The BIGGEST Construction Project On the East Coast | Ames Construction
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2024
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Eric, Chase, and I went out to what might be the biggest project East of the Mississippi. Ames Construction was building out a new car manufacturing plant for electric vehicles.
So how big of a project, you ask? When all was said and done, these folks moved 28 million yards of dirt and rock in total. There were about 170 machines moving dirt on site. #construction #heavyequipment #jobsite
Equipment: Caterpillar 631 Scrapers pushed by Caterpillar D10 Bulldozers, Caterpillar D6 Bulldozers, Caterpillar D9 Bulldozers, Caterpillar 395 Hydraulic Excavator, John Deere 870 Large Excavator, Komatsu PC1250 Hydraulic Excavator, Caterpillar 777 Haul Truck, Caterpillar 745 Articulated Haul Truck, 874
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Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:23 - Dirtworld Ad
1:02 - Project Overview
2:39 - CAT 631
4:31 - KOMATSU PC1250
5:50 - Drone View
7:45 - Rental Car of the Week
8:30 - Training Noobs
11:10 - Maintenance
14:39 - Outro 
Авто/Мото
Aaron “I’ve never seen anything like this” witt
If you haven't seen anything like this watch Tesla.
I can't believe it
I got much respect for this construction company for helping to get people trained and employed
Information. Please I like to work for a good compani .I got experience 5 year off road
@@miguelsanchez9625Oil up first
My first job after I left college was running a CAT 769 Haul truck and loading it with a 988 in a large quarry. I was a 19 year old kid and my old boss hired me and said you ever run stuff like that? I said no sir , he said we'll go slow you'll figure it out just dont break anything. Things were different back then so off I went to load and haul ledge , it was cool for about a week and then it got old really fast. The heat and dust were awful no ac back in the 80s . Changed the oil and filters on the weekends and it didnt take long to get ripped forearms lugging 5 gallon buckets of new oil and pumping the manual grease gun to lube everything. Dumped into a huge cone crusher that took a 10 ft diameter boulder and turned it into rip rap to feed the secondary plant. It was a cool job and I had a great boss just an old school Marine no BS who treated everyone great. I laugh when everyone says it must be fun running that giant stuff but the reality is it gets old like any other repetitive job and if your not paying attention you become a fatalgram published by the Burea of mine safety.
Very well said. Thanks for sharing your experience
Yes,, you have to stay on your game,,, tonnage can kill...😮
Did Cat’s come with radio’s not only for communication but for music too? I feel that would make it easier
Though. Never mentioned, this is the Toyota Battery Plant in Randolph County NC.
As a former Landscape Architect working on large construction projects, the 'Grading Plan' was the most important document followed by the "Drainage Plan' and 'Utility Plan'. Grading Contractor is responsible to get the Site at right elevations and right slopes so that other construction can follow. Buildings come and go, but a site will usually not change much at all over time. Mistakes made here can be costly to correct or even impossible to correct.
Site work will progress through rough grade, utilities, and finished grade at different times in different parts of the project. On site surveying is also very important to control accuracy. If contractor was off a few inches of elevation over a large area, that can result in many thousands of yards of soil to add or remove. Working beyond setbacks or property lines can result in expensive fines or possible litigation.
Competent Grading Contractors will closely monitor compaction and moisture. If wet fill is used, it is next to impossible to compact. I'v seen jobs where wet fill had to be dug out and replaced with dry fill. Wet fill can be spread out to reduce moisture content. Fill that is too dry won't compact either. On really large sites, balanced cut and fill reduces costs. Making aggregate onsite is another money saving operation.
In this video, Contractor has a variety of equipment. This allows some flexibility when dealing with a mega site. Equipment is used to move, push, haul, and scrape soil in most efficient manner. Dozers are not pushing soil very far, earth movers pushed by dozers are. Front end loaders are not moving soil far, rather track hoes and large dump vehicles are.
Managing this is like directing an orchestra. Each piece of equipment doing it's job in the most efficient and safe way possible. And while all this is going on in front of our eyes, much more is unseen. Dust control, erosion control, noise control are important, especially if near residential areas. Smart contractors have their own public relations person.
Great video - thank you for taking time to produce and share.
Framer is the most important. Grading ain’t nothing to framing. The box is the business, site work is mostly common sense. Framers will eat the civil guys lunch plus we fix the building after the site work and concrete was done wrong lol
@@brandondobschutz5146 Thanks for comment. Of course framers are important. Never saw a building build itself. No frame, no building, unless people want to live in tents.
@@brandondobschutz5146 , Site work today can be done with the marginal working class as they can easley be trained .With GPS and the new Tech. The cuts and fills on that site can be figured to within a truck load . This is a long way from not long ago. Amazing . To run the stuff today you barely need a brain and the guy that put the number on it got most all his work done for him correctly. The biggest roll of dice is the guy that owns the balls that bet on it. I hope they kill it ,Good luck
As a registered architect I found out most landscape architects do not know the difference between an expansion jt and a control jt.
@@lummoxx8586 Thanks for comments
Very cool project. The addition of the 2 new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle outside of Waynesboro, in Burke County, Georgia is likely still the largest construction project in the US. At peak they had 10,000 employees on-site per day. Love your videos! Thx
California train project has 10,000 builders daily also
Nevada gold mines would like a word 😂
@@a_reptiledysfunction5267 but is that a construction project?
@@politicalchannel66 Hahaha nah dawg we don’t have 10k people out here.
@@wllms02 yes there is. Ever been to Cortez? Goldstrike?
Komatsu 1250 is such a good machine, the size, capability and reliability is top notch. It's like the corolla of the digging world.
This is actually my Job site! I am the lead inspector for soil testing during the night. It truly is a massive job!
sweet!!!
@@AaronWitt great video btw. My cousin sent this to me and I’m glad he did. Def going to binge the rest of them! Keep up the great work brother!
This the Toyota plant or the Vinfast plant?
Excavator /Shovel operator can i secure a job position there?
@@scttbrwn277 it’s the Toyota plant!
Mechanics, Welders and Lubemen don't get enough credit , without their hard work, long hours and dedication these kind of jobs can't get done , especially on budget and on time .
I used to haul for Ames when they were small, they had like 5 side dumps, used to sub there crushing, they were from MN. Did one of there 1st jobs in Utah. No one out west new them. Then they got Denver airport, then goldmines in NV. They hit every big job they could. They were a very aggressive company, ran hard and fast with excellent employees. I remember those old side dumps would actually slide around turns and almost tip over dumping, they went hard then welder would come in every night and fix them up.
Lots of work in the devils lake ND area over the years also .
It's too bad it's an electric car plant. It will likely end up like the windmills and the frozen Texas. The billionaires are pushing these things to make America fail. Our electric grid can't support this. Charging batteries is expensive and slow. There's not enough lithium. Batteries can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Commie
Bai-den stopped oil production as much as he could.
Recent Headline: 1,100 scientists, scholars: 'There is no climate emergency'
We have alot of big jobs in Minnesota slated for spring....
Didn’t the family break up after Denver airport and the brother started Sema? They are both big out here in Colorado!
My kid just got hired today with Ames. Proud as hell. D Ames did a lot for this community of Southern MN.
Should have covered the Line 3 Pipeline project in Minnesota. Over 350 miles 36" pipeline installed in 10 months.
2.5 billion dollar project much of it built during winter of 2020/2021 with air temperatures of minus 30 to minus 40 below Fahrenheit. 14,000 people worked on this project.
The Alaska pipe was 850 miles and 21,000 people in 75..8.3 Billion bux...would be 40B.today...all camps..20 camps..
You related to that French man.
Love seeing Eric's footage, spent some time working in the dirt world with him in the south east and thoroughly enjoy listening to his knowledge in the industry.
Do you know of a larger construction project in the country?
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I’m not in the country what if I can combine all the sites that I’ve seen then yeah
There's a big power plant project in southern/central Utah that kiewit is doing
Not big, but Moab, UT you got the a.k.a dirty dirt project, removing uranium mill tailings, they ship the dirt by trains
They just broke ground on a $4 Billion EV battery plant in DeSoto, KS
@@tjstevens6495 he doesn’t need to know projects he’s just filming machinery
The D10’s pushing the scraper’s 😮Epic
We did a similar project back in Late 80’s and 90’s for Toyota in Georgetown Ky
Thanks so much for going above and beyond. And declaring it clearly and loudly.
Worked for Ames on the salt lake airport north project. First time seeing a 870 Deere. Getting loaded with 35 ton on a super side in three scoops was wild.
Crazy how far we’ve come in the equipment world. As much as I hate how they rely on electronics, I love how GPS doesn’t even need poles anymore.
Funny that you mentioned the amount of scrapers are here on the East Coast compared to the Western regions. I live in the Buffalo, NY area and I operated a 675 on a very large development. We had 7 of them, and as I thought about it, you may be right. It's a good thing I'd been trained and operated excavators, payloaders, ect. heck the whole nine yards, even an end dump as needed. I've had an enjoyable 30 yr. career with the Operating Engineers Local in our area. Excellent retirement bennies too.
As an old superintendent the civil survey with cut/fill balance was always my biggest concern .. along with soils test logs.. time & time again I can tell you that no one wanted to spend the money & time up front and you end up in court
Wow! Thanks for all the footage of such a cool operation! Those of us who had colonies of Tonka's when we were very young back in the early 70's, are frothing at the mouth. Hahaha 😁 👍👍🤣
The map you made is an awesome visual. Great work guys
Been moving dirt for 15 yrs now got my start on a Komatsu 350 digging underground utilities (storm drain, sewer) I would recommend this profession to anyone.. takes some time to learn different equipment but once you learn to respect it, it comes easy. Most companies I've work for pay great (based on exp) and it doesn't take a mind wizard, or a college degree (thank god for me 😁) to make a good living.. great video fella's
Been looking into schools for this. What would be the average pay? I see some from 17 to 33 an hr
@@Slide24 My husband has made as much as 45 an hour.
@@brandynicole857 Holy sh!t that's alot
@@Slide24 He hired in the last Month of the job. It was a lot for a Month.😁
@@Slide24 Corp of Engineers job building new levee system in southern Nebraska.
God I love the smell of a big carbon foot print in the morning
Done this kinda work my whole life. What a dream. Wow. Nice job.
Dexter Construction (Parent company is the Municipal Group Of Companies) based out of Bedford Nova Scotia is a very very large Construction company. They have their own training school for operators. Dexter is just one of several construction companies owned by Municipal Group. Worth looking into if you haven't heard of them yet :)
Glad to see a local project on the channel. Go Megasite!
Ev's looooooooooooooooooong way to go. We'll look back at today's Ev's as pre-historic.
Yep, but gotta start somewhere
Honestly this is my childhood dream to do a job like this this by far is my favorite content RUclips videos now I’m a fan mr witt
Not a current job. However do a search for the Diamond Valley Reservior project. It was completed in 2000. 60 Cat 777's. 25 Cat 785. 4 Cat 5230 face shovels. 10 Cat 992. 2 Cat 994. About 30 Cat 776 tractors pulling 75 foot Atlas bottom-dump trailers. Around 20 water trucks including 6 Cat 776's with 25,000 gallon Magnum tanks. There were more scrapers at the start of the job that I could count. Maybe 40 dozers from D8 to D10. Tracked Ingersol drill rigs. 16g to 20g graders. Check it out. It DWARFED this job! The contractor was Atkinson/Washington/Zachary (AWZ) and Morrison-Knuedsen.
Jeff I worked on Diamond Valley reservoir. I worked for Peter Kiewet for awhile operating a 777 pulling two 160 ton Athey wagons. We had Dave Holland loaders , 2 d10s one front one rear with the Holland loader in-between. It took less than 2mins. To load the 777 athey combo. Also run a Cat 825 for Granite const which was also part of this job. Teamsters, operator engineer locals 166 temo and local 12 operating eng. Dirt Daddy or Dave Hunt was day shift Sup. Also worked at around the same time in highland ca for Odebrect on the high dam. AWZ Took over that job because the Brazilians were crooked. Good times and lots of work.
It’s a lot of fun being on this project. There is always so much going on every day. There’s so much more that goes on that aaron didn’t touch a lot on but it’s not as interesting as all the big ass haul equipment. There’s sections of the job that weren’t even shown
They still need experienced equipment operators?
I’m doing pre-con on a solar farm about 45 minutes from here. Happy to finally know what this site is!
This is right around the corner from us. It's been amazing to watch this job progress. This video doesn't even take into consideration all the additional earthwork going on around the area for housing development.
This is so cool. I live right up the road from this jobsite . I had never heard of Ames before the Toyota mega site started.
I worked for Ames. Dick, Larry, Tom, all hard working great people.
Awesome
I love running D10, loading a scraper a minute, makes a day Go!!
Really appreciate the time you took to put together this 🎉
What he didn't mention is the fact that this would be IMPOSSIBLE with electric or hydrogen powered machinery. But that's what these dumb mf'ers want. No diesel.
Saw you guys out there filming(I was sitting in the tire truck at the tire pile) but had no idea what y’all were doing. Really cool to see the drone footage. Even driving around that job you can’t really get a feel for how massive it is.
How much diesel is burned at this electric car factory before they make one zero emission vehicle
"zero emission"
🤔in theory there should be electric dirt moving equipment silently scraping across the landscape saving the earth.
@@carlfalt174 that energy needs to come from somewhere as well as the heavy metals needed to produce the batteries. Yes there are renewable forms of energy but they do not produce enough to power all of our consumption. Also the energy used in heavy duty vehicles is too large for a battery to be used. You'd have to charge or replace batteries many times a day which would take way too much time and money.
There's a reason large boats and heavy machinery still operate mainly on diesel and NG, it's all about power density.
@@wonderful_ I agree. The nonsense of climate change is creating more problems than it's solving. Gas and oil forever
@@carlfalt174 getting materials to make battery’s is worse than anything on the earth but nobody will admit it money talks
The value of all that equipment totaled up is staggering. Making my head explode doing the math while watching it 🤯
Thank you and keep them coming, these are great!!!!!
thank you for watching!
Great to see all that iron working. And all those scraper's putting the hammer down. 💪💪 Good times in the dirt world 👍
Man so crazy to see all of these massive machines lined up to get filled up.
We used to have a time allocated for when the fuel truck would come through, while being fueled a grease monkey would grease the machine. Also when we came to work the mechanic would have the machine idling, so he checked all the fluids. Stevensons in New Zealand used to have the largest Caterpillar fleet in the southern hemisphere.
Now just think for a minute, could this scope of work be done with electric machines??? NO!
@@thomasdragosr.841 Electric....no problem! As long as it is diesel over electric like locomotives 😁 I thought some of the haul trucks were diesel electric. Battery powered, only in the liberals/tree huggers dreams! Hell, they don't even have an electric pickup to replace my 2500 diesel yet or a practical alternative to a 1500 pickup for towing a trailer any distance. It only works if you want a car to stay somewhat close to home or cities with a decent number of charging stations.
That's really cool that they take guys who were out of work and train them to work with that equipment, that is how they do it in the Oil Field Work and Trucking Industry too.
Aaron, i couldn't have agreed with you more on what you said about the dozers pushing having semi u blades, because there isnt many times a scraper can grab every ounce of dirt, and doing ponds and stuff its nice to be able to push them some material from the slopes
The semi U blades are adequate for pushing scrapers, the C blade or cushion dozer can do minor grading also but is less jarring and safer when you hit the dozer and don't throw the operator out of his seat:)
That’s crazy man I’m working on this job doing rock blasting the craziest job I ever seen
Just watched your video on the 797’s and will now be watching alot more. Love your vids… ignore the haters.
Haven’t you noticed he’s ignoring you hater
this is sweet, right out of highschool in 2019 before going to school to be a heavy equipment mechanic i spent 5 months at a huge potash mine near me and 5 years later i have still only ever seen this scale in mines, and it blows my mind to see maintenance yards, multiple fills etc when referring to a construction site
Awesome guys
Wow love what your doing
Yeah, definitely a lot of machines. I'm currently on a site (dirt crew) were we have 65 pieces of equipment going at any one time, and let me tell you, 4 supers are still not enough to run the show. I can only imagine a site like this, almost assembly line ish...
This is an incredible project
Thanks, first on a Terex TS-14 51 years ago, when I was 15 years old. Laborer on county road gang, ran machines when somebody needed day off. Later on pushed with D-7 dozer, no push block and blade was cracking. Can be done not bad with decent operators. Also used "helpmates". If you need help, this is one of the few things I have not gone back to, this century!
So awesome to see these young Americans out there getting it done! Super proud of all you guys!
Leave it up to those genius Japanese engineers to coordinate all of this for Toyota. Can never go wrong with a Toyota. Sell that GNC for a Toyota lol.
Appreciate the drone map! Super cool!!
Great to see other fellow EARTHMOVERS!!!
WELL DONE BOYS!!!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!!
BLUE STAR CONSTRUCTION CORP
ONTARIO, CANADA 🇨🇦
Worked as a operator for ames in the mid 2000s good company.
Cat needs to have a look at the fuelling connections that commercial aircraft use; 300 gallons a minute might be worth the cost of the fittings.
That’s awesome they have training like that I’d kill to be able to do this where I’m at, I’d love to be a heavy equipment operator and I totally understand working a shovel before I touch heavy equipment
Go ja
Look up Local 701 IUOE there is a shortage of union operators pay scales ranging from $30-52 an hour. There is a lot of variables with pay scales. But there is great benefits and good retirement.
This was a cool video. Very informative 👍👊👊
I love to see those equipment at work you are doing a wonderful job
My uncle estimated and bid that job for Ames . Heard all about this job for the last year. The relocation trucking bill just to get equipment on site for this job is Impressive alone! Go Ames !
Absolutely crazy to me I had guys talking about this job for so long, over 4,000 iron workers
Great video nice project I worked for LeTourneau in Longview Texas in the 60’s and early 70’s and we build a lot of huge earthmoving machines loved it
Love seeing Eric in these videos, still has the same personality from when we were younger 😂
Content is amazing, drone work is a value add, and the little rental car of the week makes me laugh every time. Keep it up!
thanks for watching Dylan!
TOYOTA Battery Plant - Toyota’s first North American battery plant is coming to Guilford County, North Carolina.
I seen this in person! It’s a HUGE project!
I wish I could get into on sight training operating those scrapers.
Great video! We are a podcast local to this mega site giving local residents a voice! Appreciate you shedding light on this massive project!
I think it’s crazy that they had to build a building a maintenance building and get equipment for the equipment just to build the plant underground and earth work. That’s the equivalent of the old saying there’s a line to stand in the line to get into a club. The PM for this project is so massive and this is probably just a typical day for them. I couldn’t imagine the headache the GC has to deal with plus the city and count infrastructure. Great video.
it's great to invent these amazing machines it has helped the farmers a lot
Is this site based in North Carolina by chance for a Japanese auto-manufacture? Interested as to who the drill/blast sub was for this project
This is my local!! Very cool to see this!! I’ll be out there when it’s time for cranes!!
What local is it? I'm local 25 IUOE.
Love the work you put into these videos. Big fan
Worked for Ames in Arizona on Hwy 87 project as the way master in Rye AZ. KEEP it up John.
When I learned to operate a scraper, I rode on the hood for two rounds with the side window open taking instructions from the operator…
Thats what I did too, but think the safety people would frown on that now adays
Per one of the Ames admin guys the other day they're up to 218 machines on site now. Most of the 777 are parked at the moment, it's all artics and pans right now. The big power lines on the job are down now, they've been moved over next to the railroad tracks now. They were raising the water tower when I left Friday, when I go back to work in the morning I expect to see it hanging. I'm surprised you didn't show any of our drilling and blasting assets.
How do i get certified to work on projects like these? I want to drive big machines!
@@beefcakees what certifications? Most of the country doesn't require any. Show up and be willing to start at the bottom willing to work, that's how this industry works.
Love the training very good on sight
Wow that’s organized to the T love the work
Pooler Ga has a vehicle manufacturing site in the process. Going to be huge. Im a technician for Yancey Caterpillar. We’re supposed to be supplying techs on call and a few machines. Pretty damn neat
Your talking about the Hyundai EV plant. It’s massive. Many huge projects in this area. The Port of Savannah receives and ship more vehicles than any other Port in the USA
Irony, using all these diesel powered machines to build electric car plant. I hope someday people realize we need to keep these machines around
Thank you! Wow!
I miss working on the big iron. I worked as a field mechanic in the PNW for a couple years when I got out of diesel school. Made a lot of money
Why was building pad blurred out?
After your recent insta post, this is pretty ironic 😂 All these diesel machines to produce the plants to then make the electric cars. Ain’t no way around it
Actually the largest construction project in the country is probably The Villages, Florida.
Probably 300 pieces of “yellow equipment “, working every day, for the last 5 years, and probably for the next 5 years.
Please do more shop tours and include the tools and tool boxes thanks for the great quality video
Can you do a video on how all the equipment gets there?
we have a whole video about heavy haul coming soon
As a heavy haul driver here in nyc...I approve this message lol
Now that sounds like it'll be good, hopefully scaling the weight and dealing with permits and pilot cars is a highlight, best part of the job when you get everything right on the first shot
Meanwhile in the U.K on HS2 sites - You can't even service the large excavators because of the strict H&S rules on site. Aaron is just wondering around the site lol
I wonder if that komatsu PC 1250 came from the job I was on a few years back. They had one of those at the tappan zee bridge project connecting Westchester and Rockland counties in the Hudson valley of New York.
You came by my 336 hammer. I saw the drone flying around that day. Cool video
Hilarious how hypocritical it is to burn millions of gallons of diesel to build an Electric Vehicle plant. Then burn millions of more gallons of diesel to mine the minerals needed for just one day of EV assembly. Building Back Better! 😂
So all the Democrat politicians and Republican rhinos can benefit because they own stocks and all these electric vehicle plants, There's so concerned about the environment and the climate but about fossil fuels but batteries are more harmful to the environment than fossil fuels
Took words right out of my mouth 🤣
Well unfortunately unless you have any brilliant engineering ideas this is the only way. Progress doesn't happen as fast as a tiktok video. Maybe our ancestors should have just skipped the whole wooden spears thing and just invented the rifle first. PS only idiots have the logic that you have🤦♂️
Neither h word
Diesel is the backbone of society
I think it was Dick Ames that had a big farm near my home town, sometimes I would see him in the local bar with his employees until he passed away.
Dick was a great person. I got meet him and work with him on a few small projects as an electrican in minnesota. I didn't know who he was at first I just thought he was another one of the guys by the way he talked and socialized with us
Dick Ames was (he has passsed away) a big supporter of draft horses. Did a lot for the draft horse wagon shows at the Scott County Fair in Minnesota.
You saw him BEFORE he passed away?That's the best time to do it.
Was on this site early on and counted 21 track-mounted rock drills….
My dad back in the 90s ran pan trucks to help build the HOV section of I 95 in Northern Va...if you know...the mixing bowl...you know!!!
They don’t take them apart to charge oils they have a worn or bent Pin
I agree; that comment didn't make sense to me either.
I live 20 minutes from here but haven’t been down there recently. Had no idea how big of a project it was. Hope you enjoyed NC
Wheres this at?
@@moose5.9 Just south of Raleigh NC
I live in NC and did not know this was going on, now we know where the diesel is going to cause the shortage lol !! Great show new sub!!
On site training, that's awesome!
Just found your channel. As a CAT employee in a single machine (Small Wheel Loader) facility, its cool to see all the variety. Oh and i'm here in NC as well where CAT BCP calls home.
Tech center L, here.