Masonry Magazine March 1968 Page. 5
MC AA
Data
Sheet
No. 1
All-Weather Program
MUD
The Curse of
Construction Jobs
By M. J. O'Brien, President
Marblehead Lime Company
A Subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation
For the mason contractor, there are few construction situations with more far-reaching problems than mud. Material deliveries are stalled. Crews and expensive equipment (scaffolding, hoists, etc.) idled. The job slowed to a crawl, or stopped entirely.
Sometimes the general contractor will do something about a mud-hole job-site, rather than wait days or weeks for the mud to dry up. He might dig out all the mud and replace it with sound, dry material. Or, he might choke up the site with huge quantities of solid fill of some sort. Both these measures are very expensive, of course, and hence are frequently avoided.
Increasingly, the more progressive general contractors are solving mud problems by the simple, effective and economical method of spreading ordinary mason's lime over the mud, working it in, and letting the lime dry up the moisture.
masonry
March, 1968
Lime has a natural affinity for moisture, and will quickly take up the moisture present in the soil, and accelerate its evaporation. With the moisture gone, the soil again becomes dry and stable, and construction can proceed.
On a job which is held up by mud, and where the general contractor does nothing to correct the problem, it behooves the mason contractor to consider drying up a portion of the site himself, for his own benefit. What he needs, of course, is a dry, hard roadbed for his own and his suppliers' trucks to reach the area where his crew is working.
As a progressive mason contractor, he will already have bagged masons' lime on the job, or easy access to a supply of it. All he has to do is break open some of these bags and spread the lime over the muck. As the soil begins to solidify, laborers with hoes or shovels can level the deepest ruts; a truck can then run back and forth over the area to compact it. Presto! the job can proceed.
During the recent construction of a large new building at Caterpillar Tractor Company's Aurora, Illinois (Please turn page)
5