Precision...........

I'm putting up a new shop building, 30' x 48'.

The site needed leveling so I called my cousin who has an earthmoving business 3 miles from me. One of his sons came down to look things over, and we decided besides the leveling to build it up 6" above grade.

Next day, he came down with one of the big earthmovers with engines on both ends. Got the dirt from elsewhere on the property and did the job, with 10' extra on each of the four sides.

Today a rep from where I'm buying the building came out to stake it out, and in the process we shot it with a transit. There was less than 2" variation between the four corners of the building.

And all my cousin's son used was that big earthmover. I get the feeling he's done it before.

Sounds like he is a damn good operator!

Smart man, you'll always be glad it's built up above grade.

Sounds like he was running a scraper. One thing I have found over the years in talking to contractors that run scrapers, they either have an operator or a lever puller....and real operators are getting hard to find. Sounds like this guy was pretty good.

I'm hauling dirt,too! What kind/brand of bulding did you go with?

It's amazing how accurate they can level things now days. Most farmland around here is precision graded now. They put up to 160 acres at a time on a grade and it won't be off over a couple of inches.

My dad had an earthmoving business when I was growing up. Getting a building pad level to within an inch or two was normal business, and not as difficult as you might think using big scrapers. What's more important, however is the grade around the building. Many times he would have to redo a job where another contractor had "leveled" the site, leaving no grade for drainage. It's no fun grading a site AFTER the building is up.

Although a building pad needs to be level within a couple of inches from end to end, a terrace needs to be level within a few inches over a half mile or more. It takes a very good level just to shoot to this accuracy; most contractor's levels aren't up to the job. We used a quite expensive Leitz autolevel.

Goose it does sound like he has done that once or twice maybe. haha

Cleary. They're based in Verona, Wisconsin, but they have a sales facility in Roca, NE about 30 miles from me.

I checked with Astro and several other majors, and for an identical building Cleary was about two thousand cheaper.

Plus their salesman seemed more personable, knowledgeable, and interested in doing business than the rest. He has a 30" computer screen on the wall of his office, and sitting at his computer he can design the building and show it on the screen on the wall. He can change colors, move doors around, etc. and take a walkaround view right on the screen in his office. Add and subtract features, and his computer tracks the final price accordingly.

By contrast, all the Astro salesman did was scribble a few notes on the back side of a used piece of paper and send me a bid. And I never did get a response from Morton.

Cleary is a pretty good building from the ones I have seen. I am still waiting since 8-2011 for a call from Morton and my dad stopped into their office in person! A buddy just priced a Morton and it was $80,000 more than the others. I'm sure I would not pay that much for thier tag on the building......

(quoted from post at 22:55:11 12/13/12) Smart man, you'll always be glad it's built up above grade.

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Truer words never spoken. Seems like the norm is to scrape off grass,put up some string and form the foundation. 6 months later the owner notices water ponding around the building and starts spreading top soil around the building which soon has the slab level with surounding grade leaving no where to go as long as the building stands. Same applies to driveway construction.
Not to miniumize the value of experienced operators but my nephew shoots a site with equipment that alows him to put the information on his laptop which in turn is programed into onboard devices of dirt moving equipment as large or small the job requires as well as send plan to inspectors,engineers ect.Operator follows instruction on a screen as the site is prepared. As it stands,it is getting increasingly difficult for contractors to have thier bid considered unless they have a similar system because the people who work for the client (largly government) can't interpit manual plans or information. Nephew says they actualy don't understand either type information but they can e-mail this stuff around to enough different people that noone has to be responsiable for mistakes or overlooked issues.