"We've developed a lot of Brownfield sites, and every one of them has unveiled many twists and turns from plan," comments Joshua Adler, partner for South Plainfield, N.J.-based Adler Development. "You just have to do your best."

Adler's philosophy rang true with the recent Brownfield project at the Ecolab property in Woodbridge, N.J., as the developer and demolition contractor were at their best in clearing the site. The multi-level, 40-plus-year-old building held many secrets not discovered until actual demolition began. From the industrial-strength, concentrated cleaners and degreasers mixed at the facility to the lack of building plans, the property on Blair Road tested the experience of all involved in bringing the building down.

The residual caustic chemicals from Ecolab's cleaner product line left behind high pH levels throughout the factory, requiring an acid-based wash down of the entire facility prior to demolition. Monitoring wells had to be installed to keep an eye on downstream flow of "hot spot" areas.

The original building foundation plans were not available to demolition contractor Dallas Contracting Co., Inc. "We had no way of knowing exactly how much concrete we would find in the footings and foundations," recalls Damon Kozul, PE, vice president of operations at Dallas Contracting Co., Inc. When the crew started sizing the foundation, Kozul discovered it was much larger and more heavily reinforced than anticipated.

Built in the 1960s, the Ecolab facility encompassed 24 acres of land in the heart of Woodbridge's industrial area. Located at the port and right off the NJ Turnpike with nearby rail service, the site is a prime location for warehousing and distribution. Over the years, Ecolab built onto the original building and added multiple levels to where today's facility encompassed more than 235,000 square feet of factory and office space. With changing business priorities, the Minnesota-based company no longer required such a large space for its New Jersey operations.

Adler Development's original intention was to share the facility with Ecolab, using a majority of the space for warehousing, "[but] the building had only 19.5-foot clearance, which is not nearly high enough for today's warehousing practices," explains Adler. Additionally, the years of processing powders with pH levels reaching 16, necessary to make the industrial-strength cleaners, were eating away at sections of the building. As a result, Adler decided to demolish and build a new, modern warehouse.

Before the new facility could be built, much work had to be done to demolish the old structure and clean up the site. More than 1,000 tons of contaminated soil had to be removed for remediation, and minor building asbestos abatement was conducted by The MAC Group, LLC.

After that, all of the project's non-friable demolition work was handed over to South Plainfield, N.J.-based Dallas Contracting.

Many of the building's components including the fire pumps, generators, roll-up doors, light fixtures, and electrical equipment were salvaged and sold through Dallas Contracting's sister company, Environmental Aggregates and Surplus Equipment, LLC. According to Kozul, "the new business is a natural fit for our company. Similar to when we added our crushing and recycling services, it helps us to be more efficient and give a better value to our customer."

Dallas Contracting then brought in its heavy equipment to take down the building. Komatsu 450-7 and PC300 excavators equipped with grapple and LaBounty sheer attachments chewed away at the old structure, while front-end loaders and skid steers cleared the smaller debris. All of the salvageable steel was recycled and sold to scrap dealers.

The concrete was sorted and sized in preparation for crushing and recycling, so it could be used as fill material for the new construction. The nearly 100,000-square-foot asphalt parking lot — a late addition to the demolition contract — was also removed and recycled to make way for improved parking and loading facilities.

"Through our equipment salvage, scrap steel recycling and crushing the concrete, asphalt, masonry block, and brick, we are achieving at least a 75-percent recycling rate on the Ecolab project," claims Kozul.

By far the lion's share of the recyclable material on-site came from the concrete building and asphalt parking lot. An estimated 45,000 tons of material — 35,000 tons of concrete, masonry block and brick and another 10,000 tons of asphalt — was crushed via the company's Eagle Crusher UltraMax 1000-15CV horizontal shaft impact crushing plant.

Crushing both the concrete and asphalt materials were prime examples of the twists commonly found on this project. The larger and more heavily reinforced footings and foundations posed a challenge for the demolition crew. "On a scale of one to 10 (10 being the toughest to recycle), I would rank this a 9.5 to 10," says Carl Franzetti, site supervisor for Dallas Contracting. "This building was built like a bunker."

The foundation's construction included rebar positioned on 3-inch centers. At the height of demolition, Dallas Contracting and the crusher were churning out three to four 30-yard containers of rebar a day. "The builders went crazy with the rebar and concrete," adds Franzetti. He theorizes that the structure was overbuilt to accommodate for the site's poor soil conditions.

The oversized, overbuilt concrete foundations slowed the excavators a bit when sizing the material to 2-foot by 2-foot, but not the crushing plant. Its three-stage impact crusher's 42-inch by 32-inch feed opening crunched the steady diet of sized material fed by Dallas Contracting's crew.

The impactor's 44-inch by 41-inch solid steel rotor withstands the abuse delivered by the reinforced concrete. In tough recycle applications such as this, Dallas Contracting opts for medium chrome blow bars to offer the right balance of wear life without bar breakage. "Even when recycling this type of heavily reinforced concrete, we will get 20,000 tons out of a set of blow bars," says Kozul. The plant's in-line magnet separates the rebar from the concrete.

Switching from crushing concrete to asphalt did not pose a problem. "We just moved the conveyor, so the asphalt discharged into a separate pile," said Franzetti. Although the impactor may be able to get better wear with an Eagle Crusher high chrome blow bar when crushing asphalt, on a job this small it was more efficient to crush with the medium bars.

For the Ecolab project, the sized concrete and asphalt slabs were reduced to a 2.5-inch minus final product, fill material for the new warehouse facility. "The asphalt can be used as road base and the concrete for pipe and footings backfill," comments Franzetti.

According to Dallas' Kozul, owning a portable crushing plant like the UltraMax 1000-15CV made economic sense. Developer Adler agreed, adding: "It saves us money at both ends, first hauling the old material off-site and second bringing in new for construction. It's good for everyone involved."

"By crushing on-site, we typically save our customers $13 per ton in trucking and dumping fees associated with hauling the material to a recycling yard," claims Kozul. On a job the size of Ecolab, this adds up to more than a $500,000 savings for the customer, just on the recycling costs alone.

Another key to the savings, according to Kozul, was selecting a crushing plant that was truly portable. Dallas Contracting can move its machine on-site and be ready to crush within an hour. "We have to remind our customers that the same day we move in the plant we want to be crushing," says Kozul. With such a portable plant, Dallas Contracting can process small custom-crushing jobs as well as the large demolition projects, and it gives the company some scheduling flexibility. "When we crushed the first material stockpile at the Ecolab project, we were able to quickly move the plant and crush another job while we were waiting for the excavators to size more concrete in Woodbridge," explains Kozul.

With the Ecolab building demolition work complete, Adler Development is building its 351,000-square-foot warehouse. Thanks to a 75-percent recycle rate and the material generated by the crushing plant, the old is now a part of the new in Woodbridge. "The guys at Dallas Contracting know their craft and are good at it," says an appreciative Adler. "We look forward to working with them in the future."