# recommendations for pulling up asphalt



## AustinDB (Sep 11, 2006)

I'm not a big time buy like most of you in this forum, but try to make due. I've got a tennis court removal job going on and I'm removing the asphalt with my forks. It works pretty well but wondering what the regular's use. The asphalt is only 3" thick on average and has come up quite easily, but pulling it up and 'rolling' it forward so I leave fresh base is sometimes tricky.

thanks for the tips!


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## Vinny (Jul 21, 2007)

Well, you have asked the 20 million dollar question and it would depend on what you wanted to do with the area when your done. 

If your gonna plant it you need to pull out base too. So you may pull out the pavement first and dump it at a place they take that sort of thing and if they charge for it, at least your not paying to to dump aggregate base and soil too. Then you can dig out the soil on a second pass. 

But if you want to leave the base intact because your repaving it and there werent any sub base or base issues you'd want to be as frugal and delicate as possible.

For us the best answer has become an excavator. We employ two diffeernt sizes depending on size of area to work in or encumbrances. 

I have a Kobelco 80 thats about 18000 lbs and has a swing boom option and a 0 swing turet. I use this mostly for jobs below 4000 sqft. Then we also have a Kobelco 115 that also is 0 swing and we use it for larger jobs. They both have rubber cleets bolted to the tracks for moving them from where you may drop it from a trailer to get to the point of work.

The excavator stays on the undisturbed pavement and the triaxles back up behind it. Then you remove from the building / garage working toward the road. The operators are pretty well trained to leave base intact if that is the intent. And as fast as the trucks can get back to the machine, the pavement is removed and loaded into the trucks and its only handled once. Theres always a little debris left behind so we have a laborer or 2 working around areas the machine cant get. 

Then I use a track skid steer for leveling, final clean up, and regrading. The machine operator periodicly will need to dismount the excavator to run the skiddy, but its only for a couple of minutes, then he returns to the excavator

We use to have rubber tire backhoes with 4in1 buckets to this but they cant compare with the productivity of the excavators and skid steers. The need to rip then turn around and load always meant handleing twice and even if you were able to dig and side load with the digger bucket, the cycle time on an excavator is twice that of a backhoe. We still make only 1 machine move by putting both the excavator and skid steer on 1 tag a along trailer. We have a 20 ton for the smaller exc and skidie, and a 25 ton fo rthe larger machine and skidie.

The fastest but not the cleanest way is to use a track loader. Like a Cat 953. You cant beat the speed but its not viable in a tennis court or driveway becasue you'll end up damaging something. In a large parking lot though, its unbelievable under the right conditions.

But even that is moot now with the advent of milling and recyleing equipment for the larger jobs. We did a private road development last year and I removed it by having a sub with a large miller come in and do a strip to base removal. It took the pavement right from the surface, up a conveyer, and loaded right onto the trucks. Then I took the millings and sold some.


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## AustinDB (Sep 11, 2006)

thanks for the detailed description Vinny. I'm just a small fellow using my L series Kubota-it's actually a nice working tractor but unfortunately I am touching the material two and three times. It's about the numbers for me, I have the tools in my possession, so will use them versus renting a more appropriate unit for the job, thereby keeping some extra money in the account. Now, if I had jobs lines up waiting on this one, it would be a different story.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

72, if you are able to get it done with what you have, as you say that will be the best for you in this slow time.

Vinny's description of methods is quite possibly THE most cost effective/efficient way to do the demo and removal.

As most of us do in excavation, using the machines you own, may not always be the most efficient, but can be cost effective by avoiding rental fees.

Heck, I excavated some pretty large basements with just a skidsteer loader, it always took a while, but I got em done.


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