Rock Hauling

all right looks like we got the start of a brand new adventure first thing we're gonna be doing is loading up some really massive boulders in that truck right there so let's get this day going so let's talk about what we're going to be doing today howdy chad i've worked with chad forever we're going to be loading up some pretty big stones bringing them up north and then doing boulder settings some boulder retaining walls and a few other things that pile in that pile over there chad what do you know it's been too long my friend it's been too long good to see you how long we work together 15 years at least let me show you what we got going on here do you mind if we do a ride along with you on the way up i don't know i got the dog i like dogs so i want to grab we don't need all of this but we're going to need a good share of it so i'm going to like some of these odd ducks here and not much i can do with some of the weird ones but we'll uh i'll just i definitely want to grab some of them oblong ones because he's got two or three really nice ones he's got one there he's got one there one over there here some of these nicer flatter ones gives me something good to work with some nice consistent shapes here and here so i will pick through these two piles till we get will you haul 24 ton a little load right yeah so we'll get we'll get at least maybe a load and a half out of this thing that'll do it [Music] i'm starting a new project up north at shangri-la and i want to use stones native to that area so i found a quarry not far from my cabin that actually had the exact material i need four five and even some six foot boulders but they were too big for the local guy to haul in his dump truck so i convinced my buddy chad to bring his cherry picker up and to load them up and haul them for me it's not very often that you see projects built with stones this big four five and six foot stones are not common in landscaping settings or retaining walls and it's not because they're not the best choice it's because of the cost of the materials here's kind of a dirty little secret that a lot of contractors don't want to share we buy these boulders by the time but most contractors charge their customers a price per square foot and you're probably scratching your head and saying well what does that even mean and i'll explain more on that in just a what year is this [Music] have you had this truck since we've started working together so now the way you work it i know these guys don't know you but chad actually buy you get the boulders up in northern minnesota about 100 150 miles from our map you bring them down and then you sleep in your truck deliver them and then go back up north that way when people need the delivery first thing in the morning you're already usually there before they're there more than once i've showed up on a job site at six seven a.m and there's chad already just waiting for me with his coffee [Applause] that's dedication now you did have a guy that was working for you too didn't you he's still with you i was going to say is that hard to keep a guy working when he's got to sleep overnight because this is not an easy lifestyle man but it's better so yeah you're over the road trucking but you at least have the ability to come home yeah yeah this might be the guy we're buying boulders from come here mike we'll be back for one more when do you want to settle up ron whatever you want [Applause] right or left take a right how long has maya been riding with you chad [Music] so the reason you don't see large boulders being used a lot in retaining walls or settings is because of the way we contractors buy them when we buy them by the ton and we sell them by the price per square foot when we buy larger boulders we're buying more weight and getting less square feet when you buy smaller stones you buy less weight and you get more square feet think of it this way when you buy one big massive stone a lot of that gets buried and never seen gets put into the bank that's why as a contractor we want bigger stones it leads to a beefier wall but that one stone may have cost us eight to nine dollars more per square foot than if we had bought small stones so more often than not you'll see the smaller stones being used but really larger stones should be used in an application now i'm not going to be building very big walls but i'm going to be using very big stones [Music] we got the rig in now we gotta get it out but chad's been driving for a while so i'm just gonna spot for him we're gonna do a 90 around this corner might be a little oh tight we'll see there we go ah he's got it [Applause] keep coming chad you're good plenty of room [Music] yeah we're good hope he remembers to give me a ride i have to go back and get my truck so why i'm holding me what's that what's the draw [Music] so you make more money now i just want to clarify for these guys you get paid by the time and are you okay with us talking some numbers with these guys yeah i mean today is just a weird thing i mean well i know you're doing it more as a favor than anything i mean i know how you operate chad but so chad buys his folders for 25 bucks a ton but he buys them up in grand rapids which is four to five hours away right yeah and i buy them from you for seven eight five is that what it gave you a ton you have roughly plus tax so chad's hauling 25 ton per load yeah we'll just say it's 25 so you're putting 50 times 25 in your pocket every day which if i know my math i don't know if this is right around a thousand two hundred fifty dollars a day you can check that for sure but you still got to put fuel in and then that's a full day's work that's a nine hour drive plus you've got to pick up the stoves and then drop them off wherever you're going so that's a 12 hour day so you're bringing in around 100 bucks [Music] an hour for you pretty much is that what you figured it out to be roughly now you guys know what i know you know you're not going to get rich but you're also not spending your life under fluorescent lights you're on the road you know he's can work when he wants to work some days as an after work some days you might have to work longer i mean it's there's good and bad to everything we do it's just about the balance what fits fits you know each and every one of us so chad sells the boulders to us by the time and we have to calculate about how many square feet of boulders we can get out of a ton of them to make sure that we're job costing correctly and when we use moderate size boulders around two footers we calculate we can get about seven square feet per ton now if we step that up and use bigger boulders then we get less square feet so the job starts to cost us more that's why you see a lot more bolder retaining walls using smaller stones than you see them using larger stones [Music] so whenever possible i'll go out and hand pick the stones tim will go out and do the same thing it's always the best if we can pick what materials we're going to be working with so you see me flitting around like a buzzy little bee what i'm actually doing is looking at each stone trying to picture how i'll place it in the final project and if i want to take it with me or not if i decide i want it you'll see me pointing it out to chad and he'll grab it and then throw it in not all the stones get picked [Music] ultimately i import two loads of stones which comes out to be about 48 tons for my upcoming project which you guys is coming up you get to see what i'm gonna be doing with these things [Music] all right you guys well we got all the boulders here but the next step is to show you guys why we hand-picked these boulders specifically so we're going to take a little bit of a hike to show you why exactly why we picked these guys out so it wouldn't surprise me at all if more than a few of you guys looked at those boulders and said those are the ugliest stones i think i've ever seen and that's okay because we are aiming for a very specific look and we need those stones to accomplishment here's the thing and there is a park and i'm going to take you there in just a moment in sandstone minnesota and it just one of my favorite places on planet earth and i just want to try try to duplicate the look and feel of what's at that park so let's go there right now check it out and then come back here and get to work [Music] so this is so cool and it's just right in my backyard in sandstone robinson park one of my favorite places to be let's do what's indigenous to this area now this has just been cast in here we still have snow holy crap that's snow this is this is the look we want right here oh see you can see that patina where the fresher stones got broken out and it changes color and then it kind of goes back so that's gonna kind of be the look that we're aiming for very natural look around see what we got here we go look at this pretty incredible isn't it you guys i just i just love exploring seeing stuff like this how beautiful is this just how beautiful i mean i know it looks chaotic but to me it just looks like mother nature's taken back over honestly know what we're gonna be able to create with what we have but that's going to start on the next video oh dirt monkey you didn't just pull that i did just pull that i'm sorry you guys this was a full video today i wanted to show you what we were going to be mocking or using as our backdrop and uh now the next phase is we get to start building hope you guys enjoyed riding along learning about the life of a rock hauler um i thought it was interesting hope you guys did as well and if you guys hit that subscribe button you're going to be able to watch us take on projects from start to finish and i'm going to be adding my commentary in there to help you guys with details so if any of you guys are ever out and about trying to figure out how to do a project on your own hopefully my videos will help you out that's our video for today you guys it's been a fun ride but it's going to get a lot more fun next time because i get to start building