Masonry Magazine January 1977 Page.26
STRAPPING CONCRETE BLOCK
continued from page 13
that is entirely wrong. I can't remember picking up a load and having a strap break. The block might be broken causing the bundle to split, but it's not the strap that breaks.
Q.-What sort of increase has there been in the cost of wooden pallets over the past few years?
Bronson: The cost is at least proportional to the cost of living. We repair about 100 pallets a day the year round.
Zivkovic: One hundred pallets a day?
Bronson: That's right, we have about $90.000 to $100,000 worth of pallets at all times. One man handles the repairs, and he is getting about $15,000 a year.
Q.-What about basement block?
Bronson: I still have to put them on pallets. There could be five competitors that aren't strapping, but they are furnishing pallets. The contractor is going to buy where he can get the pallets.
Q.-Your business is 50 percent basement block, is that right?
Bronson: I would say that in the past three years, basement block has been 70 or 80 percent of our business.
Q.-Without getting committed, what does a strapping machine cost?
Zivkovic: About $44,000.
Q.-Hale, when you first started strapping block in the Chicago area, you considered that a sales advantage, didn't you?
Olson: Yes, certainly. There were two advantages-it helped me, and it helped the mason contractor.
Q.-Addressing those contractors using packaged block, if your lift equipment had multi-pronged forks and could handle block without a pallet, would you still want packaged block?
Hansen: You've still got to pick up the whole cube. I haven't figured out how to break the cube apart yet. I still have to take the block off.
Smith: And you've still got rough terrain. You're not working in a blacktopped parking lot: it's like the Rocky Mountains out there. If you don't have that load strapped together, you will lose it before you ever get it to where you want it.
Q.-Again addressing the mason contractors, since there is some cost to the manufacturer, would you be willing to pay extra for packaged block?
Dufour: In the right job, I would, if you have a job where you've got to go through doorways. You would have to do something in order to use your mechanical equipment, your small forklifts, or whatever you use. It is going to cost you either way.
Q.-Allen, would you be willing to pay extra for strapped block?
Knuth: Is it necessary to pay extra? Doesn't it cost the manufacturer to buy a pallet or to recover the pallet, return the pallet and repair it? If you eliminate the pallet and you just put a strap on there, one has got to offset the other. Why should I have to pay extra if I am going to take the package? You have to amortize the cost of your machine but you've saved something in the same package.
Dufour: I think we should clarify that our extra cost is to the manufacturer and not in the masonry unit. I would be willing to pay extra if I were in a situation where I would have to break the pallet load down myself.
Hansen: On some jobs you've got to break the load down. Sooner or later you must do a highrise or some structure where you've got to wheel those blocks. However you do it, you have to break the load down with your laborers to move the block. Then when you get them there, you've got to put the block up on the scaffold.
Q.-Actually, packaging has changed the mason contractor's business because he is now using units instead of individual pieces. We don't think in terms of one brick or one block anymore. We think of a package of brick or a package of block. From the manufacturer's viewpoint, what can the contractor do, besides buying more block, to assist you?
Vandervait: We would like to know the number of block they want and when they want them-ahead of time. We might get a call for 5,000 blocks to be delivered tomorrow, and we have only 2,500 in stock. That is the biggest complaint I have. If there is something special on the job that is needed, we would like to know ahead of time.
Q.-Jerry, when the manufacturer distributes the block on a job site on pallets where you need them, do you leave the pallets right there or do you collect them and put them in one area for collection?
Dufour: We have laborers stack the pallets up in sets of four or five. The forklift driver then picks them up and brings them to the front of the site, and perhaps the drivers will come around on the next route and return them.
Zivkovic: Does it take a lot of time?
Dufour: No. Whether we are on grade or up on scaffolds, the laborers on the scaffold will stack them up, and the forklift driver will take that group as a part of his move when he is returning.
Allen Knuth of Knuth Masonry, Inc. diagrams his block stacking pattern for the seminar participants.