, many times. Never fixed it right. It broke and flooded the basement and he got a new furnace, water heater, etc. He loved to brag about his "free" stuff. That always bothered me. So yeah the goal is to get back to where you were and trying to "get more" makes you part of the problem.

Tom, the weather and existing training schedule are working against me here a bit. January and February are our "gota have" recertification training times. It will be bad weather this weekend. But I've got some people lined up that like USAR stuff, so something will be learned. It is odd that businesses are not good at this, and fire departments/USAR teams are just what you want. And setting up training like this would be impossible.
A few years ago, I had a bunch of trees down here as I was putting in some new cut-throughs to the hay fields. Had a track loader come in, push them down, and then drag them into the field. Offered training to learn how to limb downed trees, only 1 taker. Next storm we had, the Chief chewed out a bunch of people who wanted to help but didn't do the training on those trees. This smells like a similar scenario, so only the serious A-teamers will probably show up. Sad, but this seems to be human nature.

Tomorrow I go out and and shoot for step two of securing it all. Right now, it's bits and pieces of metal and wood while I got through todays rain. Today I got the stuff I need to put a big supporting triangle under the main cedar post that is against the tractor. Once it's there, I'll be able to give things a little wiggle from the outside and see how stable it is. I got some ball park cost of parts feedback from the dealer on some things. One thing that's clear is an error on this de-construction could be another $3-4K in cost as stuff got squished (like the joystick hydraulics, front panel, and cab frame). It's like a quiet, on-going disaster. As it is, this looks like a $7-10K repair job. I'll take some more pix from under the pile. I also have a contractor working on a quote for demolition and hauling off the building so I'm ready for the insurance adjuster visit.
It was nice to have a down day after two "Cowboy UP" days in a row. I'm not getting any younger.

Pete

 

[Thomas]

Dang..sorry hands of time along w/mother nature play cure joke.

 

[eepete]

A couple of post in a row here...

After placing some wood and metal supports, I got under the mess and used a jack to support the mail cedar post that was against the ROPS vertical post and supporting all the weight. Once that was in, I built an 'A' frame type support so the post couldn't shift.

Once that was done, I cut away the boards on the top on both side of the tractor to start relieving the weight. I also put in 2x6 support on each side (clear white boards) to hold up those sections once they were cut off the main post.

 

[eepete]

The sickle bar, which was also holding up some load, was free. A guide on it was bent, the rest looks OK.

I finally got things down to the mail post and the beams balancing off of it on each side. All the cuts I made were very small, about 12 to 18 inches at a time. But then it was time to alternatly cut back the beams.

You can see how a beam attached to the post was resting against the vertical ROPS post, the beam was splintered. There was about 12 feet of beam just hanging in the air. The other side was on the ground.