(Top Left) ATE Environmental uses their Volvo EC290 to load the non-salvageable brick. (Top Right) Jesus Avalos and Bruce Lightfoot, director of fleet and equipment, ATE Environmental. (Above Right L-R) Clemente Dominguze, operator; Jorge Sandoval, laborer; Union Apprentice; Carlos Hernandez, superintendent.
In a current six-week long project, ATE Environmental is demolishing half a city block for the Los Angeles County School District. The structures on this stretch of street include four large brick buildings, homes, and a transmission shop. As is common with demolition contractors, quite a bit of these projects include recycling materials from the buildings being torn down. Once the brick buildings are down, ATE Environmental hires crews to come in, clean the mortar off the bricks and pallet them. The older bricks are very popular and people “buy them like crazy” says Lightfoot.
He explains that, “A fundamental part of any bid we do is figuring out how much of the material from the demolition can be recycled. The more material we can recycle, the more cost effective we can be.”
All the metal, including the rebar from the concrete footings is salvaged and sold. Once the rebar is separated from the concrete, the concrete is crushed and taken to the dump. The company also recycles the larger pieces of wood. For example one of the homes has a larger size roof, which was framed with 2x12s. The 2x12s are shipped to Tijuana, Mexico, sold, and used to build homes.
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Non-salvageable brick. |
One of Lightfoot’s responsibilities for ATE Environmental is overseeing equipment purchases and maintenance. Several pieces of Volvo’s equipment he’s purchased in the last year from Mathews Machinery are being used on these projects. ATE has both a Volvo EC210B and EC290B crawler excavator. The 290 has a pulverizer attachment that the company has used on the concrete footing in this project. The 210 has a maximum digging depth of 22 feet 1 inch, while the 290 has a maximum depth of 24 feet. According to Volvo’s website, their crawler excavators are “among the fastest and most powerful excavators in the world.” Volvo’s hydraulic quick fit makes changing the bucket or tools on one of their excavators an easy task.
ATE Environmental also recently purchased both a Volvo EC15 mini excavator with a hammer attachment used for interior work, and a L120E Volvo wheel loader.
“We now have the capabilities to do, demolition of anything from the interior of a closet to full city blocks and rough or finish grading along with abatement,” Lightfoot says.
Every piece of equipment the company has purchased is well used. ATE Environmental, which employees 80 people, is currently working on 20 projects of varying sizes. Projects as small as interior demolition, like removing doors and windows, up to a project they are currently bidding on at Los Angeles National Airport, which includes hard demolition on parts of the terminal.
They have recently begun doing grading work, using some of their new equipment on these projects. The grading jobs often go hand-in-hand with demolition,” Lightfoot explains. “Demolition generally takes place so that something new can be built.” Once we take the site down to the dirt pad, it makes sense that we be able to grade it so that new construction can take place.”
With the addition of new services, the company has repositioned many of its employees to operate the new equipment. The newer equipment operators work with the experienced operators to learn the controls, and then get on-the-job experience.
“We sent some of our guys to Mathews to be trained on the new excavators,” Lightfoot says. “Dan McCausland at Mathews has been very helpful in both putting deals together for us on new equipment and giving us leads on other pieces of equipment and parts.”
One of the challenges ATE faces is working through the learning curve of adding new services. Each project the company completes teaches them something new. A recent project in Linwood involved clearing two city blocks so that a park could be built. One of the buildings being demolished was an old church with a steeple. Demolishing the steeple was a challenge because there was a sidewalk on one side, and a power pole on the other side.
Because ATE Environmental is usually the first contractor on a project, it’s important for them to get in and out, and maintain the timing of the project. “We need to get the job done and done correctly,” says Lightfoot.
With so many projects in the works for the company right now, one of the biggest challenges is to make sure the equipment gets to the people who need it, when they need it. Everyone working in ATE’s front office keeps things running smoothly.
ATE Environmental prides itself in providing customer service that is complete. The company maintains a point of contact with the customer throughout the project, either with the estimator or the project manager. Whether the projects go smoothly or not, the company is known for following through with each project to the very end.
For more information call (626) 336-0094. CC
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