The New Era of Demolition

Clearview has over 50+ staff, and 17+pieces  of heavy equipment working on some of the most high profile projects in Western Canada. From East Saskatchewan to the remote parts of the NorthWest Territories, Clearview is counted on to deconstruct some of the most technical and challenging projects in the industry. Since 2006 Clearview has deconstructed over 500 projects, from large scale pulp mills to multi-story towers. Name a type of building, and they have probably taken it down. On today’s podcast, we speak with Brad about the history of Clearview and the explosive growth over the past 13 years. We speak with Brad about the change in the industry and how the days of wrecking balls are over. Today, demolition is calculated, organized and efficient, and Clearview is a great example of innovation in the sector.  In our conversation with Brad we discuss some practical advice in how to look at deconstruction and some of the signs to consider when reviewing and estimating a project. We break down the process in how Clearview executes on a project, and all the behind the scenes that go on prior to taking down a building. The general public may think demolition is unorganized, but the reality is everything is planned and scheduled to completion.

About Clearview Demolition:

Clearview Demolition is a full scale industrial and commercial demolition contractor serving all of  Western Canada. Today, Clearview has over 50+ staff, and 17+pieces  of heavy equipment working on some of the most high profile projects in Western Canada. From East Saskatchewan to the remote parts of the NorthWest Territories, Clearview is counted on to deconstruct some of the most technical and challenging projects in the industry. Since 2006 Clearview has deconstructed over 500 projects, from large scale pulp mills to multi-story towers. 

http://www.clearviewgrinding.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast. Leadership in construction with perspective from the job site. With your host, Andrew Hansen, James Faulkner, and Christian Hamm from the Sightland Studio in Delltown Bank. Let's get down to it.

SPEAKER_04 0:24

Okay, episode number 18. On this episode, we speak with Brad Morrison, general manager of Clearview Demolition. Based out of the Lower Mainland in British Columbia, Clearview is a full-scale industrial and commercial demolition contractor serving all of Western Canada. Clearview has over fifty staff and 17 pieces of heavy equipment working on some of the most high-profile projects in Western Canada. From Saskatchewan to the remote parts of the Northwest Territories, Clearview is counted on to deconstruct some of the most technical and challenging projects in the industry. Since 2006, Clearview has deconstructed over 500 projects from large-scale palt mills to multi-story towers. Name a type of building, and Clearview has probably taken it down. In our conversation with Brad, we discuss some practical advice and how to look at deconstruction and some of the signs to consider when reviewing and estimating a project. We break down the process and how Clearview executes on a project and all the behind-the-scenes that go on prior to taking down a building. The general public may think demolition is unorganized, but the reality is that everything is planned and scheduled to completion. This is a great podcast that provides technical and specific knowledge on a complicated service. It's also a great conversation that shares the behind-the-scenes story of a growing business. This is also a great conversation that shares the story behind a growing and successful business. Let's get to it.

SPEAKER_06 1:47

We are back from summer holidays. Well, we didn't really take any time off, but uh August is a slowdown for people. And uh here we are with Andrew, James, myself, Christian, and we have Brad Morrison from Clearview Demolition. Welcome, Brad.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Thank you for you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_06 2:07

It's good to have you. How was your summer?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Was it summer already?

SPEAKER_06 2:10

Well, yeah, I know. I know.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

All five minutes of it? Yeah, it was good. Oh, it was good.

SPEAKER_06 2:15

I guess that's probably busy time for you guys to just start hauling, right? Very, very busy time.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:20

Cool. So um you and Andrew have a uh have a relationship going. I'll let Andrew kind of uh kick things off.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

Yeah, I uh saw Brad and uh Clearview pop up on a lot of job sites, and uh industry is small, and so between Favor, between SiteMax and different uh clients, we had the chance to connect. And uh kind of the goal of our podcast is educating the industry on trends, technologies, and clearview always came to mind with how you guys approach work and obviously your background and the way you guys tackle projects. They're generally pretty high profile and uh pretty technical. And so we want to bring you on the podcast, share your background, share how Clearview is growing and how you approach projects. And a lot of our listeners are other general contractors, builders, subtrades, and they want to be asking the right questions and learning about how you guys work. So I think it'd be it was a great idea. It was tough, schedules are tough, you're a busy guy, but we got you here. We had to do we're doing this one at post 5 p.m. So generally we do them early in the morning, but we uh twisted Brad's arm to get here after five.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Well, thanks for staying late. I appreciate it. No, we're not staying late, and there's a bar underneath us at our office here and underneath the studio. So can you hear those people? I hear them a little bit. Yeah, yeah, so it's all good.

SPEAKER_06 3:34

Cool, so awesome. Tell us a little bit about uh Clearview Demolition um and a little bit more about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Well, um yeah, I'm Brad Morrison. I'm the general manager for Clearview Demolition. We are a uh full-scale uh industrial commercial demolition contractor. We work throughout Western Canada on uh large-scale, high-profile projects um all over Western Canada. We've worked uh as far as east as Saskatchewan, as far north as Anuvic, uh Vancouver Island, all through the interior. And uh yeah, um we started uh Clearview was incorporated in 2006 and uh primarily as a land clearing company and uh under the name Clearview Grinding. And we had a uh large uh horizontal feed grinder where we would uh go in there and clear land and grind up the trees and recycle the wood. Um I came on board in 2008 and um shifted the focus from from the land clearing into the demolition, and we were one of the first companies to incorporate the wood recycling as part of our demolition. So to put in perspective, you could I could take your house, run it through our grinder, grind it into something the size of a business card, and that lot a lot of times that project or that uh material can be recycled, and uh landfills would use that for different things. Um we if we got it clean enough, they burn it for for wood and for fuel. Um the key is the volume reduction. And um landfill landfills and tipping fees and these days are based on landfill space. Yeah, so when you can reduce that, we can reduce the volume by 50-60 percent. It was uh it was a win-win. And there was a point in time where you know, where my competition was paying a thousand dollars a load to get rid of demolition waste, we were getting paid four hundred dollars a load for the same stuff. And so it it really kind of put us on the map and uh um you know, right off the hop, got bigger and bigger projects, and especially with all the lead and the recycling requirements, we were hitting 96, 97, 98 percent recycling. Oh wow, that's awesome! Yeah, it was pretty cool. So that that's kind of how we got our start, and um and that led to bigger and bigger projects, to uh um going from uh you know multi-housing projects to apartments to hospitals to pulp mills to you know you name it, we've we've torn it down and grown and grown and grown. So now we've got a crew of 50 people, 17 excavators, um, you know, and uh do a lot of not as much wood recycling anymore. Um yeah, we still do it, but uh a lot of concrete crushing, a lot of concrete recycling, a lot of steel recycling. And uh yeah, just so it's uh it's been a fun ride. It's been a it's cool. We have the best job in the world. I get to drive around and wreck things. Deconstruct. Sorry, deconstruct, yeah, that's right. No, that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

So we um you're doing a demolition project in downtown Vancouver where we are taking down a parking lot. Yep. So um parquade. A parquade, yeah. So it's it's been it's it's it's always fascinating to me how the concrete um and the rebar gets kind of separated. I see those like rebar piles. Yeah, they look like uh bird's nest, they call it. They call it bird's nest. Yeah. They look feeble, but they're not. No, they look like little bits of wire, but really heavy. Yeah, yeah, totally. So do you uh how does that kind of work? Do you guys smash the like bash the concrete off them?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, sort of so yeah. So we have um we have processors that that fit on the end of the excavators. Yeah. And so uh they look like a lack of better terms, a uh giant lobster claw. Yeah, and uh so that'll go in there and they they rotate 360 degrees, and you just basically go in there and crunch and munch and and you process the concrete off the rebar.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Then we have magnets on the machines, and that'll help pick up the rebar. Sets it a you know the the bulk of it.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

And then we have stationary concrete crushers. So we'll bring our crusher in, big jaw crushers, we feed the product through, and then the crusher itself has magnets on it that spits the rebar out, and and then uh you end up with a recycled product at the end. And so you guys get paid for that rebar. That's correct, yeah. That's awesome. That's what we in the term in the industry we call that beer money.

SPEAKER_06 7:51

Yeah, so it's a lot of beers, but we're not talking about popcans here.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

So does the does the contractor that's hiring you um they ever want any of that money back or not?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Sometimes, yeah. It it all depends on the on the project. Yeah, um, you know, uh the I mean obviously any any developer's contract, you know, they they want as much money back as they can get. Um, but generally we'll go in and lay out a proposal for them and we'll look at it and go, okay, you know, uh here's a here's a building that's got to come down, and it's got X amount of ton of steel that's and copper and aluminum and all this good stuff. We think it's worth X amount of dollars, and here's our demolition cost, and you know, they'll they'll reap the reap the reward of that, right? So I just finished a project on Vancouver Island where it it was uh it was actually I actually paid them uh to take down the buildings and uh and a huge, huge project, but it was thousands of tons of steel. And uh, you know, it was a it was a win-win. Yeah, sure, clear, they get an empty site, clear buildings, and everybody wins. Has that always been the case? Like the the value of the resource that was that changing that changes all the time. That that market fluctuates, yeah. You know, um the the steel market, I think this year has dropped since January almost a hundred bucks a ton, which is you know a big big difference, right? It's the same with the with the wood market. You know, the room we're sitting in has got some beautiful fur fur beams. There was a time where those were huge dollars. Well, that market's changed as well. And yeah, they're valuable until you have a hundred or five hundred of them. Now you've cornered the market. Yeah. You know, then it goes down, right? Because the guys, well, you want to get rid of it? I'm gonna give you this much, you know. So do you do you have like a network of brokers for this stuff? Yeah, I've got a I've got a list of of people that we that we call and deal with, and you know, I'll look at a job and I'll you know, I'll say, Hey Bob, come on in. Let's you know, what do you think there is here for lumber and timber and this and that? Right. Try and make the make it work. I got a f I got a fur beam guy.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Yeah, it's like the ambulance chaser of buildings.

unknown 9:58

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Don't laugh. I've done that. You drive around, you see those development signs, and you're writing it down and pulled calling. But that's you know, that's how we that's how we built it up. And you know, and going to I can remember going to City Hall and and pulling up the permit book and you know, seeing who pulled the demolition permit and driving over. Oh, the house is still standing and dropping off a card. And that's how you go. My you know, my my first building I did was a house was in Chilliwack that some doctor bought some little crack shack and went to his office and handed my card and said, Yeah, I'll do it. And that was the the first one. Yeah, you know, and then he just does sometimes those cold calls, and as anybody knows, that's how it, that's how it goes, you know.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

So and you bring that whole approach, the value engineering, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

The whole the whole the whole thing too now that you know that we're now that we're bigger, we can show uh some of the bigger projects we've done and our recycling data and the you know all of our equipment's pretty modern and and you know, we bring a new perspective to it.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Um, and the days, you know, I I we don't chase houses and little things, it's more chase the whole the whole block.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Keep growing, grow. Before we jump into kind of some of the topics with how you guys approach you know deconstruction today and what you guys are up to. Do you want to give a quick snapshot to who you guys are today, projects you're you're taking on, at what stage you guys brought on board from a general contractor? Just to give kind of listeners of who you guys are today from a scope perspective and and just recent projects maybe done.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, so um some of our current projects. Um we just finished uh uh uh the balance of a pulp mill demolition over in uh Vancouver Island, um, where we had about 6,000 ton of steel uh to load out there. Um we're doing a 12-story building downtown right now with an adjacent seven-story parkade. We are just this week mobilizing to um to demolish the old Ballantine Pier at the port of Vancouver, which uh was the old uh cruise ship terminal down there. Uh so they're for the uh it's called the Centrum Expansion Project. And uh so that's about an 18-month project for us, including we have to remove the old Heatley Road overpass over the train tracks. We've got to take out the the terminal itself. That building's almost a kilometer long, so it's uh it's a big and over the water, you know. So yeah, and you know, we we've got uh we're doing some stuff uh Lang uh Langley Secondary School. We just tore down a big uh section of that, then some warehouses in Richmond, and then looking ahead, we've got um uh you know some other projects secured, some that I can talk about, some that I can't. Some very interesting. Um there's one that I'm sure we're gonna be featured on the news about uh because we don't get to demolish something like this every day, and I'll let you let you guys in once I got the contract in hand, but it's pretty cool, you know. Um yeah, no, we we just do like they say we do a diverse um uh variety of uh of things. And like you say, everything from we have good good companies, customers we work with where they have a single house to demolish and and we do it, to you know, um we in 2017 we finished the demolition of the um Skenha pulp mill in Prince Rupert. And that at the time was the largest demolition project in the province. And there was 200 and some odd buildings we took down up there, three implosions, and yeah, it was cool.

SPEAKER_06 13:12

So wow. That's uh do you get excited when you uh see implosion on the scope?

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Oh yeah. Well, you know what, it it's it's a it's an amazing feeling to hit that button and feel that jolt go through your body and your nerves and just everything that's gonna be. Is that instant? Like what's a delay? Instant, yeah. Like yeah so that it's a two-button system, okay? So you you you hold this like a joystick and you got two two buttons everywhere, green and red. You hold the green one down, and then the red one lights up, and when the red one lights up, you you hit them and you don't get them mixed up because then you gotta reset the whole system. But you you hit that thing and it it just it snaps and boom, and you feel that that energy. And if you go onto YouTube, you'll see a clip of me hitting that button and uh crap in my pants right after because it is something to to see. And when it's and when you're standing there and you watch that uh the building I shot up there was 275 feet, and to watch that thing come down is just it's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_04 14:13

So a bunch of what we want to get into, and I'll kind of on this project specifically. Talk to us about how demos changed and then all the planning that goes into pushing that button.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

So um because it's not just a button, but all the planning there's so much planning. That's right. You know, yeah, there's always been that um everyone's gonna apply for that job. Yeah, you know, side note. So I was at a demolition convention in uh uh Nashville a couple years ago, and there's a guy that set up a business where you auction off the rights to hit the button. What a cool idea. And and and you know, this and in the states they do way more implosions than we do, like way more. It's a common thing. But uh, but yeah, you could bid and then the money goes to you know, they split it the contractor or the charity, whatever it is they do, and uh and you get to hit the button. How many people can say they've done it? You know, it's it's pretty neat. So anyway.

SPEAKER_05 15:04

Um how many times have you pushed the button? Once.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Only once.

SPEAKER_05 15:08

Oh, just the one time?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yeah, I you know why? Because I want to share it with our guys. So so we've all of our top guys, we've done we've done four, and uh so all my top guys got to got to do it. And yeah, that's cool. That's awesome. But just like the movies, yeah. I don't want I don't want everybody to do it because then they all think they're a top guy, see. So we don't want to let it get to their heads. Listen, listen, Joe. If you say two more years, you might be able to push the button. Oh, you see what? No way. You know what? We'll start the bidding right now. Um, no, so how's the industry changed? So you know, there there's been a um uh an um an umbrella. Uh I'm trying to think of the best way to sum it up, but people think of demolition as a wrecking ball, right? The old crane, wrecking ball, knock it down, guy the cigar and his steel hard hat and dust flying. And those those days are gone. Maybe in middle Saskatchewan, they're doing that stuff, but around here they're they're not. It's you know, you're in especially like say we're doing this 12-story building downtown. I mean, we're tight, we're yeah, two inches to the sidewalk. You drop a uh you know, a pebble or a speck of dust, and you're you're hearing about it. And we're in what we call the fishbowl. We're the lowest building surrounded by high-rise. So you've got four towers of office people looking at you all the time.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

And you know, and so so you have to, everything's got to be done by the book. It's uh engineered demolition plans, it's safety is is through the roof. Um, you know, we're dealing with a lot of with the deal with the asbestos and the lead and the silica dust. And you know, there there's all these protocols and things that go in that go into it. It's not just come into the machine and smash and bash and and you know and make a mess. I I wish we could. It would make things a lot easier, but but we can't. So uh um and you know, and so so and you know, worksafe bc is constantly on us with again with with protocol safety procedures and and you know following those those plans. And um and I think that there is a a majority uh the majority of the contractors out there are adhering to those rules, following and doing what they gotta do. And there's a lot of the fly by night guys like every industry has that just doesn't care. And those are the ones that they're trying to weed out, and those ones we strive not to be.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

So yeah, I've been on one of your sites, and just the level of approach, it's it is the opposite of a wrecking ball. It is taking piece by piece, it's technical work, the guys, the operators you have, you know, well put together, really organized, radio connections, uh orientations on site. I was I was it was not it didn't feel like a demo, so I actually thought you were building it. It's just so organized.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

It's it's patience.

SPEAKER_04 17:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

You know, we um we get a lot of resumes from operators that are, you know, I've got 10,000 hours experience in an excavator, and they have that mentality of oh, it's gonna go in there and knock it, knock it down. You know, they might have been working in an oil patch or loading trucks in the middle of Alberta. You know, when we demolish a building, it's it's it is deconstruction, is the term because you have to take it apart the opposite way it was built. You're working top down, fold your walls in, you gotta do it in a certain way that it's not going to hurt your guys, hurt anybody around you, and it's gonna come down safely. And that does mean picking and sorting and poking, and and and it takes a lot of patience and a lot of cojones in some some cases, you know. We just um we did a six-story building um just down off uh Dunley V Street just recently, and we had a house, uh a single-story house that was four feet from us, and we had a six-story concrete wall that we had to demolish. Wow. So we had to bring in a crane and hang some big rubber mats and some protection. And we have a uh it's called a high reach excavator. So it's a it's a 50-ton machine that when it unfolds, we can work at 96 feet in the air with processors or hydraulic shears or whatever. So we put the the concrete processor on there, the lobster claw, and we start nibbling this building down while this crane hangs this rubber mat and any debris bounces off the mat and falls down. You know, that lady sat in her house, pleased his punch while this stuff went on above her, not a speck on her. So it's it's almost like dentistry. It is, it is. It that's a yeah, it's like it's pain everywhere around if it goes wrong. Yeah, oh it's pain, yeah. And and of course, in today's world, social media and everybody's got a camera, and everybody, you know, and yeah, I mean, it's it's nerve-wracking, you know. So you you do your best to do it right, do it safely, and and keep everybody happy, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:43

So when you go to like uh the different trade shows, for instance, for are there specific ones for demolition? There is, yeah. Okay, yeah. And then um, so are you seeing a lot of really cool technologies coming into play? Oh, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Mechanical technologies. Absolutely. We're we're seeing uh we're hearing of hydraulic or uh electric excavators, you know, hybrid machines. Okay, yeah, so they're not polluting. Exactly. A lot of power, I'd imagine, right? Well, yeah, yeah. There's um, you know, a lot of uh these the robotic machines, you know, the smaller ones that you can so the operator can sit 20 feet away and like playing a video game, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:17

Um on that question, just interrupt, how far away? You're an act we talked about your background before we turned the mics on. You're an operator. Yep. How far away do you think we actually are from autonomous like robotics from excavators?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It's it's not that far away. I'm sure that I'm sure it's already out there, you know. Um, and you know what? A lot of my kids growing up were big into video games, hand-eye coordination, and uh that's what running an excavator is all about. You're you're not looking at your hands, you're feeling it, and being well, dude, no different than kids running a joystick. It's the it's the same thing. Um, it's uh my my son works for us. He's he was a video game addict uh growing up, but he's you know he's a good operator too, knows what he's doing, and and uh you know I think I think I learned a little bit from that. But yeah, uh operatorless excavators are not that far away. I I guarantee it. I don't want them on my site, but they're coming. But in time.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Yeah, in time, yeah. The manpower of the of the job I don't think would really change much because you still have to map what that thing's gonna go do.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Exactly. And yeah, and you still gotta have that human control over it. I mean, I would hope so. That's pretty cool stuff.

SPEAKER_06 21:26

Yeah, in the in the demo space, it's probably almost for a safe for safety in a lot of ways, just because you're away from things, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, exactly. I say with these with these little robotic units that that that they make, that's what happens. They're they're operators on a tether, yeah, 720 feet away and just controlling it. Yeah, rather than sitting in the cab, it's sitting outside of it while he while he does the work.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

So yeah, yeah. Um give us a quick snapshot. We've been talking about that Vancouver project a little bit. What goes behind the scenes? So, from what point do contractors engage Clear view and then give us a quick 30,000 square foot view on the planning, on the resourcing, on how you guys approach up to the point where iron's on the ground, you guys are going at the project.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Sure. So um for us, it'll it'll start with we'll get a call from Joe Developer. Um I've heard Joe Developer's good. Yeah, he's good. He worked with them. Um we'll get a call from a developer or uh you know um owners or you know somebody that's is looking to demolish a building or they have bought a property and they want to get some feedback. So it might start with budgeting. We'll call in there, this is what I got. Can you give me a budget? And and that's how we'll get in, meet them, we'll walk through, look at the buildings, look at the site, look at what the potentials are that you know can do. And so it gives him an idea of what uh you know what to expect. And that can uh you know range from salvage, um, you know, uh yeah, talked about um it could it can range from you know recycling the concrete can use it on site again as fill, you know, uh uh gravel and stuff like that. And you know, how much room do we have to work? What's the ground conditions, all these you know, good stuff. So we'll give him an overall budget and and kind of an idea of what to expect. Then if his deal goes through and you purchase it, hopefully we get the call back and we go in there and now it's okay, you know, clear view, get the contract, let's go. So the first thing that that has to happen is the hazmat testing. Um, you know, by law we have to make sure that everything's tested for asbestos and lead paint and the silicon and the PCBs and all that good stuff. Um, and so they'll um and and sorry, just to back up a step, but that that's a big part of the pre-planning too, and the budgeting is we can go in there and look at an old building, and it's nothing to have a uh a demolition be uh round numbers, a ten thousand dollar demolition. You could have forty thousand dollars, fifty thousand dollars worth of abatement, right? And not even blink, you know, and so that that's a a key part of it too, that pre-warning the guy that yeah, this is gonna be a big, a big task, you know. Um so yeah, so we would and so we would we would bring in a consulting company to come in and they would provide the hazmat report to the owner uh directly, and um we would review that, bring in we have a hazmat division as well, um, or we'll work with some other contractors, depending on how busy we are, and uh get the uh the hazmat work completed, um and then carry on with the with the demo from there. And um yeah, uh you know, clear the site, um, get her down cleaned, turn over clean site to them. That's kind of the the process there.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

But it's a lot more just rolling up and saying let's take this this thing down.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Exactly. Yeah, you know, like I say, there's there's the the demo permit process, you know, that's especially in Vancouver. That's a and anybody that's listening that's had to deal with the city of Vancouver and their permits, it might as well slam my head in the car door because it's more a little less painful, you know. Um it's uh uh you know, and so try to work with them through those through those steps and make sure that that that they're all all good with that. And and then yeah, and then come in there and get uh, you know, depending on the size of the building, get some engineered plans, deconstruction plans, look at the salvage, how we're gonna take it apart, and uh and go.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

You can pretty much tell from looking at the age of a building about what's gonna have in it. Yeah. What type of building it is.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah, I mean, I mean, in are you talking a sense of of hazmat stuff? Yeah, yeah. So so basically anything built before 1990 is the is the the key, the key there. And um, and yeah, I mean we've I walked in the somewhere and just like holy macro. I mean, nothing has changed from 1961 when it was built, you know. Floor tile, drywall, you know, and it everything to you know, caulking around the windows, uh, brick mortar, everything. I mean, I we had a I did a house for a a young couple a few years ago, and they had bought this house kind of their their plan was to tear it down and build their dream house, and you know, just a little 800 square foot shack, and every inch of floor tile, drywall, stucco, brick. I mean, it was just like it was like an asbestos bomb went off in this place, you know. And I felt so bad for them, but yeah, no doubt. What do you do? Like it's you know, they were just devastated at the cost, but it at the cost of the cost, like it's not so it's uh what sort of difference was it? So like so you don't have to get super detailed, but I mean like I said, uh so a house like that it would be a you know ten thousand dollar teardown if it was clean and it was it was over fifty thousand dollars. Right. So they're they're going, whoa, this is not an sure they were not it would they were they were hit with that right off the top, and now they were stuck going, okay, well, you know, that that's a huge thing to add to the budget right off the hop, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Yeah, there goes your uh nice range.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, exactly with the hot tub. There goes the flex fund, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

Get JD in there to develop it.

SPEAKER_06 27:13

I'm sure, I'm sure that happens often. Somebody will call somebody to take that down at that point in time.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Well, and what's happening more and more too is yes, there's guys that are coming in there and taking it down and then they're dumping it illegally.

SPEAKER_05 27:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

I just did uh one that was just in the paper. I just did a cleanup for uh there was 10 loads of debris dumped on on uh government-owned land, all asbestos containing, really all had to be hauled to Alberta as asbestos containing waste because it's here in the lower mainland, we you cannot take asbestos containing drywall, cannot go to the yeah, uh to the Vancouver landfill. So because it was all cross-contaminated, somebody just went in there, knocked it down, threw it in a truck, started dumping it, and we had to go clean it up and yeah, everything to Alberta. Huge, huge bill.

SPEAKER_05 28:01

Yeah, no kidding.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

Um it happens a lot. Oh, I like you mentioned earlier, you have the your top-tier contractors that have been doing this for a while that have the pre-construction, pre pre-de-construction team. Yeah, and then you have guys that I have an excavator, I know how to take this thing down, and uh that's kind of the you have that wide range of just like in construction a little bit too. I can build a house versus I can build a house the right way. Exactly. That wide range.

SPEAKER_06 28:27

Yeah, cost drives people.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Absolutely. And and and I get it. I mean, cost is a big thing, but you get what you pay for. Totally. And and um, you know, what what a lot of um homeowners and and developers don't know is you're um you're responsible, you know, they're responsible for what that contractor does. Looking at it from WorkSafe and from you know the the the Ministry of Environment. You have to get what's called a BC generator number in order to transport hazardous waste. A lot of people don't don't realize that. You own that hazardous waste once it goes. So if it's if it's not disposed of properly, that's that's yours, yeah, to to deal with.

SPEAKER_06 29:07

Yeah, you know. So okay, so we've we've talked about pushing buttons and all this kind of stuff. Uh is that the coolest thing that you've ever taken down? Or is there anything what else is there that's out there that's interesting or unique or memorable in your in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Um, I mean, that's definitely uh, you know, uh a highlight is is shooting or we call it shooting, but imploding a 275-foot, 5,000 ton steel structure, watching that come down is uh is a definite high. Um no, I I for me it's um I I enjoy the uh I enjoy the the different aspects working all over the place for me is a big thing. I really enjoy these some of these unique out of out of town jobs. We worked in uh in Anuvik for nine weeks. We did a project up there, minus 43, and you know the the the the the the culture way of life and having an an hour of daylight uh a day and yeah satellite dishes pointed at the ground because of the crest of the earth in order to get uh uh in order to get signal. It's the weirdest thing. All the sewer lines run above ground. They're called uh utilidors, and they look like giant speed bumps running through town, and that's all the sewer lines so that they keep stay heated, don't freeze. And yeah, it's you know, um we've done like I say the the the Prince Rupert project was was pretty unique. Um uh lots of challenges there. Um I'm trying to think of what else we you get you get you know you know so many different different scenarios, but uh um no for me it's it's it's I like going into um small town with a big building, which means a big problem for somebody. Yeah, and and um and and seeing you know, we've worked in the Kootenies. I love the Kootenies, beautiful area. Did this little town of 400 people, we went and tore down their old school because they built a new one, and people coming out and like total strangers and what you know, you and your crew come on over for a barbecue tonight. Yeah, you know, we're going fishing on Kootenie Lake tomorrow, and you know, it just that I love that that part of it. Um and and I love the um the salvage factor. That's it. So I I keep one piece of every building we tear down, and it could be a a brick, it could be a sign, it could be a you know, just something, some little because you you know, I I did a project in in Banff in uh 2009 uh at the Banff Center, a massive building we took down there, and the only thing left of it is this little sign. You know, that's kind of cool to me. That we worked in the winter up there and dealt with the bear and all the you know the cold and the and the locals who aren't as you know into demolition as we are. Totally. But you know, that I go in my shop and I got all these signs on my shop, and I look at that sign, think of that, you know, little thing.

SPEAKER_06 32:00

Well, you just you just answered the question that I wrote down. Do you ever get sentimental in any of your projects?

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, oh yeah, I I've had you know um you try not to because you you're there and you feel for for people. Yeah we we've had to go in and we've demolished, and again, sometimes when you're going to these small towns, you're do you're tearing down stuff that part of part of history. Part of history, or or you know, um when the mill closed and and you know a lot of people out of work and you're in there tearing it down, and it's tough. And and people don't most people know you're just doing your job. But when we got up to Prince Rupert, the first time I went up there to to look at that, the cab driver, he said, Oh, what brings you town? I said, Um, oh, we're looking at demolishing the mill, not even thinking. I said, Oh, looking at demolishing the mill. And he went quiet. He says, I worked there for 22 years, and he didn't say a word to me after that, the whole drive. It was a really awkward thing, and it kind of sets in. Yeah, geez, you know, yes, it's not my fault, but you you you get attached to it, you know. Yeah, um so yeah, there's there's that sentimental softy part to me that um uh you know, I try to treat everything as if it's my own, not that I don't care and knock her down and you know, get on my way. It's you know, you try to you try to be and quite often we'll have people um you know come up to us. We we did a a couple of big projects in Madison Hat, Alberta. And and people come up and you know, can I can I save a couple bricks or can you save this? Yeah, um one that really hit home. We did a project, we did uh three schools in Revelstoke, so they built a new high school new elementary to replace the stuff. And uh lady came up, we were in the middle knocking down, and she said, Is is there still a mural in the hallway? It was on the brick, and it was all the students had taken one brick and kind of that grad class that you're posted. Well, her daughter had been killed in an accident, and she asked if we could save that brick, and so we went in there, deconstructed the whole thing, cut it out, and gave it to us. That was it's pretty cool, you know. Yeah, neat to be able to do that, right?

SPEAKER_06 34:05

That that is cool, and it's and it's interesting. Um, coming from I came from project management and general contracting. So there's a buildings are designed with a lifespan, yeah, right? So they're designed to be taken down at some point in time. It's just they serve a purpose over that period, and so much gets connected to them. Yeah, but it's just it comes in the cycle, and then they need to be taken down because new needs to be built up.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

I mean, other sometimes they'd think about us when they're building them, too.

SPEAKER_06 34:31

You know, maybe a little more thought on how to take them down.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 34:34

This would have last about five years.

unknown 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

But it's important because even like the city of Vancouver is, I mean, to build new, we're running out of land. Yeah, you got to repurpose and we gotta reuse existing buildings and then recycle them responsibly. And like you said, the salvage component. I think that salvage component is really unique because it's different, it's a value add, and and people want to know that's it's basically component, heritage component to a lot of them too.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Um, you know, we did the the old uh uh trap block in uh New West, which was the old Army Navy building. It was a six-story, six-story wood building built way back when. And um, and that was neat. We cut the whole front facade off, demolished the the back. They built the new tower and glued her glued her back together. And uh yeah, it was pretty neat. What was neat about that one? When we got down into the basement level, we were stripping it out, and all of a sudden there was a beautiful doorway going out to nowhere, which was now below the street. Well, back in the day, they'd had the big fire in New West. I'm not a history buff, but I understand there was a massive fire back then, and they basically, when they demolished the buildings and all the rubble, they just built the whole street level up. So that what was the old entrance to the building was now 10 feet below grade. Wow. Oh no, so it's neat when you go in there and you see that that type of stuff. Yeah. That's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

Um, one of the questions that we wanted to go over, and you and I have spoken about this a couple times just on uh on different project sites, but maybe you can answer us, maybe you can. I'll put you on a hot seat here. Um you mentioned a couple times, but people often have a perception to demolition. Everyone's got an opinion, people think um a lot of times it's not well received. What would you say to the general public? I mean, you probably have these conversations a lot, but what would you say to them just to kind of support to show they've been heard, to show like the time and the care has been put into projects? Because there's often a lot of just, you know, what are these guys doing? There's a lot of negative, you know, sure energy. What are your thoughts to them? What would you say to those groups of people and how you guys approach work?

SPEAKER_00 36:32

You know, I mean, again, we're we're in a weird spot. Our our business is to wreck things. And so we we um we we get this sentimentality to it and we try to be as you know polite to our neighbors and and to our surroundings. And we just I guess we just ask that they understand this isn't wasn't our choice to come in and do this. We're being you know paid by somebody to do it. And and uh and you know, in all fairness, I have turned down uh projects that like you know request to bid projects because I I just felt I don't I don't think it's right. Yeah. Um and uh um it happens, yeah, you know, and um, but you know, I think uh overall, we like I said we we try to we instill in our guys too that that you know you gotta think this is people have attachments to these things. You you have to be um delicate in how you handle the situations and and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:30

And I think the way you guys work in your approach with the salvage component, with the respect, with that story of just the the residential home next door to that commercial project, how you guys work um kind of speaks for itself. And the way you guys have grown in one big project kind of is test is a testament to that. So it's um I learn when I see projects and how you guys approach stuff, so it's uh it's definitely not a wrecking ball.

SPEAKER_06 37:52

No, no, it's not. Did we talk at all about how you how you even got into the demolition game?

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Like where you started and then yeah, well, so um I I graduated in the early 90s and uh and right out of high school, I I did my apprenticeship as a carpenter. Yeah, and I was really bad at it. And uh I was better at wrecking things than than building them. Uh, was good at running the equipment and you know just had a natural uh knack for it. Um but having that construction or carpentry background, when you when you know what a building, how a building is built, yeah, it makes it a lot easier to take it down. Absolutely, right? And and you know, knowing bearing walls and support beams and you know, just basic facts, right? Uh so I um I did my apprenticeship uh in carpentry, um got into running equipment, and um I was a heavy equipment operator for for a long time. And uh I I kind of had hit my peak as an operator in the sense that you know when you when you get to a certain point, you go, okay, I wanted to do more. And and you you're limited when you're in that spot. Yeah, you're you're busy and you're the good operator, but I just wanted more of a challenge. And so the fellow I was working for at the time, he had he had uh we tore down a few houses here and there and done a few things and I enjoyed it. And uh he said, well, why don't we um he said, why don't we look at starting up a little division? And uh and we did. And we hit a couple of houses and built up more and more, and uh, and things were on a roll. And then the uh um he had got sick with uh cancer and uh had to sell that company and the new owners came in and great great guys, but they they kind of took it in their direction, and and this little thing that I had kind of built was um was um uh kind of I felt was getting taken away from me. Yeah. So um uh Mike, who is the owner of Clearview Demolition, him and I go way back to high school days.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

And uh we were out for a beer one night, and and I was telling him about uh just you know, things aren't going well. And he says, Well, he says, Listen, we're running into more and more uh demolitions on this land clearing stuff that we're doing. And uh and he said, Why don't you come on board? And I said, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to work for a buddy. I mean, come on, you know, and he says, uh Brad, he says, You'll hardly see me. And and he's right, uh, you know, he he basically uh I came in and and again started what I'd already built the other company, started small, go bigger and bigger. Yeah, we got phased out of the the line cleaning part, and that's that's all we do is demo. And uh our company has shown tremendous growth from from I think when I started, we had four guys and two machines or three machines, and you know, now we're 17 machines and 50 guys, and and and our whole focus is is demo. And and Mike, uh he runs our sister company, uh Blue Pine Enterprises, and that's kind of his baby. Yeah, and uh and him and I get to actually have dinner meeting with him next week, and we you know weekends we still hang out like we're buddies, and you know, work is work and and fun is fun, and uh and yeah, we'll get together and talk business and it works out good. And it you know, I'm I'm blessed in that way. Not a lot of people um, you know, we'll will give somebody the the reins to a company like that here, go go make it work. And and he did, and and so I'm thankful for that, and uh and I'm sure he's thankful too. Yeah, no kidding.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

Jeez, no, it's awesome. Yeah, um, we we hit on this a little bit too. Um talking about how you speak to some of our listeners are you know developers and general contractors. How would you what maybe t tips and things to look for is when they look at that building, what are things to look for that you've seen as a consistent trend of um potential risks that are gonna drive that project price up um that you can see right away just from looking at a building that they may not be aware of?

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Sure. So uh you know it again, the first the first thing to me is hazardous material abatement. That's that's a huge thing because that can, you know, that can really throw a project sideways if they're not if they're not ready for it. Um, you know, so making sure that they're understanding what what those risks are and and what's involved in in that abatement uh work. Um uh and then and then also like I say, looking at at the at the overall, how is how is a building built, what is you know, what is it made of, and is there benefits to what can you get, uh, what can you get back? Like again, the salvage aspect of it, uh, the size of it, the the noise, the dust, the location, access is a huge thing too. Yeah. Um, you know, we get calls for for for buildings that that seem easy, but you've got power lines and you've got alleyways, and you've got no room. And when you got to haul everything out in a in a dumpster versus, you know, we we run 90-yard trailers. Yeah, when you gotta haul everything out in a dumpster, that that's a lot more work. Oh, a lot more cost, right? Yeah, so yeah. Things like that that that they take a look at and see. It's not just taking it down and getting it out. Exactly. What and you know, the other thing too, what what's left behind in the building? Yeah, um, you know, I've done some where they were I did one and we ended up with like 75 mattresses that were just left, you know, people just left all their furniture. Well, we can't always mix that stuff in. We have to start through it and deal with it, right?

SPEAKER_06 43:02

So what's some of the strangest, the strangest things that you found in a building? I knew that was coming. Did you repurpose these mattresses?

SPEAKER_00 43:11

Furnished, furnished, furnish my whole open a hotel, furnished my whole home. Yeah. Um, some of the strangest things. Um we uh we found uh oh man. We we found uh antique stuff, you know. We found uh I never found any money or any of the you know the the the stuff you always hear about all these antique guns. No, that that that stuff doesn't happen. But we found uh we have found like um I did I did one down uh not actually not far from here, Neiltown, and uh uh we tore it down and and it was an old uh boarding house type thing. And so there was a gap, say a six inch gap between the the the buildings. So when we tore it down at some point in its life, there was a window and uh that now looks out to a brick wall. Well, they had just funneled garbage out this window. So when we peeled the wall back, You had probably 50 years worth of cans and bottles and and stuff that had sandwiched between the walls. Huh. Right. Crazy. So yeah, it was it was kind of neat. It was rooting through time, old, you know, old popcans and beer cans and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

Those must be super good. Did you keep any of those ones or something? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Yeah. I got one sitting on my shelf from the sweet.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

You should send us a picture of your shelf. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Yeah, my wall. It's kind of cool. That'd be a cool thing for your website, by the way. Yeah. Nice black and white of that. Yeah, no, uh, good idea. Um, we and you know, and then on the negative, uh, we've uh we found uh uh I found at least two bodies in my career. Okay, let's tech let's talk about that. Yeah we had one, it was a house uh out in the in Abbotsford that we uh it was had been boarded up for quite a while and uh to the point that we had we had gone and cleared a bunch of the land and trees around it, and we thought, well, we'll just use the excavator and open up the the wall, you know, instead of unscrewing all the plywood, that shit just open up the so we did, and uh there was a fella face down. I don't know how long he'd been there, but uh it was not pretty. And uh so we had the cops in the corner down there. Yeah, a couple days later we're allowed to carry on, and it was uh uh uh homeless fellow had crawled in there and died of natural causes. But we don't know how he got in because that thing was boarded up tight, or what happened is that he'd got in and the caretaker, somebody had just not checked and boarded it up.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

So but a long time, like how like how they figured it'd been there about three weeks. Oh, though, so that not not super long. Not super long, but it's super gross. Long enough.

SPEAKER_06 45:36

Super gross. Super gross.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

Yeah, that's super gross.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Gross, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:41

Oh man, you said at least two though, so I'm sure they could go on.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah, the other one, uh the other one I'm not allowed to do. That's totally fine. It's all good.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

So you were saying that sometimes when you when you're there's a negative connotation or negative uh reaction to you guys taking a building down. I mean, there's obviously there's positive ones too when there's new stuff. So is there a you know there's always like the ribbon cutting of something new. Is there a uh is there a ceremony of something coming down?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Um Yeah, we've had oh yeah, we've had you know the the mayor jump in the excavator and take the first swipe at things. Stuff like that. Sure, yeah, yeah, we've we've had that dignitaries and the the button. The button pushes, yeah. No, no, they haven't got that good to push the button yet. That's a that's a the whole class on its own. But uh no, but we've had, yeah, we've had and and we've had uh we did one in Vernon, it was kind of neat. Uh we tore down an old building downtown Vernon, and and the operator was, you know, the kids in the building across the way, they would come out and watch the the man in the backhoe, you know, and and John would swing over and give him a wave with the bucket, you know. Yeah, and he'd come to work the next day and they'd take him the on the window and and uh you know, thank you, Mr. What did it say? Thank you, Mr. Backhoe man or something. The kids had done this mural on the window for him. Yeah, Mr. Ho, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, so yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, no, it's um um again, it it there's this negative, there's negative times and positive times. Hopefully we'd yeah, we'd rather the more positive than negative, right?

SPEAKER_04 47:10

Oh, of course.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:12

Um, you probably said this a bunch of times, but looking back at Clearview, your career, what are you most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Whether it's the buildings, whether it's the people, the development, but um it's it's it's everything. It's uh I liked I I'm proud of the the family atmosphere that we've created. Um you know, I I treat my guys uh as if they were my owner. I try to. And I think for the most part, I if they're listening, I hope that they would agree with me. But when one of us goes down, we all help out. Um you know, we we had one of our one of our longtime employees um lost his wife during childbirth uh last year. And um, you know, he was a key member of our team, and all of our guys, we just we pitched in and we made sure he had the money going and you know, and and whatever support he needed, and you know, and uh he's been able to bounce back and and carry on, you know, with us. And and that that's the part that I like is I try to treat the guys uh their name, not a number. Yeah, and and every everything like that is is important to me. And and um and I hope that they understand that.

SPEAKER_05 48:23

You know, it's oh I bet they do.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Yeah, you have to you gotta roll with the punches, and you gotta it it's it's you know, with with my guys, it's give and take, and yeah, there's sometimes that I I need them to work a bit later, you know, we tie up a Saturday. We we do a lot of outer town work and we understand that you know it's hard on the on the families when we're when we're gone for those weeks at a time. And I like to give back and hey, if you need the you know extra day off or a little bit of cash here and there or whatever, you know, I try to try to work with them in that way. So that's that's that's the part I'm most proud of is I built up this this team of this great group of people that uh you know Do you have any uh day one or year one staffers?

unknown 49:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:04

Well, I guess you're 2006.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yeah, see lost oh there's there's uh one, two, three, uh three guys, three, four guys that have been there longer than I have. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. They try to throw their their uh you know they try to renown. Listen, Brad, we've been here a long time. No, take that seniority crap and shove it. I'm still the boss, you know. But but yeah, no, there's there's a couple of those guys, and and again, they're and and I like to think that they're lifers, you know. We yeah we do try and do trips together with with these guys, and it's harder as you get bigger and bigger to to do those things. But if we're a big Christmas party with us and blue pine now, I think, well man, combined, we're geez, 200 some odd employees.

SPEAKER_06 49:48

You see your guys' trucks everywhere, everywhere, yeah. Yeah, it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Yeah, so those trucks are turning up on social media and stuff. We places we don't want them to turn up. It's a it's a weird feeling. I I I was riding with Mike one day, we were heading out to look at us at a job, and we we passed three blue pine trucks in the span of two hours, and everyone is who's driving that one? I I don't know. Well, who's whose trucks that? I don't know. There's no way, man. That's it. I'm throwing in the towel. I don't know who's driving our truck. There's a problem.

SPEAKER_04 50:20

Yeah, and that growth's been awesome to see like you guys develop and then also you know, kind of lead the industry in the way you guys kind of approach projects.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Yeah, we try. Yeah, yeah, it's uh like I say, we can and and you know, we we've we've built um uh we've got such a unique variety of of equipment and and things that we can do, like full full turnkey, and I'll say from the the concrete recycling, um we do a lot of steel processing too. We've got two big um second-member hydraulic shears that'll you know that'll cut to inch and a half thick steel plate, you know. So we do a lot of that when we do the heavy industrial stuff and you know, rock truck and demo bins and hazmat division, and you know, if if we see an opportunity for for something, we we jump on it. Having that that high reach machine, yeah. Um, you know, so just a quick story on that. You talk about unique things, yeah. Uh in 2008, I think I'd only been at Clearview for a few months, and there was a demolition convention, so all four of us, you know, we pack up and we're going down to Las Vegas, and there's this beautiful Volvo 460 high-reach machine in the on display. And I remember just staring at this thing and saying to the guys, man, someday, you know, someday it'd be cool to own something like this. And so fast forward to uh about two years ago or two, three years ago, and um we said, you know, we see a market, we need this thing. There's a lot of multi-story buildings coming down, and and and we need this. So we poked around, talked with Volvo, and they they found this machine out of California, and we got talking with the guy, and it was the machine he bought it at that demo convention. Oh no, really, that's our machine, yeah. So we we we own it. So that isn't that neat.

SPEAKER_06 51:58

That is really cool. Yeah, wow. It's yeah, that is pretty cool. Everyone always says in construction, like it's a small, such a small world, and things come around. You think about that in cities but city by city, but there you go, right? Like people are I know when you're looking for used equipment and stuff like that, like it can come full circle.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

Yeah, so well, there's I'm sure there's some of our old machines out there.

SPEAKER_06 52:20

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

Uh I apologize already if there's uh so are your jobs completely uh revolving around your own equipment, or do you rent some of it, or what's the deal?

SPEAKER_00 52:32

We try to we try to self-source all of our all of our stuff. Um, you know, no offense to the rental companies out there, but I don't like renting equipment. I just tried to know and and and uh and there's some some items where we just can't. We get into cranes and and things like that. It's yeah, it makes more sense to to um rent rent that stuff out or bring other guys in. Trucking too is another thing. We we have our own truck and and trailers and low beds, but um uh we do enough uh we do enough uh low bed or enough trucking that we just sub that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

But I would imagine that you're the equipment because of the the operators you have, it's almost like a piece of uh sports equipment with an athlete, right? You get to know that piece of equipment and how it works and exactly you could become come somewhat intimate with it, like you kind of know exactly third arm, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Third arm exactly, yeah. It's like another appendage. So when we talk about um deconstruction, our our equipment has hydraulic thumbs, which is pretty common, but yeah, we weld or we have teeth on those thumbs that mash with the teeth on the bucket, yeah. So it is like a like a hand. And you know, I I've watched our guys pick apart a building, they say deconstruct, and they'll they'll pick out a uh a 30 foot 3x12 joist and just pick that out, set it on the ground, pick it out, stack it, and and you know, just so meticulous. It must be cool to watch. It's it's pretty neat. Do you time-lapse a lot of the stuff? Um, well, that's why we have uh we're doing it. Oh, I see. In the hot seat now. Hey, he's the movie star. If you want to see some uh I've seen it, some good footage, Mr. Brad. No, we we have we have we do have some time lapse stuff and uh uh bunch all the way down. The the 12 story that we're doing has a time lapse on it right now, too. It's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

And he and even the highway one that we've we've we captured, that was a really cool project to uh to get away.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

Mountain RoboS, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:20

You made a good comment there too, is we say this on the podcast, but we often overlook that level of professionalism in that blue-collar trade of an operator because you look at like a software engineer, you look at um whether it's professional service, lawyers, things like that. But if you're running a 90-foot reach on a high-reach excavator and you're pulling like you know, select material from a building, like if that's not art and skill, I don't know what is. And I think uh people just look at that like, oh, there's a guy running excavator, he's just uh just a normal guy. You know, don't be like him, go back to school. But in reality, like that's that's a like how many people can do that?

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Yeah, it's it's it's having the patience and the control and knowing that when I go and I pull on this, if I tweak this, this thing's gonna react a certain way. And and and knowing that, you know, we just did the building at Broadway and Cambi, the old original Joe's there. Oh, but the Starbucks downstairs? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. So that thing that's you guys, cool. Yeah, uh not well, yeah, it's cool now that it's done. But but that is one of the busiest intersections and city hall across the road. Yeah, the alley in the back. Uh yeah, you have city hall behind you. City hall, yeah, and oh nice. You know, you talk about people watching you. Oh, yeah, that must have been you know, that thing hanging over and the same thing. So, you know, operators come in from the back, and and you have to be able to stop traffic, stop cars, reach in, gently pull that stuff because you know if that thing that wall goes wrong, and we all remember that big scene on YouTube a few years ago when that wall fell down in Vancouver and everybody, you know, yeah. That's the stuff you don't want to happen. And and uh our operators to me are some of the best around, and these guys know, and if they're not comfortable doing something, then we stop. Yeah, and I know if if my guys say I'm not comfortable doing this, then there's definitely a problem with the level, so then we just go blow it up.

SPEAKER_04 56:05

Yeah, no, it is and I mean it's it's two things you're just beating your your change of perspective is demolition, which is not a wrecking ball, and it's just um equipment operation. Like these guys are technical and they're thinking before they do stuff, and uh like what you mentioned with your son, like coming from a video game perspective and yeah, and looking at just it's it's not just uh run and gun, it's think, it's be calm. And like when I was on that job in Vancouver with you guys, like everybody's looking. Like you probably have hundreds and so say it's a fishbowl.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

Yeah, it's a fishbowl, everybody looking at you.

SPEAKER_04 56:37

Yeah, so yeah, that's that's awesome. Um one of the things we had on here too is uh you've had a lot of growth, which is awesome. But what are the next 12 to 24 months look like? You you name dropped a couple big projects which are high profile, which you're gonna have to staff up for and execute. But uh yeah, give us a snapshot.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

We're you know, we're we've probably got I want to say maybe right now about three million dollars in bids out there right now. Yeah, and I want to say we've probably got 10 to 12 million dollars in budgets and potentials and what ifs, and you know, the our industry being again primarily commercial industrial type demolition, it is still going we're very strong. Yeah, um and and the again the next you know the forecast is good. We had um 2018 was our was our biggest year to date, and 2019 now is going to be even bigger. Nice, so it's exciting, and and I hope the same for 2020, and then maybe by 2025 I can wind her down a little bit and enjoy it life. But uh no, it's it's good. And and like I say, we're we're getting calls and and budgets and you know, signing NDAs on on projects that are pretty unique and and um and it's exciting. Uh I love it.

SPEAKER_06 57:59

Cool. Well, this has been fantastic, and we'll give you a chance to plug a little bit more for clear view and for any you know thing you do want to say to your employees or listeners or potential um people, but we do this rapid fire round at the end, which I know you've been looking forward to. Oh, yeah. And you shared a few stories with us, but I'm I'm convinced that you still have a couple left in the hopper. So um if we can jump into it and feel free, you can uh quick answers, long answers, whatever, and we'll uh we'll jump into this.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

I'm wondering if the Cabernet wine we're having is gonna grease the wheels more than the coffees in the morning. Yeah, I'm feeling that, yeah. That's pretty cool. This is our this is our first evening. Evening one.

SPEAKER_06 58:44

Yeah, this is our first afternoon one.

SPEAKER_04 58:45

This might be I kind of like it. I do too. I think with Brad too, his phone probably I'm not gonna lie, people's phone would probably buzz a lot less at this time, especially for construction, right?

SPEAKER_06 58:54

Because we're doing 7 a.m. That's like primo get started, get your plans done.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

You guys do night shift too. Yeah, we yeah, we're doing a night, actually doing a night shift tonight, and uh we do it when when we need to, but but yeah, primarily that seven to nine in the morning. And you're on a podcast drinking wine? What's the matter? Perfect. Jeez, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_04 59:11

He's a celebrity, he's a celebrity. Videos, podcasts, 20 2019's a good year for Brad.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Brad suit and tie.

SPEAKER_06 59:21

Brad, are you um do you read, listen to audiobooks or podcasts?

SPEAKER_00 59:25

I do listen to podcasts, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:27

Okay. Um well maybe we'll maybe we'll shift the question. It's either Well, yeah, okay. Well, no, no, that's okay. No, or what's what's your what's the best book you read in 2018 or are reading in 2019?

SPEAKER_00 59:37

So I'm a huge country music fan. Uh old school country music. Okay, and you know, like all the stuff that your grandpa and your grandpa's record cabinet, that's that's my iPod.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Um and uh so I read the um I read a a book by Whelan Jennings' uh son, and it's kind of a story of the being on the road with Waylon Jennings back in the 70s and the outlaw movement and the drinking and the coke and all the all the good stuff. So that that I read that book uh earlier this year and and uh loved it.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:02

What was the name? Is it self-titled or is it?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:04

It's uh it's uh just I I I got I can see the covers, can't think of the name of it, but uh but yeah, it's by Terry Jennings and uh great great book. Any anybody out there that that's an old school country fan? There was cocaine in the country music. Oh I didn't know about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

So we're talking about pop.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:20

Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean um okay, no, cool. That's good. I'm writing that one down. Um what is something that you do that and that you believe in that others would think is insane?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Something that I believe in, I think or that you do, habit, routine. How about a phobia?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:38

Phobia work? Yeah, okay, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

I I am deathly afraid of those giant windmills, like wind farms. Whoa, like a turbine, like electric turbines, yeah. Like Merin and Cam loops when you come over the hill there. Oh, yeah. You're like eyes forward, keep driving. I I I once went two and a half hours out of a way through Kozinus Pass just to avoid those stupid things. It's they just freaked me the hell out. Really? I don't know why. I it's the sound, you roll the windows down, you thought, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Even doing that freaked me out. Have you ever been ever been to Palm Springs? Uh only on plane because I flew over the stupid things and I didn't have to see them. You can see them though. There's like huge keep the blind shut. I I I drove, we drove from uh Las Vegas to Bakersfield there earlier this year, not realizing there was that many. And my wife, she was laughing, and I was just don't talk to me, just blinders on, go.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:27

Yeah, I don't I don't like them. That's awesome. Uh, what is the most important thing about being a good demolition manager, general manager?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

Um I think the most important thing is being understanding that you never know at all and always you're always learning something. Every job we do is learning. I learn stuff every day. Um, you know, I've got guys that work for me that are way more experienced than this than than I am. And and and learning from those guys is is great. They never know that you, you know, I'll walk into a site meeting and I'll see other guys in my in my industry where you get that vibe where they they think they know it all.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

And you never go in with that approach. Um, good good manager always sits back and and and knows his place and and knows that yeah, you don't know it all. Um, you know most of it, but not all of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:17

Yeah, no, that's great advice. What's the most important piece of your background that contributes to success at Clearview?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:23

Um you know, I grew up in a um in a real social uh atmosphere. My my dad was a big rugby player, and uh, and as a kid, uh every weekend was uh was rugby tournaments, and I can remember I grew up in Castlegard and waking up in the morning with a house full of drunk strangers and you know what and and so I I grew up in a um you know but but so you always learn to um to respect your uh elders and respect those around you and uh um having that um respect for others is uh uh been a big thing for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:06

Yeah, no, no, no. That's great. Um I think that that shows in some of the stories you shared a little bit about taking care of your people. Yeah, and uh that's really cool. I like that's good culture. What's the most important uh what's the most challenging part of your of your role?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

Dealing with people. Um, you know trying to get people to understand that when we shut down a sidewalk, it's for their safety. Yeah, yeah, you know, when when we have to hold up traffic for uh this morning, we so I was telling you we did a night shift last night. So I was down at site about 5 30 this morning, and we have a big crane there lifting precast concrete panels off this building, right on the corner, like of a pretty busy intersection there. So you have to stop traffic while they torch these tabs off this thing and the crane hoists it and it takes a couple minutes, but they gotta understand we're working right over top of you, like we can't I can't have you there. And guys yelling and cursing, and it's like you know, that's the most frustrating part is trying to get people to understand we're not I'm not there to purposely delay your day. It's it's for safety. Getting people to understand that what we do is um there's a reason that we're that we're doing those things, yeah. But uh and and and again, and especially downtown and and uh you know I I love that the the the white collar sector, I think it's great, but they're they're like lemmings and they're they they're they're they're focused and every day they have a routine. I I walk down here and I get my Starbucks and I go over here, and if you'd interrupt that flow, holy Hannah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:34

Like well, yeah, I'm I mean it's crazy. I think we're all guilty of it at times, right? We're we're thinking about we're getting from A to B. We need to do in a certain amount of time. This is a huge disruption in my pattern.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:44

What do you mean this this 20 feet of sidewalks closed? What's it totally and then but it's me? But it's me. I'm I'm like I know what I'm yeah, yeah. You know, just anyway. That hardest part of my job, dealing with with people.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:57

Makes sense. Let's get to some of these job site questions. Um, what are the top few things that you look for on a well-run job site?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

Cleanliness, yeah, um safety, uh, sorting, sorting debris is a huge thing. You come into a site. I I love to come in and see clean piles of here's our wood, here's our metal, here's our garbage, here's our concrete. Organization. Um that that's a huge because it's a it's a visual perspective. You know, when they go in there and do a lot of the hazmat work, and they're the first thing to do is gut gut the buildings and they'll fire the crap out the windows and you know, you know, washing machines and chairs and I hate that. Get in there, clean it all up, or put it all into a central spot where it's where it's out of out of sight. Yeah, no. Pulling into a to a nice organized site just makes all the difference. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:45

Okay. The best part. What is your best or most memorable story from the job site? Feel feel free you can talk it out, or if there's a couple or little tidbits that you want to share.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

I feel like there's a book he could write. I know. Okay, so my favorite there's a there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of things, and and I'm sure if I had if it wasn't rapid fire to more time to write it down, I come up with a few. But the one that stands out for me the most, we did a project, I was telling you earlier, we did a project in Banff, and it was at the Banff Center for the Arts, very hoidey toidy. Yeah, yeah, you know, and uh we were demolishing this massive um building to make way for a new outdoor theater, and the the faculty wanted to walk through one last time before we started to demolish it. So we had had our abatement crew in there gutting the thing down to bare skeleton, and so the day that we were going to wreck it, they set it all up, and here they come in with their little shiny hard hats and their safety glasses, and they're gonna walk through to take one last look at at this building. And again, you gotta these are these are you know um musical art people and math teachers, a very right, much higher caliber person than I am. So they come walking into what was their old big common area. I'm I'm kind of leading the pack, or this is you know, this was what we did, and this, oh great, yeah, great, great. And we recycled this toilet and did all this kind of fun stuff. And we come walking into this room, and in letters four foot high in orange spray paint, it said Mickey, who was our foreman at the time. Mickey Googles large, and I'll let you fill in the blank at the end, in massive letters written across the back wall. And I come walking in there and I see this, and I my face drops. Now I've gotta herd all these people around so that they don't, you know, after I finish explaining what a professional company just spent an hour fresh out how professional we are all this stuff, and and here was you know the yeah, anyway, it was it was quite a sight to see. Uh I uh I still laugh about that. So now the hard part about that is I crawl them all under before they they see this. Oh, for sure. Get them out of there. Now I gotta sit down with my crew and you know, put my boss hat on and go, what the hell are you guys thinking? Like, you know, you you're writing stuff like that, and you know, and then they're all sudden looking at me, and then I gotta take my boss hat off, and I'm just dying laughing. And I said, That is probably one of the funniest things that I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:22

Oh man. Totally. The setup is like a classic thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

And the uh I guess the other quick story comes to mind. Um, uh another project we're doing out of town, and I had myself and one of my other project managers have gone up to check on things. Rolled into town about seven o'clock at night, and we come walking into the to the local pub to have a beer and a and a and a burger, and we weren't in there 30 seconds, and this guy comes up and goes, You're with Clearview? And he goes, Yeah, he goes, get the hell out of my place. And I go, What? I don't I've never been there, I don't know what's going on. Well, I guess our boys have been in at the bar the night before, and uh long story short, I had to pay this guy a thousand dollars for damage had caused bar fighting, window broke, and a bunch of shit, you know. So so yeah, that uh yeah, same thing. Now you gotta sit down and go scold these guys, and sometimes you're a big babysitter you know, in the in this position, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:09:19

So demolition is for the job site only. Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:25

Cool. No, I mean uh doing what what you're doing, and I'm sure that like the characters that come along with it, uh whether they're yours or the people that you're interacting with, would provide for a lot of really great um stories that and entertainment along the way. So but uh it's been fantastic having you on um and getting to know you and your story a little bit more. Is there anything you want to share uh about Clearview? Um to anyone that be listening in our audience?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

Um no, I just you know, we're like I say, we we've I've strived hard to get our name out there, and uh I think this is a great opportunity to do that as well. Um you know, we're we're full-scale industrial commercial demolition. You know, reach out, give us a call. Whether you're just thinking about you know purchasing, you might need some budgets on a project, whatever it is. You know, we're we're there, we're full full scale and uh and willing to like I say, we do do a lot of out-of-town work all over Western Canada. So um yeah, that's cool. Pretty much it. We're here to here to help.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:27

So right on. Thank you. Here to deconstruct. Here to deconstruct. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, Brad. We show up.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:34

Thank you guys for having me. It's been great.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:35

Yeah, not a problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

Did we learn anything? We did.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:38

I yeah, yeah. Always, always do. Gotta have a lot of things. I want to see that. I want to see that wall. Yeah, James said. Yeah, yeah. The wall of fame. The wall of fame.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:46

No spray paint.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:47

That's what I learned. Yeah, that's right. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thanks for awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:52

Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Site Visit, a podcast dedicated to leadership in construction with perspective from the job site. If you like the show, please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or Google Play. To learn more, check us out online at thesitevisit.com.