- [Radio] Five, four,
three, two, one.
(limestone exploding)
- And just like that,
(upbeat rock music begins)
another perfectly good camera
makes the ultimate sacrifice
for another outstanding
episode of How America Works.
Our camera, by the way,
was crushed by several
tons of falling limestone.
Limestone is a key
ingredient of cement.
Cement is a key
ingredient of concrete.
And concrete, of course,
is a key ingredient
of civilization.
In the entire
history of the world,
no other construction material
has rivaled the impact
of concrete on humanity,
nothing else even comes close.
So tonight's episode starts
with a really big bang
that led to a really big
boom, a construction boom,
that laid the
foundation, literally,
for How America Works.
(workers chattering)
If ever there was a topic
to pour over, as it were,
it's concrete.
And it's because this
simple blend of stone, sand,
and water, in the
proper proportions,
can shape some of the most
awe-inspiring structures
known to man,
skyscrapers, bridges,
and the countless
other immovable objects
that surround our
everyday lives.
Small wonder then
that concrete is also
the most widely used manmade
product on the planet,
with American consumption
tipping the scales
at nearly 300,000 tons a day.
Lately though,
what with building booms
kicking off nationwide,
the demand for
this all-important
construction material
is skyrocketing,
which some might
call a good problem
if you're one of the 2000+
concrete manufacturers
across the country.
But that kind of demand
comes with no small
amount of challenges.
(cement dripping)
Take GCC's plant in Southern
Colorado, for instance,
where workers are
cranking 24/7/365
to create one of concrete's
main ingredients, cement.
Yeah, there's a difference
between concrete and cement
and where once this
facility shipped out
4,000 tons of it a day,
they're now racing to make that
a far more ambitious 5,500 tons.
(limestone explosions)
And at the forefront
of that mission,
aside from 17 tons
of expl*sives,
are guys like Heavy Equipment
Operator, Anthony Jones.
- [Anthony] Gonna be
cruising down here
soon start crushing some
limestone for the plant up there
to make some cement.
So get to play in the mud today.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] For that,
Anthony will be operating
one of his favorite toys,
this 80-ton wheel loader,
which can feed freshly
blasted limestone
into the plant's resident
crusher like nobody's business.
- All these boulders and
all these bigger rocks
that we have in the blast,
we'll wind up taking
it and scooping it up.
Just don't want any of
it to fall down on you
and it can crush you
or come into your cab.
Watch your mirrors and make
sure everyone's outta your way.
Make sure no one's behind
you and roll on off.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
Limestone like this
will comprise 85% of the
cement made here today.
So it's on Anthony
and his colleagues
to haul and crush 10,000 tons
of it before quitting time.
- [Anthony Voice Over] We
are getting busier and busier
each year that I've been here.
It seems like we just
keep producing more
and more each year
and it's just crazy how the
world needs that much cement.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
He's not kidding you know.
Over the past decade,
the demand for cement
has risen by more than
50% in the United States.
But meeting that demand
comes at a price,
because when working with a
material as tough as limestone,
even a crusher as
advanced as this one
could occasionally
get all choked up.
(crusher steaming)
(buzzer alarm sounding)
- See up there?
You can see the belt that's
on the outside of the belt.
It shouldn't be like that.
It needs to be on the
inside of the belt.
So all this rock,
including all this,
should not be here.
(rocks falling)
All of this is
sh**ting out right now.
We have the call control room,
see if they get maintenance
down here to give us a hand.
But this is definitely
something that could hurt us.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] While
Anthony and his colleagues
call for help two miles away,
the limestone they've
harvested, so far,
is steadily feeding
into GCC's main facility
where keeping an eye
on the whole operation
falls to Control Room Leader,
d*ck Federico.
(music stops)
- This is pretty much where
all of the action happens.
We monitor everything
from the quarry
and on through to the raw mill.
And then from there, we're gonna
go over to the finish mill.
The finish mill is what actually
makes the final product.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
It's a lot to keep tabs on,
but here's, roughly,
how the process of
making cement happens.
(soft tense music begins)
First, you need a
whole lotta limestone,
along with some sand and clay.
Then those ingredients are
crushed into a fine powder
before being fed
through a preheater,
followed by a 3000 degree kiln.
That kiln will melt
the material down
into marble-sized ba*ls
known as 'clinker,'
which is ground, once
more, into a fine powder
along with a hefty
dose of gypsum.
Now you've got cement,
which can be mixed
with gravel, sand,
or any number of other
fillers to form concrete.
That's how it should go
anyway. (machine whirring)
- Look at this right here.
(machine alarm beeping)
- [Crew Member] Oh man.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] But already,
there seems to be a problem
somewhere in the system.
- You see how the
pressure's all dropped?
Yeah, look at that, look
at the tower pressures.
If you look at this
graph right here,
normally, this trend line
is gonna be fairly flat.
When you see this, you
see this sharp drop off,
usually that's an indicator
that something is plugged up
in the preheater tower.
(air whooshing)
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] That tower
is a nine-story tall structure,
designed, as the
name might suggest,
to preheat raw materials before
they're fed into the kiln.
And when it becomes clogged,
the whole operation can
grind to a standstill,
but not if d*ck can help it.
- [d*ck Voice Over] We
are in a sold out market.
This plant is completely
sold out this year
and next year as well.
So any time that we have
any kind of hiccups,
any kind of issues like this,
we try to really focus
all of our attention,
all of our efforts,
to make sure that we keep
everything running as it should.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] In this case,
d*ck will enlist the help
of his colleague, Doug,
to sort out the issue
before it's too late.
But since temperatures
around the preheater
can easily exceed 200 degrees,
hot enough to boil water,
they'll first need to don
some special equipment.
- So this here is
our silver jackets.
These jackets are designed
for high temperature.
These are crucial to
do this job safely.
This can be an especially
dangerous and hot job,
one that, obviously,
is not a lotta fun,
but it's very necessary.
You ready?
- [Doug] Okay.
(upbeat rock music begins)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] While
d*ck and Doug make their way
up to the preheater,
further down the line,
GCC's resident kiln is
churning out hot clinker
at a rate of 100 tons per hour.
But to do that, it needs
a steady supply of fuel,
and making sure that
happens, among other things,
is the job of Process
Attendant, Cody Wiant.
(rock music stops)
(gentle upbeat music begins)
- [Cody Voice Over] Okay, so
we're gonna hop in this loader.
We're gonna go over
to alternative fuels.
Alternative fuels are an
important part of the process
because it provides the
heat for the preheat tower.
What we use here at GCC,
is railroad ties that
have been shredded
and tires that
have been shredded.
So it's actually better
for the environment
because instead of them just
ending up in a landfill,
they run 'em through a shredder
and they're replacing the coal.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
By basically burning trash,
this facility can reduce
their coal consumption by 25%,
but like most things here,
the fuel intake system
needs regular check-ins.
- Each one of these belts
has little paddles set up
and that actually
grabs the material,
whether it be the wood
chips or the tires,
and just pushes it along.
(upbeat rock music begins)
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] For the moment,
everything seems to be
in working order here,
leaving Cody to check on another
more troublesome part of
the kiln, the ash output.
- [Cody Voice Over] Our
bottom ash is a wet material
and these bins are metal.
This material, specifically,
likes to get real sticky
and bind to the
sides of this bin,
and it'll be real hard and it
will not fall on the belts.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] And on inspection,
it appears this ash is doing
just what Cody doesn't want.
- So as you can see,
we have zero material
on the bottom ash belt.
And they can see that up there,
so they're not getting
what they're calling for
for the chemistry.
We need to get it going so
we can keep this raw mill up.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
It's not a stretch to say
that concrete is a huge part
of civilized life as we know it.
After all,
it's one of the most consumed
resources in the world,
second only to water.
But just how much
of it do we use?
Well, in a typical year,
just the United States
will mix and pour
more than a hundred
million tons of it,
or enough to build
18 Hoover Dams.
But with construction
surging across the country,
the demand for America's
top building material
is fast on the rise,
which for plants like
GCC's in Southern Colorado,
means they'll need to
grind, fire and ship
a record 5,500 tons of
cement before day's end.
But right off the bat,
Process Attendant, Cody Wiant,
has a big ash
problem on his hands,
'cause the system
responsible for removing it
from the resident
kiln has clogged up.
- [Cody Voice Over] The
reason why that's urgent
is because the computers know,
"Hey, I've been
running this long,
haven't been getting
any bottom ash."
It will shut down.
If that shuts down, that
whole group shuts down,
then you have to take
the whole mill down.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
Fortunately for Cody,
clogs like these
are usually nothing
a few swings from a
sledgehammer can't clear up.
(sledgehammer pounding)
- We're starting to get a
little bit of material coming
from me smacking
it with a sledge.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
But by the look of it,
there's still some
blockage left.
So for a tougher
clog like this one,
Cody will need to
break out the big g*ns,
a pair of air cannons
loaded with 90 psi each.
- If you look up there
above the scaffolding,
that's the air cannons.
When these air cannons hit,
it sends a blast of
air down that pipe,
hits the material and then,
hopefully, frees it up.
So as I pop these open,
each one of those is gonna fire.
(air hissing)
So that's one fire.
There's the second one.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
All that's left now,
is to check and see if the
air cannons did their job.
- And as you can see,
material's nice and
full as it should be.
Yep, everything looks good.
(door slamming)
Gonna be moving
onto the next call.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
Back out in the quarry,
Heavy Equipment
Operator, Anthony Jones,
is dealing with mechanical
issues of his own,
specifically, a rock crusher
that's down for repair.
That doesn't mean
he can't move some
product in the meantime.
- We can head over here and
we can haul some limestone
that we already have crushed
and haul it to the finish mill.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] And
since there's not much else
for him to do at the moment,
Anthony will chauffeur this
load to the mill, himself.
- Usually, we have
to haul around
anywhere from 9
to 10 loads a day
of just limestone
addition for these guys.
The limestone here
is what they mix with
the clinker that's already made
right before it's
sent to shipping.
It'll all get
ground up together.
And so, that's why they need us
to haul this
limestone up to them.
(machine whirring)
That's where it should go.
That's the end of the line.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] Not far away,
at the top of GCC's
nine-story preheater,
Control Room Leader,
d*ck Federico,
and his partner,
Doug, are on the hunt,
because somewhere in
this sweltering labyrinth
of hoppers and pipes,
there's a clog.
And if it's not cleared
in the next 30 minutes,
the whole operation will
have to be shut down.
- Okay Doug,
(music stops)
we're gonna start right here.
We're gonna start
opening up some ports.
We're gonna start
up here at the top,
start working our way down,
see if we can't find the plug.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] For d*ck and Doug,
finding the plug straight away
would be the best
case scenario by far.
Not only because it's critical
to keeping the
preheater running,
but also because the ambient
temperature here is 150 degrees
and it only gets hotter
the further down they go.
(metal clanking)
- [d*ck Voice Over] So we're
gonna stick bars in there,
feel around to see if we
feel any kind of a blockage,
any kind of anything.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] But apparently,
this is not their lucky day.
- [d*ck Voice Over] Doug,
I'm not feeling anything yet.
Let's bring our
hammer and our bar,
start working our way down.
Preheater plug's
gonna be very tricky.
They can be from several
different things,
and it is hard work
to find the plug.
- [Doug Voice Over] Oh, I'm
still not feeling anything.
- [d*ck Voice
Over] Come on Doug.
- [Doug Voice Over]
You feel that?
It's hotter every time.
- [d*ck Voice Over] All right,
let's take a look at
this one right here.
(tapping)
Nope.
- [Doug Voice Over]
Okay, we're going lower.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] Unfortunately,
for d*ck and Doug,
there's not much
lower they can go.
- [d*ck Voice Over] We're
gonna have to go to five up.
- [Doug Voice Over] (bleep)
man, it's gonna get bad now.
- [d*ck] Stage five is
the lowest of the vessels.
Right before we actually
hit the feed shelf,
the internal temperatures reach
about 880 degrees Celsius,
so well over 1600
degrees Fahrenheit.
Welcome to hell, Doug.
- [Doug] Here we go.
(metal clanking)
Still not feeling anything.
- [d*ck] Let's go one more time.
- [Doug] Okay.
(metal clanking)
I'm not feeling it.
It's not here.
Argh!
There's only one
place it can be.
- Yeah, we're gonna move
down to the feed shelf.
So it's pretty much one of
the worst case scenarios
we could have.
We're down at the feed shelf
is where the plug is at.
You've got extreme heat from
the kiln, material flying.
It could be pretty tricky.
That being said,
we're gonna get on it.
(upbeat rock music begins)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] It
takes quite the workforce
to keep concrete flowing
(truck back-up alarm beeping)
into our everyday lives.
In all, about half a million
men and women operating mines,
mills, mixers,
and massive construction
projects across the country,
and pumping an
annual $50 billion
into our economy as they go.
But with building booms spurring
demand like never before,
the 2000 concrete
manufacturers of our nation
are working harder than ever
to ensure there's
enough to go around.
For GCC's plant in
Southern Colorado,
that means belting out an
uncanny 5,500 tons of cement
before quitting time comes.
But to make that quota,
Control Room Leader, d*ck
Federico and his partner, Doug,
will first need to find a clog
somewhere in the
plant's preheater,
a clog that if left unaddressed,
could shut down the
whole operation.
So having checked
everywhere else,
d*ck and Doug head to
the belly of the beast
in the hopes that
the issue lies there.
- Okay, here we are at the kiln,
and that kiln right there raises
the temperature down here,
a good 50 to a
hundred degrees hotter
than most of the other areas.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
And with that temperature
now reaching 200 degrees,
it's imperative that d*ck
and Doug locate the clog
and clear it fast.
(upbeat rock music begins)
- [d*ck] Let's go over to
this door over here, Doug.
There it is.
Okay, we're gonna go through,
we're gonna bar through this.
(metal clanking)
Starting to see a little
bit of day light there.
Okay, we made some progress,
but we still don't have it.
But there's still a
considerable amount
that's further down
on the feed shelf.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
Having done all they can
with a steel rod,
the guys turn to an air lance
to clear the rest
of the blockage.
- So the air lance is gonna
be a long tube, basically.
It's a long steel tube.
We hook pressurized
air up to it.
The pressure of the air
should help to break up the the
clog that we have down there
and therefore
clearing this plug.
- Let's go ahead
and get this open.
(metal clanking)
Can you gimme a
little bit of air?
(fire sizzling and crackling)
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] But even when hit
with a hundred psi,
this clog is proving
tougher than expected.
- Unfortunately, we still have,
we still got a pretty large
chunk down at the bottom.
I hate to say this,
I think we're gonna have
to bring out the big g*ns.
(upbeat rock music begins)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] As
you may have noticed by now,
making material
as tough as cement
isn't just hard on
the workers here,
it's also hell on the machinery,
which isn't ideal
when you're trying to run a
round-the-clock operation.
But if everything keeps
cranking as it should,
it'll be in no small part
because of guys like
Millwright's, Billy Bloesser,
whose soul purpose here
is doing whatever it takes
to avoid even the
shortest of shutdowns.
- One thing about this job,
is you never know what you're
gonna come into every day.
You could have a slow
day looking at stuff,
or you could have a fire that's
gotta get out immediately
and get something
running, never know.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] For the moment,
Billy's headed to the
plant's finish mill
where rough chunks of clinker
are crushed into final product
to conduct the near daily task
of ensuring it's in top form.
- We look for wear, any holes,
bad splice, bad rollers,
anything that can take us down.
And all belts have at least
one splice that's
usually a problem area.
Check that and make sure
it's not coming apart.
Splice is good.
Checking oil lines, make
sure they're not leaking,
getting flow.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] So far,
everything seems to
be in working order,
but on checking some bolts,
Billy is quick to spot a
red flag or two, or three.
- Bolts, now all
these should be tight,
torqued up, secure.
That's from getting ran hard
to the ground right there,
gettin' beat up.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
The occasional loose bolt
is bound to come up
every now and then,
which is why Billy always
keeps an impact wrench
at the ready.
- Sometimes you need a
little love get on here.
(impact wrench clacking)
All right.
Tight.
(impact wrench clacking)
Looks all tight.
I think we'll get by
till the next time.
Let's keep an eye on
it though to be sure.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] While
Billy goes about his rounds
further down the
production line,
at the very end of it, actually,
another of GCC's employees
is managing machinery
of a different kind.
The 1200 rail cars used to
load and haul finished cement
to customers nationwide.
All under the watchful
eye of Terminal Operator,
Gabriel Champion.
- We're in charge of
loading all the cement.
We have to make sure
everything's intact,
all the rail cars and stuff
are in good condition.
We have to keep up on
all the maintenance,
make sure that silo
and all the parts that go into
unloading cement properly,
all that's running efficiently.
And that that happens
24/7/365 days a year.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] And
since, for the time being,
all looks as it should,
Gabriel turns focus
to filling his first
rail cars of the day.
(horns blaring)
- Right now, we're
pulling up the empties
out the back of the
back of the locomotives.
We're staging 'em up on the
scales to begin loading.
So right now, just
opening up the hatch
so I can set the spout
in to begin loading.
Got to position it right.
So now I'm gonna head
back into the silo office
and start loading.
(music stops)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] In all,
Gabriel can load about 75
tons of cement every hour.
But as he knows all too well,
that's still not enough to
meet the current demand.
- As fast as we can make it,
that's as fast as the
customers are buying it,
so we have to ensure
that everything goes
as smooth as possible.
And right now,
it actually looks like scale
seven is starting to slow down.
I'm gonna have to step outside
really quick and take a look.
Yeah, there's no
cement in the spout.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] It's no secret
that concrete is the preeminent
building material today,
but what does it
bring to the table
that other building
materials don't?
Turns out quite a bit,
starting with the cost.
For the relatively low price
of about 50 bucks a ton,
you've got a product that won't
rust, won't rot, won't burn,
a product that'll insulate you
from the heat, cold,
wind and sound.
A product that can be poured
into any shape or
size imaginable.
You can even build with it
under water if you want.
But perhaps the greatest
thing about concrete
is that because its
ingredients are so common,
it can be made just about
anywhere in the United States.
Take GCC's cement plant in
Southern Colorado for instance,
where nationwide building booms
are spurring 90+ employees
to ship a record
5,500 tons today.
But as Terminal Operator,
Gabriel Champion, can attest,
that's a tough quota to meet
when you've got a rail car
loader that's refusing to load.
So he's headed to what's
known as a 'screen gate,'
where the culprit
can usually be found.
- Essentially,
there's just a gate
that catches the cement powder.
If there's any chunks or any
sort of debris blocking it,
it could stop flow.
And right now, it looks
like there is a few,
so that's what we're getting.
So right now, I'm
just cleaning this out
just so we could
continue to get the flow
into the rail car that we need.
We have to catch this
now because if we don't,
the little problem, just
like the simple chunk,
could actually
cause a big problem
for the customer
when they unload it.
Alrighty, that should be good.
I'm gonna go ahead
and close this up.
We're gonna step back down
and see if that did it.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
To find out for sure,
Gabriel heads back
to the loading spout
and listens for the tell tale
sounds of flowing cement.
- Yeah, so that
looks like it worked.
We're gonna step back
in the silo office
and check the computer
and make sure everything's
working properly.
Right now, it looks like
everything's working good.
Looks like we're getting
flow back up into the car.
Looks like that fixed the issue.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] While
Gabriel gets back to loading
rail cars out in the quarry,
things are also looking up
for Heavy Equipment Operator,
Anthony Jones, who after
several hours of busy work
has just gotten word that
the plant's rock crusher
is finally back online.
- Now we can head
back in our loader
and get over there to the
crusher and finish off the dome.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
But as Anthony's colleagues
in the control room are
quick to point out
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
They'll need to work fast.
- Oh yeah.
(walkie trilling)
We can definitely get caught up.
- All right, we're
back in business.
First bucket can go back in
the crusher here. Here we go.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] One
down, half a dozen to go,
which for a guy like
Anthony, should be no sweat.
He's practically been doing this
since before he could see
over the steering wheel.
- [Anthony Voice Over]
And when I was a kid,
my dad, my grandpa
would be in dozers
and after school
that's what I would do.
I would go play in the dirt,
I'd watch them run
equipment all day,
or I'd sit on the
side of the dozer,
in the old ones with my dad.
Just one day I am gonna do this,
let alone did I
know I'd be running
something triple as big as that.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
And with another 10 tons
of limestone now working
its way through the crusher,
Anthony can finally finish
his day on a high note.
- Alright, we had
a great day today.
Fell behind just a little bit,
but got caught back up.
Ready to get outta here
and go home, relax and
Just ready to go.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] Meanwhile,
not far from GCC's preheater,
Control Room Leader, d*ck
Federico, and his partner, Doug,
still have a stubborn
clog on their hands.
One that could shut down the
whole works any minute now.
So as a last resort,
they've come here to
construct what's known
as a 'car docks blaster.'
- Over here, these are
the car docks tubes.
Once they're built,
what we're hoping to do is
we're gonna sh**t it right out
where we know that
we have the plug
with the high pressure
gases coming out of it.
We're hoping that the percussion
and the actual
pressure from the gas
will dislodge our plug
and be able to keep going.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] Car
docks blasters like this one
can deliver 20,000
psi in a single go,
which should be more than
enough to clear the clog,
that is, once it's all
charged. (machine whirring)
- We're charging the tube
up right now with CO2.
This is what gives us
the pressure inside.
(machine alarm beeping)
Okay, get ready Doug.
- [Doug] Ready.
- All right, let's do it.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] Blasters in tow,
all that remains is to
head back to the preheater
with fingers firmly crossed.
- If we don't get
this plug cleared now,
it will be time to
shut down the plants,
so it's do or die.
(metal clanking)
We're gonna insert
the car docks tube
into the actual port now.
- Okay.
- Think we're locked.
Here you go.
Ready?
- Okay.
- Fire in the hole.
(expl*si*n)
Okay, let's get a bar and check.
I think we got it.
Come in, control.
- Yeah, you guys are
seeing what I'm seeing.
10-4. Doug, we got it.
(high fiving)
Good job.
Minutes before we
were gonna go down.
What a relief.
We stuck with it.
We made it happen
and, ultimately,
we kept everything going
and we did it safely.
Again,
great job.
- I'm gonna go to Disneyland.
(laughing)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] It's
easy to take everyday things
like concrete for granted.
I mean, it has literally
been holding up civilization
since the Roman Empire,
but what if it didn't?
Well, hopefully,
(playful music begins)
you'd like driving
on dirt roads.
No wait, you need concrete
plants to make automobiles too,
so make that walking
on dirt roads.
Wanna cross a river?
Not without a bridge you don't.
How about building a house?
Sure, you could use
brick or lumber,
but without a foundation
be ready to watch it topple.
(materials crashing)
Point being,
(upbeat rock music begins)
concrete is so pervasive
in life as we know it,
that a world without it
simply couldn't be civilized.
So it's a good thing
that the 2000 concrete
manufacturers of our nation
work day and night
to keep this keystone
commodity in steady supply,
even when building
booms the nation over
push those facilities
to their limit.
Take GCC's plant in
Southern Colorado,
where it's
all-hands-on-deck to deliver
5,500 tons of cement
to the American public
before day's end.
And as you might expect,
that does not leave much time
for setbacks or shutdowns.
So Millwright, Billy Bloesser,
is once again on a mission
to head off issues
before they arise,
which for the moment,
means getting a head start
on some scheduled maintenance
that'll kick off in the morning.
- So tomorrow, we're
on limited downtime
because we're sold out.
A lot riding on getting
stuff quick-fixed
when the machines go down.
So trying to get
as much done today.
Let's get everything ready for
tomorrow so it goes smooth.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] For now,
Billy simply needs
to remove some bolts
from a bucket elevator at
the plant's finishing mill.
But to do it, he'll
need a cutting torch.
And since these bolts
reside about six stories up,
he'll also need a
crane to get it there.
(horn honking)
(equipment whirring)
- We're gonna fly it up,
get staged.
This gonna be a tough pick
'cause we got no head room,
so you gotta boom out,
raise the line up and
down to get it to go in.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
With the welder in place,
the only thing left is for Billy
to get himself to
the top of the tower.
- All right, we're gonna head
to the man basket, get in,
get some more tools up there,
so we get this going.
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] Once in position,
Billy makes short work
of the stubborn bolts,
which come tomorrow, will be
one less thing to worry about.
- We got as much done
today as we could,
makes the process as fast
as we can for tomorrow.
Keep the machine running.
We'll be back tomorrow
bright and early.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
Meanwhile, back in shipping,
(train horn blaring)
Operator, Gabriel Champion,
has just a couple
more rail cars to fill
before he can call it a day.
And for that,
he's tagging out
of the control room
to keep an eye on
things down below.
- So now what we're gonna
do is this spout is cleared.
We're gonna wait for him to
clear the top on scale seven.
Once that's done, we'll go
ahead and move the rail cars.
- 10-4. Clear on seven.
(walkie trilling)
You're cleared ahead West
track two, three cars.
(train horn blaring)
- [Mike Rowe Voice
Over] From there,
Gabriel directs the last of
the empty cars into position.
- Three,
two,
one.
I'll stop there.
(horn honking)
We stage the cars,
simultaneously,
both on track two, on
scales three and seven.
And that way we know both
cars are on the scales.
The employee running tops
will set the spout in.
He's just starting up the scale.
So material's gonna
start flowing,
and I'm staying down
here, just waiting,
double checking, making
sure the car doesn't leak,
just like that.
(walkie trilling)
Stop seven.
- And right there, that's
product on the ground.
The door wasn't sealed properly,
so I'm gonna have
to close the door.
(upbeat rock music begins)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
While Gabriel deals with
the cement spillage
over at the raw mill,
Process Attendant, Cody Wiant,
is dealing with issues
of a different kind,
specifically, a bucket elevator
responsible for getting
product off ground level
that's, apparently,
gotten a little gummed
up in the process.
And though you're
probably thinking by now,
"That's a lotta
clogs for one day,"
what can I tell ya?
It's a cement plant.
- As you can see,
it's pulling material.
So now, we gotta get this
other door opened up.
Get some of this
material to clear out.
Awesome, thank you.
(shoveling rocks)
We have to have everything
cleared off, ran off,
no materials, no hazards.
Zach's gonna hop
in that skid steer,
go dumping with
the other reject.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
With the elevator cleared,
all that's left just to
fire it up for a test run.
- George,
(walkie trilling)
can I get local control
on 31503, main drive?
So with this automated system,
I have to call control
(indistinct radio)
and get local control
of the equipment.
I can't just come over
and start hitting
buttons and things work.
- [Radio] (indistinct) local.
- 10-4. Going for a start now.
(walkie trilling)
(upbeat rock music begins)
So you can hear it now, the
waste material is dropping.
That's good, that's
what we want.
If you look right here,
this is a waste sh**t.
Everything comes out here
once this material gets going.
This problem's fixed.
Now we're gonna
move on to the next.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
It's late afternoon
in Southern Colorado.
(shift horn sounding)
An eye on quittin' time for the
folks at GCC's cement plant,
where despite a handful of
setbacks and breakdowns,
the goal of creating
5,500 tons of new product
for an insatiable nation
is nearly complete.
But before you can
clock out for the day,
Process Attendant, Cody
Wiant, has one last job to do.
- So we just got a call
from the control room.
We're gonna head
to the finish mill,
start loading some
gypsum additives.
So we're gonna hop
in this loader,
head that way and
get it filled up.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
Every ton of cement made here
requires 140 pounds of gypsum,
which prevents the
finished product
from setting too quickly.
So to finish off today's quota,
Cody will need to load
another 200 tons of the stuff
into the works,
assuming that is,
the works are still working.
- Hopper's actually
looking a little too full.
Think we might have
a plug going on.
Yeah, it's not
even sucking down.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] To
restore flow to the system,
Cody will have to
sleuth out the issue,
and he already has a pretty
good idea of where to look.
- This is the additives tunnel.
We got a hopper
that's plugged up.
As you can see, the
belts are running,
so we're gonna go ahead
and head down now,
see if we can get this
material flowing again.
We gotta kinda hustle.
This is what I'm talking about
when I said if you have
reoccurring issues,
you'll fall behind
and it'll be really hard
to get caught back up.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
In times like these,
Cody is quick to practice
the two golden rules
of maintenance.
Number one: Always use the
right tool for the job.
Number two: The right
tool for the job
is almost always a hammer.
- I got my ladder set up.
I'm gonna head up here,
smack on the side of this bin,
get these feeders
back going again.
(hammer pounding)
Come in, control.
- Can we start those feeders
back up? (walkie trilling)
I got a little bitta
material to fall.
(hammer pounding)
There we go. That's
what we wanted to see.
Now we're flowing.
(conveyor belt clanking)
So we got material
flowing again.
Now hopper should
be emptying out.
I'm gonna head back
up, hop in that loader.
Go continue to load and
move on to the next thing.
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] Back
in the shipping department,
Operator, Gabriel Champion's,
gonna need more than a hammer
to deal with his latest problem,
because with his final
rail car of the day
hemorrhaging cement,
the only way to stop it
is with a device known as
a 'pneumatic gate opener.'
- So the door on the
bottom of the rail car
wasn't sealed properly,
and you could see we had
a little bit of a spill.
So I'm just gonna come over
here and close that up.
(machine clanking)
(metal pounding)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over] To
prevent any further leakage,
Gabriel also uses water
to harden the cement
along the door's rim.
- Just waiting for material
to start falling again,
and that'll let me know if I
got this door sealed up good.
- Boom, that looks
like he did it.
Seven's good.
(walkie trilling)
- And now that he's
called out material,
we know we have flow,
and if the door wasn't
sealed properly,
cement would be spilling
on the floor again.
And so we're good to go.
(upbeat rock music begins)
So I moved the spout
out of the way.
I'm gonna step back
on the rail car,
close up the hatch.
(hatch closing)
This ensures the customer knows
that they're not getting
a tampered product.
Alrighty, so we got it done.
That looks like that's gonna
be the last one of the day.
So we got all the cars filled.
(train whistling)
We got all the orders met.
They're all set up for the day.
Being that we're 24/7/365,
I'm gonna go ahead and
set the the night crew up.
But today was a good day.
(train whistling)
- [Mike Rowe Voice Over]
And just like that,
another 5,500 tons of cement
rolls out into the world,
where it'll be mixed and poured
into the countless
concrete structures
that hold up America
as we know it,
from overpasses to cityscapes,
sidewalks to skywalks.
And though, most folks might
not stop to think about
where it all came from
or who made it possible,
come tomorrow,
the concrete makers
of our country will
still be hard at it,
pouring no small amount
of their blood, sweat,
and years into
How America Works.
You simply can't overstate it.
Our appetite for
concrete is insatiable.
How crazy is it right now?
That facility in
Southern Colorado
is sold out of cement
for the next two years.
On the positive side,
that means a ton of opportunity
for anybody who's willing
to get their hands dirty.
You can pour through those
opportunities if you'd like,
over at mikeroweworks.org/haw.
In the meantime,
(laptop closing)
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03x03 - Concrete
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Showcasing the many individuals who work around the clock to keep America's infrastructure in working order.
Showcasing the many individuals who work around the clock to keep America's infrastructure in working order.