Tips For Maintaining A Jobsite

Words: David Barnes, Justin Whitman, Joseph Burns, Gregg Hodgson

Jobsite Maintenance is not something that many people like to talk about. Most people want to know when the job is going to start. What is the lead time to get the material that is specified? Who is the general contractor, and are they good to deal with? How is production going? Are we making money, and finally, how does it look, and are they happy with our work? I am sure jobsite maintenance does come up, but personally speaking, it is seldom the topic of conversation. However, jobsite maintenance can affect a lot of factors and outcomes with the typical questions or topics of conversation that I just mentioned.

If I were to think of starting a job, my first thought is, how are we going to access our work? Is the site a muddy mess, or does the general contractor have a maintained road around the project? Is there a slab that we can work on, or are we laying out in a mud hole because the general contractor did not want to grade away the soil, as the first foot of our work is going to get covered up anyway? The maintenance of the access and base of the wall for us to get started is important. Not having a level ground to stand on can create lots of problems. For instance, injuries. If we are working in a mud hole, you can be setting yourself up for slips and trips, which most of the time lead to some sort of injury. These injuries can be expensive, which again takes us back to the question: Are we making money? Like I said before, jobsite maintenance is not always the first thing that comes to mind, but it can affect a lot of factors and outcomes that we as mason contractors can face.

Another thing that I think about is how much material I have and whether it is going to be enough to finish the project. From an estimator’s point of view, they would say, “I have more than enough in the bid.” The project manager is going to tell you, “I did a takeoff and came up with the same thing that the estimator did.” With that being said, you would think that we would have enough material to do this job. However, there are many instances that can cause us to not have enough material. I would say that one of them is jobsite maintenance. Yes, I know you are starting to see a pattern here. Well, when you unload your material and place it in its designated area, your cubes of brick or block should always be stored on a level area. When they are placed on an unlevel surface, this can cause the cubes to settle, which subsequently can damage the brick/block. This goes back to the maintenance of the jobsite. We must insist on adequate storage areas for our material. We might not always get how much area we want, but at a minimum, they should be fairly level to protect the product.

Something else that comes to mind is all of the bits and pieces of material that we have all over the project. I sometimes think to myself and say, “How did that get there?” Well, I can tell you that a lot of the time we are so focused on production and getting it done that we rush through activities. One of these activities would be moving the scaffold. I have seen it time and time again where we have left over materials on the scaffold after topping a wall out, and they were not placed on a pallet and moved but dumped off of the scaffold because the operator was in his zone and was too busy taking care of where the operation and focus of the job had moved to. He did this instead of taking the time to place a pallet to gather the anchors, unused bricks/blocks, expansion joint material, etc. The scaffold builders kick it off the scaffold to complete their task without thinking about their actions. What could happen? We could run short on brick/block, run out of anchors, or have a trip or fall because of the material that was discarded in this manner. I know you see the pattern now: Jobsite maintenance does matter.

So now that we have a few examples of how jobsite maintenance can affect a project, how can we avoid these examples? Well, the first example was the access around the project. If you have something like this picture on the left, you need to have a serious conversation with your general contractor about getting started so they can get it ready for you and make it like this picture on the right.

Talk to the superintendent. If they are a good superintendent, they will generally help you. What else have we touched on? We talked about jobsite storage. This is a rare photo of everything being ideal: level, accessible, and clean. However, on occasion, we do get these jobs where the site is immaculate. Remember, if we take care of the material from the time it hits the jobsite until all the material is put in place and washed down, we do not have to worry about acquiring more. Purchasing more than the estimator had in the bid is never a good thing.

The last thing that we talked about we briefly touched on: utilizing everything that we take at the jobsite. Do not discard your anchors, bricks/blocks, 16’ boards. You might need them. If you come across a cube of brick that has a lot of chippage, call your manufacturer. Let them look into the matter. They might be able to get you a replacement cube. If they were to come and look at the jobsite, I can guarantee that they will be looking at the access road, storage area, and the cleanliness of the jobsite. If they see that you have bricks tossed everywhere, they are not going to help you out in this situation. You will be spending money to replace what you neglected.

Wrapping jobsite maintenance up in a nutshell, you can make or break a job by how you keep and maintain your jobsite. A bad access road to your work could mean damaged products. Last time I checked, none of our telehandlers had a nice suspension. A muddy work area could mean an increased possibility of injury. Poor site storage could mean that you will have an increased material waste factor. Not keeping up with your scrap materials until you are done with the project could mean purchasing more material. What do all these things have in common? If you neglect jobsite maintenance, you neglect the bottom line. Don’t neglect your jobsite maintenance.

Tips For Maintaining A Jobsite

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