Brokk Star: A New Level Of Demolition

For Weldon Birch and Cal West Concrete Cutting, Inc., finding the Brokk machines meant uncovering a whole new approach to the world of demolition work.

As President, CEO and co-founder of Cal West Concrete Cutting, Inc., Birch knows the industry like the back of his hand. And that’s no surprise. Prior to the founding of Cal West, Birch had more than nine years of experience in the concrete cutting business. And, between setting its roots in 1975 to today, Cal West sales have dramatically risen from $240,000 a year to more than $9.5 million. It’s a growth that Birch credits to a dedicated and experienced crew and support staff but also to equipment that allowed them to say yes to nearly any cutting or demolition job.

Equipment like Brokk remote controlled demolition machines.

“I saw the Brokk machine working on a job, and it immediately piqued my interest,” said Birch. “Once we purchased our first Brokk 250, it gave us a new dimension in the industry that only a handful of our competitors could duplicate.”

Soon after the purchase of a Brokk 250, the team added a Brokk 150 and a Brokk 90 with breakers and crusher attachments to its fleet. The machines enabled Cal West to take on a wide variety of delicate and difficult jobs and increased both efficiency and safety.

In 2007, Cal West traded its Brokk 250 – which had been put to work for over 15 years – for the newer Brokk 330D diesel-powered unit. Since then, the 330D has led Cal West to even greater heights – literally.

“We recently used the 330D on a dam renovation where they needed to rough cut out several hundred feet of connection trenches at the top of the dam for water flow,” said Birch. “The specifics were that we couldn’t use any breakers bigger than 60 pounds and the areas had very limited access for any type equipment.”

The job would take 6-8 weeks to do by hand, so Cal West came up with a plan to use a Brokk 330D and a Brokk 150, both equipped with a scarifier to tackle the job. With the Brokk machines, the Cal West team made trenches 18 inches deep by 12 inches wide in solid concrete, allowing water to pass through the area without any damage to the surrounding surface. “With the Brokk equipment, Cal West was able to finish the job in less than two weeks,” said Birch, “nearly a month ahead of the originally scheduled finish date and to our customer’s satisfaction.”

And Brokk continues to soar for the company.

Last year, one of Cal West’s customers was working on the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Renovation Project. The company ran into solid rocky soil on a very steep bank where its crews needed to drill foundation holes for new stairway footings. The holes, however, were out of reach for any excavator or auger unit because of the steep incline and distance from the nearest access area. The terrain and soil conditions also made the job impossible to do by hand.

Cal West knew there had to be a way. So, with a little ingenuity, his team anchored the 330D to a platform they built and hoisted it with a crane. While suspended in mid-air, the Brokk 330D and a specially designed auger unit with an 18-inch rock cutter drill bit, drilled all of the holes up to 12 feet deep while the operator worked from a remote location as much as 75 feet away. This improbable job was completed within a week and kept the customer on schedule.

Proving once again that a little ingenuity and a Brokk machine go a long way. And that’s what makes a Brokk Star.