Dirty Jobs (2005) s01e10 Episode Script
Hot Tar Roofer
1 My name is Mike rowe, and this is my job.
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty Whoo! hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Now, get ready [blows.]
to get dirty.
Coming up on "dirty jobs," I go to the top of a church in Pasadena, California, for a little slice of heaven called "hot-tar roofing" You're doing it wrong, but that's okay.
and learn that moving up the ladder doesn't always mean a promotion.
How long were you working on that thing? I'm sorry.
You'd be fired.
Then I spend some time with a man who makes his living moving buildings.
We'll lift this house straight up off its foundation.
It takes a whole day to move 12 inches.
You've never been stuck under a 60-ton house.
But it's straight up and pushing a 225-year-old landmark.
We got ourselves a mobile home.
Captions by vitac captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.
Dirty job but someone's gotta do it oh oh oh it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it One Okay.
Está bien, ya.
Ready? Pull! Pull it! Okay, perfect.
I'm gonna let go of your foot, all right? Don't go flying off the edge.
I'm not sure if we're covered for that kind of thing.
These guys are the most creative individuals.
Well, this is Steve radenbaugh.
He goes by "rad," correct? We're standing on the roof of a church in Pasadena, and you've been putting new rooves on new buildings for a long, long time.
Radenbaugh: Well, the company's been around since 1936.
We've probably done 100,000 roof jobs in our history, and today what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk you through a new-roofing process, and you will experience a roofer firsthand, and you'll never forget this as long as you live.
I don't think I'm gonna forget what's happened so far.
Over there on the ledge, pulling up the chute What was that all about? You know, you don't have a helicopter.
You don't have a crane, and the height of this building just makes it easier if you just pull it up by hand, and, as you saw, you got six guys hanging on to this thing.
One guy had a rope around him, and, boy, if that thing lets loose, that guy's off the roof.
He's gone.
He's history.
Andof my leg.
T go I was there for you.
I was leaning over.
There was a problem with pulling that chute up.
So every time you'd pull it, the chute would get stuck.
So, every job has its intricacies of what's taking place and what happens, and they're all different.
Okay, so we're really early in the day right now, and the first step looks like you're getting this gravel, this rock, off of the roof.
Why does that have to happen? Well, you got to remove the gravel to remove the roof.
So they set it in piles, take it with a wheelbarrow down the chute.
Truck's set up below.
They go to the dump probably a couple times a day.
But while you're doing those things, the men are laying down sheets, laying down tar.
So the whole operation keeps moving.
'Cause I got to say, I mean, it looks a bit chaotic, but what you're saying is that there's actually a plan to the whole process.
Absolutely.
Right now, everybody seems to be very busy with the exception of us.
Yes, so we'd better get to work and help them.
After you.
All right.
He attacks it.
He attacks the chute.
He addresses the ramp and then attacks the chute.
It's good.
What's the purpose of gravel up on a roof in the first place? The rock protects the sheets, the felts, and the hot asphalt from the elements, mostly the sun.
If you leave this roof without any rock on it, it'll burn out prematurely.
So, this is like sunscreen.
Exactly what it is.
Exactly what it is.
Is that full enough? That's full enough.
All right, I'm gonna take this.
I'm gonna run it up that ramp.
I'm gonna put it down the chute.
I'm gonna try this one.
Uh, muy grande.
[ Laughs .]
Oh, boy.
Hey, wide legs.
Wide legs? Yes.
Ah, that's a good tip.
Wide legs.
How's that? You hit the ramp and you dump it.
Address the plank.
See the chute.
Attack the chute.
Over, up, up, up, up! Man, it would be a bad thing to let the wheelbarrow go, wouldn't it? Yes, and there's people down there that would get hurt.
Well, you know, it's every man for himself in the roofing business, rad.
When everybody's falling or things are falling, it's every man for himself.
You're right.
The less you fill the wheelbarrow up, the easier it is.
But the less you fill it up, the more trips you got to make.
Safety may be a little bit better concern than how full the wheelbarrow is.
It's just rock.
That's a good point.
Ugh! You got to attack that chute because it can come back on you.
Yeah.
Good job.
It could be worse.
We could be up there.
So, why, specifically, is the roof on this church being replaced? Radenbaugh: They have several leaks.
When you go up on a roof, typically, you can The sheets split.
The expansion and contraction over the 15, 20 years just tears the roof apart, and, you know, they just wear out.
So, as we watch this guy dig further down through the layers, I mean, it's interesting.
Explain to me how a roof is configured and what materials come into play.
This happens to be a built-up roof system, where you'll have a base sheet, hot asphalt, ply sheet, hot asphalt, another ply sheet, hot asphalt, and in this case, they'll embed the rock into the hot asphalt.
If i'm following you right, that's six or seven layers of stuff.
Correct.
So, all the layers you're talking about need to come up around these pipes, around this air-conditioning unit, whatever it is.
Correct.
All these areas right here have to be torn off carefully because you're gonna ruin your cant strips.
Now, if you notice, you're running into your insulation.
So you have to be careful not to damage it.
This is insulation here? If you damage it, we're replacing it.
Gotcha.
So is that too deep? That's too deep.
What looked like an all-out assault is actually a surgical procedure.
Yeah, you have to go at the right angle because these will dig in and pull this up.
Right, but it's tricky because all those layers with the tar get fused together, and, like you say, it really becomes What are really six layers wind up becoming ostensibly one sheet.
It's a game of millimeters, isn't it? These guys, you know, they do it all day long.
They're experts.
They do it right.
We've messed it up.
Yeah, well, that's what I do.
That's the value add you get with me on the job.
It really does stick in there.
Yeah, it sticks.
Now, how long were you working on that thing? I don't know, a minute.
I'm sorry, you'd be fired.
This should be all gone, done, and out of here.
Man, I am slowing things down in a big way, but I'm learning so much.
You're learning what you want to do and what you don't want to do.
Well, that's half of it, isn't it? Uh-oh.
Oh, well.
Holy crap, rad.
I got a winner here.
Yeah.
You're supposed to leave the base sheet down.
It's okay.
Keep pulling.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
It's like pulling a giant scab.
We're tearing this up, but it really needs to be swept up first.
Okay.
So you make sure you get all the dirt and dust off of it.
Even something as simple as sweeping up requires a careful technique.
Absolutely.
There's always something to the madness.
A method, or a broom in this case.
That's a boy.
Ah! Putting on a roof in Pasadena That's a dirty job.
It's nice to see a boss who's not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Coming up This can't be good.
Roofing is a dangerous business, even when you're on the ground.
450, 500 degrees.
Got a little out of hand there, didn't I? You don't want to do that.
And later, I get stuck between a rock and a hard place, literally.
What is asphalt, exactly? I mean, if you break down the word by syllables, it's kind of off-putting.
It's a by-product of oil.
It's a petroleum-based thing.
"As" and "phalt.
" It's your ass, and it's your fault.
See, it is a very negative word no matter how you look at it.
It's your fault my ass is up here.
And why isn't everybody kicking back and taking a break in this heat? Well, certain jobs are paid by the square, which is 100 square feet, and the more they produce, the more money they make.
That's a 10x10 10x10 area.
And if you get it done in 8 hours versus get it done in 12 hours, you're basically getting paid the same.
Absolutely.
It's a good system.
It just doesn't work on all applications.
Right.
And here today, it's gonna work fine.
That's why I don't see anybody standing around talking, except for that guy! [ Laughs .]
So we got to get this stuff out of here, get the rolls loaded, and get this thing started.
You take five.
Take a break.
You're all working too hard.
10 squares, paid by the square.
Chop-chop.
I hope that made it down.
I don't want to be the guy to clog up the chute.
Oh, crap.
Ah, there we go.
All right.
This is called "base sheet," and the base sheet right now is ready to be applied to the roof.
After that, I'm pretty sure rock will be applied to the base sheet and then, if memory serves, the tar goes on the rock.
I could be wrong.
So, this is one unholy-looking device to have parked in front of a church.
Yeah, this is pretty nasty.
What is it? This is a kettle.
You put your asphalt in there, heats it up to around 450 degrees, and it pumps the asphalt up to the roof.
That is one smelly, smelly device.
Yeah, it's, uh It's an issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This can't be good.
So, we got an ax, a kettle full of hot tar, and a church.
Want to have an inquisition? And you got a mop.
[ Laughs .]
So we're heating that mop up 'cause the asphalt up there won't heat it up.
Okay.
Now, we got to get a lot of this asphalt, I guess, what, up through that pipe? Yes, all this asphalt will be pumped up through the pipe.
Rowe: So, I'm gonna be over here swinging an ax and dropping the hunks of asphalt into the bubbling tar, thereby creating more asphalt.
You set it in there.
You don't drop it 'cause it'll splash.
And it's, what, 450 450, 500 degrees.
What the hell is this? It's like cutting jello.
You're looking at asphalt.
You're looking at oil product.
It's just a hunk of black petroleum.
Exactly.
This is the bottom of the barrel when they finish refining it.
This is what's left over.
This is what's left over.
Everything gets used.
Ay, ay, ay.
You got to hit it hard and bust that in half.
You got to hit it hard.
Black, viscous jello.
You got to hit it hard.
This is a stupid way to die In the middle of the street with an ax, busting up petroleum products.
Have a nice day.
Man.
That is some nasty-looking stuff.
You ever tempted not to use them? I've never used them.
What am I doing? Hurry up.
What the heck? Oh, no, no, no! Don't! You've got to use them when you're doing that.
Oh, I misunderstood.
I've never used them I've never done that.
You're simply the boss of the operation, not I understand.
I understand what you're saying now.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Actually, you're almost like a surgeon with this on.
Oh, yeah, I'm mistaken for a surgeon all the time, rad.
There goes Mike the surgeon.
Now, you got to open the lid And open that up.
Let it drip.
You may want to well Feel how hot that is? Man, that's burning hot.
Man alive.
Crap.
Did it go through? Yeah, it went through.
See how they loop it so it holds the handle? Burning tar.
Good-looking guy with that mask on.
You mean all this stuff is stuff that splashed out of there? Exactly.
That's why it's so dirty.
I guess it really works, then.
Whoa, whoa! Got a little out of hand there, didn't I? Yeah.
You don't want to do that.
No, I don't.
Coming up, I get a lesson on the laws of gravity Uh-oh.
I'd hate for that to fall on anybody.
Grab it! Grab it! and why I'm not a professional roofer.
I ought to be able to catch it like that.
Wrong foot back.
Wrong foot back.
So far, we've torn up the old roof and chopped up and melted down chunks of oil by-products for the new one.
Unfortunately, on this job, those were the easy parts.
All right, rad, I've got a couple of buckets here, which I'm guessing go about like that.
Turn them this way.
Oh, I see.
That rope is attached to the Pump.
And the pump's on the kettle.
And the kettle's gonna start sending up gallons of this bubbling-hot tar through this galvanized-steel pipe and into this piece of high-tech cardboard.
The most critical thing is knowing when to shut this thing down so it doesn't fly all over us.
So, I'm gonna help you.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Let me translate Rad will be doing it for me.
I don't blame you.
Go ahead.
Aw, it's pitch-black in there.
Who can tell how much is coming out? We don't want you to start smoking.
Look at that.
Bubbling-hot, black magma.
Good god.
This just seems really treacherous.
Heads up.
Watch the stuff.
I'm watching everything.
All right, now what incredibly stupid and treacherous thing can I attempt? Straight up.
Straight up.
The edge of the cart, the edge, the edge.
Move the bucket down to the edge.
Ah.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Oh, man.
Get it? Get it up higher.
Bring it down that line.
Spin it, spin it, as you come down that line.
Perfect.
You're doing it wrong, but that's okay.
Of course I'm doing it wrong.
When I said hello, I told you all I knew about hot-tar roofing.
Okay, that's plenty.
You went over the line again.
Pick it up.
Take your mop along that line.
Make a square.
Okay.
Sucker's heavy, isn't it? It really is backbreaking.
That thing saturates the asphalt up.
Bonds it together.
All right.
Constantly with the cutting and the shaping.
Customizing to fit all the existing protrusions.
Yeah, these guys have done this before.
Very tough.
Very tough.
But you see what it takes? I see.
I mean, it's It's dirty, it's tough.
I don't know what you pay these guys, but I'll tell you what, they earn it.
Every nickel.
Absolutely.
So, the goal here is to get the entire roof papered, tarred, paper, tarred, paper, tarred, essentially, but that roof over there They're already at that point.
So that's, what, the rocking phase? Correct.
Gonna rock it in.
What exactly is in those bags? Rock.
So we're gonna take rock via conveyor belt Up to the roof.
It's about 1:30 in the afternoon.
It's about as hot as hot gets.
And the hottest part of this inherently hot job is about to get a little hotter.
It's gonna get a little hotter.
Great.
Now, what's the best place for me? You want to see me down here being miserable loading or up there being miserable catching? We got to be up here loading, and then we can move up to the top, and you can do a little catching.
Spread the misery around.
Fantastic.
Set it down.
Oh, I see what happens.
Timing is very important.
Next.
Next bag.
Uh-oh.
Oh, crap.
That's close.
I'd hate for that to fall on anybody.
Uh-oh.
Trouble! Oh, man.
Grab it! Grab it! Oh, no! Doggone it.
That's all right.
Forget it.
Rookie mistake.
We need two-leggers.
Go, baby.
Now it's an episode of "I love Lucy.
" Holy crap.
It's moving now.
That's the way it's supposed to be going.
It's tough, man.
It's tough.
What the hell am I doing up here? I don't know.
You wanted to do it.
Now we'll go up and receive.
Receive? Should I take the conveyor up or actually No, no.
Very unsafe.
It's always better to hold the outside of the ladder, right? Yes, sir.
Why is that? So you never let go of the ladder.
When you grab rung by rung, you let go of it.
Right.
You feel your feet? I'm stuck to the roof, yeah.
Yeah, they're staging the rocks so when they're hotting in, they're able to grab the bags and roll with them.
So the drill is rock goes down, spread out even.
Tar goes on.
No, tar goes on.
Hot asphalt goes down.
Rock gets embedded into it.
And then no more tar on top of that? No more tar on top of that.
That's it, you're done.
This roof is finished.
Now, why don't you watch a couple times? Yeah, I think I will.
Oh, I got that.
[ Grunts .]
[ Laughter .]
Oh, good, a line.
I love a line.
Oh, yeah.
He takes it right in the chest.
Let's watch his technique.
Some guys like the shoulder.
Some like the belly.
He's sort of an arm man.
I'm gonna go for the shoulder.
If I can time it just right, I believe it should fall cleanly right onto my right shoulder.
I ought to be able to catch it like that.
Radenbaugh: Wrong foot back.
Wrong foot back.
Another rookie mistake.
That'll work.
Let it come to you, right? That'll work.
Whoa! Oh, that won't.
Okay.
If only I had a bag of rock.
[ Chuckles .]
Radenbaugh: You got to keep that hot going because it's got to embed into the rock.
The rock's got to embed in it.
So you've got to keep it thick.
It's not like a ply sheet.
Keep dipping and mopping, dipping and mopping.
What you're telling me is more hot.
More hot.
Coming up When laying down tar Dip it.
Get that mop going.
Let's go.
a word to the unwise is not sufficient.
I just tarred my toes.
Now I'm gonna have webbed feet.
And later You want to raise it? Yeah.
Just push that lever that way.
Holy crap, I'm moving a house.
Radenbaugh: You got to keep that hot going because it's got to embed into the rock.
More hot.
More hot.
I see why you're the boss now.
Dip it, dip it, dip it.
Get that mop going.
Let's go.
More hot.
Dip it again.
I think I just tarred my toes.
Now I'm gonna have webbed feet.
Great.
A lot of hot, a lot of hot.
Good job, good job.
Take it out.
Dip it again, dip it again.
Very good.
Now you got it.
Why is it sizzling? Hot! Here he comes.
He's got the more hot.
Oh, man.
Every time this guy shows up, it's more bad news and more hot.
I would welcome a nice third-degree burn right about now.
You don't want to even go there.
Go there? I live there.
There's not one easy job in the world of hot-tar roofing.
That poor guy's been lugging these 5- or 10-gallon containers of what they call "hot.
" He keeps dumping it into this bucket.
Then Mr.
Wonderful over there keeps yelling at me to spread more of it around, and merrily we roll along.
It's like one, big, happy family without the joy.
No más.
I'll shovel.
You spread.
No more hot.
I'll give this a try.
You take five.
Gracias.
It is tricky.
Too much.
It's very tricky.
Very tricky.
Can you do this? No.
I appreciate your candor.
Now, you would think putting rock down on this would just be a matter of shoveling and chucking, but there's a real technique.
Watch what he does with the side of the shovel.
He makes it look absolutely casual, you know, like he's just spreading rock, but I'm telling you It's harder than it looks.
It's very hard.
He's finessing it.
You're dumping it.
He's finessing it.
That's the difference.
He's a finesser.
I'm a dumper.
He's a professional.
Well, rad, if I had any energy or any brainpower left, I'd do a nice little recap right now, but since I can't remember everything, put this thing in a nutshell for me.
This morning we tore off.
We laid down base sheet.
We laid down ply sheet, and we rocked in.
Didn't I also take an ax and smash up some petroleum products? That you did.
Didn't I also carry some buckets of bubbling tar from roof to roof? That's true, but that's all in the process of what we did today.
Okay, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't hallucinating because I think I am right now.
Well, after this, some people do hallucinate a little bit.
You got a dirty job.
Thank you.
I'm glad I could share it with you.
My pleasure.
I'll never see you again.
All right.
Well, it's a beautiful day here in northern New Jersey, and we've come to one of those neighborhoods where everyone is terribly concerned with keeping up with the joneses.
Well, that's easier said than done because those are the joneses.
They're on the move, and they're taking their house with them.
The w.
A.
Stands for Wayne Albert.
This is Wayne right here, sitting on a bulldozer with me.
Yfor a living? S yes, I do.
How old is this place? I believe it's around 1780.
We will be picking this house up and taking it down the road and setting it up for the historical society.
How do you move a 200-and- whatever-it-is-year-old house without snapping it in half? Put steel underneath it.
Then we'll put the hoses on the hydraulic Jacks.
We unify everything, and we'll lift this house straight up out of the ground off its foundation.
How much does this thing weigh? Probably in the neighborhood of around 60 ton.
Is this a dirty job? It involves a lot of manual work and dirt, machinery, grease.
You name it, we have it.
Just watch out for any rolling stones because they're large and they move.
All right.
The steel beam will not bend if you hit your head on it.
In this area here, it seems to be the older part of the structure.
Wait.
This is the bottom of a 226-year-old house.
Exactly.
These are actual, obviously, yeah, they're trees.
Yeah, they're trees.
That's 225-year-old bark.
We have three chimneys.
This is the center chimney.
And it's pretty much large stone.
From there, it gets to become brick above us.
And we are in the process of loading this chimney out to the point where we're able to lift it and keep its original form.
What are we looking at here, Wayne? What we have here is the last chimney that we actually tunneled underneath it, and we need to go in there, and we actually need to clean it up so we can stick a beam through there and we can preload that chimney, too.
Don't be afraid to get dirty, now.
No, no.
I'm not afraid of the dirt.
It's the 60 tons of house over my head that causes some concern.
Just watch these rocks don't come down on your head.
Right.
[ Grunts .]
Try to go forward.
What? You've never been stuck under a 60-ton house? These things are monsters, Wayne.
Just watch you don't pinch your fingers.
And be careful no rocks roll out with it.
Right.
All right.
Yeah, don't touch that because now the chimney will come rolling down on you, and then we have more rock to move out of the way.
Well, then you'd have to move me out of your way.
Well, what you'd have is a dead b-list celebrity pinned under a very heavy house.
Just watch as you come out that you don't bend my steel with your head and you don't get hung up on any nails.
I would hate to bend Wayne's steel with my head.
Coming up, the house begins its journey What you're seeing right now is 60 tons levitate.
All of this stuff is now suddenly free from all the weight that's been sitting on it.
but not everyone will be along for the ride.
This, for me, is a, uh, particularly sad day.
As you probably guessed, it takes a little more than a crowbar and a TV host crawling around on his stomach to move a 60-ton structure.
By the time I'd emerged, Wayne was at the controls of a giant machine moving an equally giant "i" beam.
Backhoes, bulldozers, big rigs Wayne can operate them all.
The object is to push this beam straight through under the house to serve as a support for when we lift it, but I was about to learn why clearing rocks from the path is so important.
Wayne, you're like a surgeon with this thing.
How much does a girder like this weigh? This thing is probably about a ton and a quarter.
That's what's stopping us right there.
Just like before, remember I said the ones that are in the ground are the ones that haunt us? [ Grunts .]
Here's the problem Or part of it, anyway.
There.
See? That right there would have been a major problem.
Nice.
Yeah, right on course.
Perfect.
What the heck am I looking at here, Wayne? Well, what we have here is a unified jacking system, which raises these Jacks.
No matter how much weight's on each Jack, it raises the Jacks at the same speed.
We need to isolate each Jack, and once we isolate each Jack, then at that point, we'll put it in unified, and internally, the machine will control the speed of the house as we raise it.
How many Jacks are under the house now? Well, we're only using four, but we're using large-volume, extremely large Jacks.
So when you unify the Jacks, that just means they're all moving in concert, basically? Exactly.
They're going up at the same rate, regardless of how much weight's on each one.
[ Engine turns over .]
Everything is now touched ready to lift off.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna keep pushing until we see the first corner lift.
Once we get to that, I'm gonna lock that Jack off so it doesn't move.
Then we're gonna go to the other three corners.
As soon as you see the next corner lift, that's the next lightest corner.
We're gonna go all to the four Jacks.
Once we do that, and what I'm gonna do is once we're locked off, i'm gonna take all the pressure out.
I'm gonna flip it to the unified side of the machine, and this whole thing is gonna come up.
As we're jacking, we're gonna take these blocks, and we're gonna keep raising them up as we go so if we do have a failure, for whatever reason, okay, then we won't have anybody hurt and there won't be any damage done to the house.
If something like that happens, if a hose blows or something untoward should present itself, our signal between one another will be Blink and say, "what happened?" 'Cause it'll be that fast.
That's a good one.
There it is.
You can see it right there.
Yep.
It's coming up together, Wayne! It's up! Wayne probably didn't need me to tell him that.
When a 60-ton house moves, it's hard not to notice.
Yeah, it's coming straight up.
Unbelievable.
You want to raise it? Yeah.
Just push that lever that way.
Raise it up.
Go ahead.
I'm basically moving 60 tons.
More than that because of the steel weight, too.
Push it.
All the way? All the way.
Watch it go up.
This is telling you how high we're going over here, basically.
Holy crap, I'm moving a house.
What you're seeing right now is 60 tons kind of levitate in the air.
Inch by inch, all of this stuff is now suddenly free from all the weight that's been sitting on it for a couple of centuries.
[ Coughs .]
The job is definitely dirty, but it's also dangerous.
These are the hydraulic hoses.
Inside of these, there's oil, and the pressure in the oil is the thing that enables the Jack to keep 60 tons off of our heads, but as everything is raised up in the air, foundations like these, which have been supporting this house for over 200 years, suddenly they're freed.
All the weight is off of them.
So, these lines are lying around, and rocks like this can come loose, fall on the hose, rupturing it, thereby bringing us all to a rather messy and untimely demise.
It could kill us, in other words.
This, for me, is a, uh, particularly sad day.
A little earlier, I was lying right about here flat on my belly, and the house was right down against my back.
We're making progress.
In order to move the house, we needed a level surface underneath it for the equipment to roll on.
This is where I came in, with a sledgehammer and my bare hands And Wayne, of course, with another machine.
Wayne has embarked on a new mission to Bury me alive.
At this point, a smart guy would get out of the way.
Do you still get a kick out of this or have you seen it too many times to be impressed? Yeah, it's It's old hat.
Yeah, after a while.
You're all bitter and broken and jaded now.
"Oh, look, Mike, another 60-ton house went up in the air.
" Another one down the road.
Coming up, big house, big machines, big pieces of metal, and when it's time to roll, big wheels.
Closed course, professional driver.
Do not attempt.
These plates will go under the house so that the dollies can roll smoothly.
Like everything else on this project, they're big, they weigh a lot, and if one of them falls on me, I'll be a human pancake.
This plate goes right there.
Right up in there.
We're gonna shove it in there, and as we start to make the turn, we'll push it around just to make the radius right.
Wherever the Dolly wants to go, that's where the plate's gonna have to sit.
We're gonna pick it up with this machine, set it in here, and then fine-tune it with the other machine.
All right? You, uh, just you call everything "machine" basically.
Well, that's really a John deere 350, and this is a drott 50 c.
E.
I gotcha.
But "machine" sounds good.
Big machine, small machine.
Smart machine, dumb machine.
I'm just grateful I'm still alive.
Yeah, that's a one-ton plate coming right at me, pretty much.
You can't get anywhere without a set of wheels.
We have three sets.
When you're moving a 60-ton house, why take chances? All right, so that's one.
Well, it's not under the house yet.
We're gonna have to push it a little bit.
Oh, yeah.
Everything pivots on its own.
Like that.
Okay, hold on now.
Cut it.
Come on back.
That's it.
[ Grunting .]
Close enough.
Come on.
Hook me up.
Stop.
Up a little more.
Good.
Okay.
Good.
You may have noticed that large metal objects are a recurring theme in this process.
This one is going on top of a Dolly where soon it will be supporting half the house's weight 30 tons.
Turn it.
Hey, Mike, turn it around the other way.
There you go, just like that.
It's hitting this right here.
It's sliding on it, though, right? Yeah, it did.
I think it'll keep sliding.
Let's go a little more.
Then again, what the hell do I know? You've got to be a mathematician to do this.
I mean, I'm not [bleep.]
You got to be a friggin' mathematician.
We got so many things going on.
You have to watch out for everything.
It moves by millimeters, very, very slowly, but you can see it going up almost imperceptibly, at which point all the weight of this side of the house is gonna go right on these braces.
So the house has just been placed on this Dolly.
All the weight's being transferred from this Jack to this beam, which is sitting right in the bank of that Dolly.
This Jack's clear.
Well, there it is.
These beams are solid steel and very, very heavy.
If you look at them, you can see they're starting to bend.
There's dozens of tons of pressure on either side.
Hey, Wayne, we got ourselves a mobile home! Well, this is it.
The house is completely off its foundation and on wheels.
Three points of support This Dolly right here for the front left, this Dolly over here for the front right, and the whole back half of the house is sitting on that girder, which is sitting on the middle of that Dolly.
What happens now? I have no idea.
Next was horizontal movement Pivoting the house onto the road and then pulling it to its new location.
It was all so much fun, maybe we'll do it again In another 225 years.
Everything had been going smoothly up until then, but as the saying goes, "even the best-laid plans of mice and men can go awry.
" Anybody got a chain saw? We'd like to have a look at your dirty videos.
No, not those dirty videos, your dirty-job videos.
If you have a dirty job and a video camera, send us a videotape of you doing your dirty job.
Make sure it's really dirty.
If it's dirty enough, we'll put it on the air, and if it's really superdirty, I'll come out and do the job with you.
Go to discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs for all the information you need, and for god sakes, take a shower.
They're gonna start this motor, so we'll lose our Lives? No, we're gonna lose the Mikes.
It's gonna be The motor's gonna be going.
What, are you our director now? These rocks are like icebergs, Pedro Little on the top, big on the bottom.
I had an old girlfriend like that.
We got a lot to do here today.
[ Belches .]
Okay.
[ Grunts .]
Oh, god! Rock is so heavy! Can't shoot! Oh! No light! Oh!
I explore the country looking for people who aren't afraid to get dirty Whoo! hardworking men and women who earn an honest living doing the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us.
Now, get ready [blows.]
to get dirty.
Coming up on "dirty jobs," I go to the top of a church in Pasadena, California, for a little slice of heaven called "hot-tar roofing" You're doing it wrong, but that's okay.
and learn that moving up the ladder doesn't always mean a promotion.
How long were you working on that thing? I'm sorry.
You'd be fired.
Then I spend some time with a man who makes his living moving buildings.
We'll lift this house straight up off its foundation.
It takes a whole day to move 12 inches.
You've never been stuck under a 60-ton house.
But it's straight up and pushing a 225-year-old landmark.
We got ourselves a mobile home.
Captions by vitac captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.
Dirty job but someone's gotta do it oh oh oh it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it One Okay.
Está bien, ya.
Ready? Pull! Pull it! Okay, perfect.
I'm gonna let go of your foot, all right? Don't go flying off the edge.
I'm not sure if we're covered for that kind of thing.
These guys are the most creative individuals.
Well, this is Steve radenbaugh.
He goes by "rad," correct? We're standing on the roof of a church in Pasadena, and you've been putting new rooves on new buildings for a long, long time.
Radenbaugh: Well, the company's been around since 1936.
We've probably done 100,000 roof jobs in our history, and today what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk you through a new-roofing process, and you will experience a roofer firsthand, and you'll never forget this as long as you live.
I don't think I'm gonna forget what's happened so far.
Over there on the ledge, pulling up the chute What was that all about? You know, you don't have a helicopter.
You don't have a crane, and the height of this building just makes it easier if you just pull it up by hand, and, as you saw, you got six guys hanging on to this thing.
One guy had a rope around him, and, boy, if that thing lets loose, that guy's off the roof.
He's gone.
He's history.
Andof my leg.
T go I was there for you.
I was leaning over.
There was a problem with pulling that chute up.
So every time you'd pull it, the chute would get stuck.
So, every job has its intricacies of what's taking place and what happens, and they're all different.
Okay, so we're really early in the day right now, and the first step looks like you're getting this gravel, this rock, off of the roof.
Why does that have to happen? Well, you got to remove the gravel to remove the roof.
So they set it in piles, take it with a wheelbarrow down the chute.
Truck's set up below.
They go to the dump probably a couple times a day.
But while you're doing those things, the men are laying down sheets, laying down tar.
So the whole operation keeps moving.
'Cause I got to say, I mean, it looks a bit chaotic, but what you're saying is that there's actually a plan to the whole process.
Absolutely.
Right now, everybody seems to be very busy with the exception of us.
Yes, so we'd better get to work and help them.
After you.
All right.
He attacks it.
He attacks the chute.
He addresses the ramp and then attacks the chute.
It's good.
What's the purpose of gravel up on a roof in the first place? The rock protects the sheets, the felts, and the hot asphalt from the elements, mostly the sun.
If you leave this roof without any rock on it, it'll burn out prematurely.
So, this is like sunscreen.
Exactly what it is.
Exactly what it is.
Is that full enough? That's full enough.
All right, I'm gonna take this.
I'm gonna run it up that ramp.
I'm gonna put it down the chute.
I'm gonna try this one.
Uh, muy grande.
[ Laughs .]
Oh, boy.
Hey, wide legs.
Wide legs? Yes.
Ah, that's a good tip.
Wide legs.
How's that? You hit the ramp and you dump it.
Address the plank.
See the chute.
Attack the chute.
Over, up, up, up, up! Man, it would be a bad thing to let the wheelbarrow go, wouldn't it? Yes, and there's people down there that would get hurt.
Well, you know, it's every man for himself in the roofing business, rad.
When everybody's falling or things are falling, it's every man for himself.
You're right.
The less you fill the wheelbarrow up, the easier it is.
But the less you fill it up, the more trips you got to make.
Safety may be a little bit better concern than how full the wheelbarrow is.
It's just rock.
That's a good point.
Ugh! You got to attack that chute because it can come back on you.
Yeah.
Good job.
It could be worse.
We could be up there.
So, why, specifically, is the roof on this church being replaced? Radenbaugh: They have several leaks.
When you go up on a roof, typically, you can The sheets split.
The expansion and contraction over the 15, 20 years just tears the roof apart, and, you know, they just wear out.
So, as we watch this guy dig further down through the layers, I mean, it's interesting.
Explain to me how a roof is configured and what materials come into play.
This happens to be a built-up roof system, where you'll have a base sheet, hot asphalt, ply sheet, hot asphalt, another ply sheet, hot asphalt, and in this case, they'll embed the rock into the hot asphalt.
If i'm following you right, that's six or seven layers of stuff.
Correct.
So, all the layers you're talking about need to come up around these pipes, around this air-conditioning unit, whatever it is.
Correct.
All these areas right here have to be torn off carefully because you're gonna ruin your cant strips.
Now, if you notice, you're running into your insulation.
So you have to be careful not to damage it.
This is insulation here? If you damage it, we're replacing it.
Gotcha.
So is that too deep? That's too deep.
What looked like an all-out assault is actually a surgical procedure.
Yeah, you have to go at the right angle because these will dig in and pull this up.
Right, but it's tricky because all those layers with the tar get fused together, and, like you say, it really becomes What are really six layers wind up becoming ostensibly one sheet.
It's a game of millimeters, isn't it? These guys, you know, they do it all day long.
They're experts.
They do it right.
We've messed it up.
Yeah, well, that's what I do.
That's the value add you get with me on the job.
It really does stick in there.
Yeah, it sticks.
Now, how long were you working on that thing? I don't know, a minute.
I'm sorry, you'd be fired.
This should be all gone, done, and out of here.
Man, I am slowing things down in a big way, but I'm learning so much.
You're learning what you want to do and what you don't want to do.
Well, that's half of it, isn't it? Uh-oh.
Oh, well.
Holy crap, rad.
I got a winner here.
Yeah.
You're supposed to leave the base sheet down.
It's okay.
Keep pulling.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
It's like pulling a giant scab.
We're tearing this up, but it really needs to be swept up first.
Okay.
So you make sure you get all the dirt and dust off of it.
Even something as simple as sweeping up requires a careful technique.
Absolutely.
There's always something to the madness.
A method, or a broom in this case.
That's a boy.
Ah! Putting on a roof in Pasadena That's a dirty job.
It's nice to see a boss who's not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Coming up This can't be good.
Roofing is a dangerous business, even when you're on the ground.
450, 500 degrees.
Got a little out of hand there, didn't I? You don't want to do that.
And later, I get stuck between a rock and a hard place, literally.
What is asphalt, exactly? I mean, if you break down the word by syllables, it's kind of off-putting.
It's a by-product of oil.
It's a petroleum-based thing.
"As" and "phalt.
" It's your ass, and it's your fault.
See, it is a very negative word no matter how you look at it.
It's your fault my ass is up here.
And why isn't everybody kicking back and taking a break in this heat? Well, certain jobs are paid by the square, which is 100 square feet, and the more they produce, the more money they make.
That's a 10x10 10x10 area.
And if you get it done in 8 hours versus get it done in 12 hours, you're basically getting paid the same.
Absolutely.
It's a good system.
It just doesn't work on all applications.
Right.
And here today, it's gonna work fine.
That's why I don't see anybody standing around talking, except for that guy! [ Laughs .]
So we got to get this stuff out of here, get the rolls loaded, and get this thing started.
You take five.
Take a break.
You're all working too hard.
10 squares, paid by the square.
Chop-chop.
I hope that made it down.
I don't want to be the guy to clog up the chute.
Oh, crap.
Ah, there we go.
All right.
This is called "base sheet," and the base sheet right now is ready to be applied to the roof.
After that, I'm pretty sure rock will be applied to the base sheet and then, if memory serves, the tar goes on the rock.
I could be wrong.
So, this is one unholy-looking device to have parked in front of a church.
Yeah, this is pretty nasty.
What is it? This is a kettle.
You put your asphalt in there, heats it up to around 450 degrees, and it pumps the asphalt up to the roof.
That is one smelly, smelly device.
Yeah, it's, uh It's an issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This can't be good.
So, we got an ax, a kettle full of hot tar, and a church.
Want to have an inquisition? And you got a mop.
[ Laughs .]
So we're heating that mop up 'cause the asphalt up there won't heat it up.
Okay.
Now, we got to get a lot of this asphalt, I guess, what, up through that pipe? Yes, all this asphalt will be pumped up through the pipe.
Rowe: So, I'm gonna be over here swinging an ax and dropping the hunks of asphalt into the bubbling tar, thereby creating more asphalt.
You set it in there.
You don't drop it 'cause it'll splash.
And it's, what, 450 450, 500 degrees.
What the hell is this? It's like cutting jello.
You're looking at asphalt.
You're looking at oil product.
It's just a hunk of black petroleum.
Exactly.
This is the bottom of the barrel when they finish refining it.
This is what's left over.
This is what's left over.
Everything gets used.
Ay, ay, ay.
You got to hit it hard and bust that in half.
You got to hit it hard.
Black, viscous jello.
You got to hit it hard.
This is a stupid way to die In the middle of the street with an ax, busting up petroleum products.
Have a nice day.
Man.
That is some nasty-looking stuff.
You ever tempted not to use them? I've never used them.
What am I doing? Hurry up.
What the heck? Oh, no, no, no! Don't! You've got to use them when you're doing that.
Oh, I misunderstood.
I've never used them I've never done that.
You're simply the boss of the operation, not I understand.
I understand what you're saying now.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Actually, you're almost like a surgeon with this on.
Oh, yeah, I'm mistaken for a surgeon all the time, rad.
There goes Mike the surgeon.
Now, you got to open the lid And open that up.
Let it drip.
You may want to well Feel how hot that is? Man, that's burning hot.
Man alive.
Crap.
Did it go through? Yeah, it went through.
See how they loop it so it holds the handle? Burning tar.
Good-looking guy with that mask on.
You mean all this stuff is stuff that splashed out of there? Exactly.
That's why it's so dirty.
I guess it really works, then.
Whoa, whoa! Got a little out of hand there, didn't I? Yeah.
You don't want to do that.
No, I don't.
Coming up, I get a lesson on the laws of gravity Uh-oh.
I'd hate for that to fall on anybody.
Grab it! Grab it! and why I'm not a professional roofer.
I ought to be able to catch it like that.
Wrong foot back.
Wrong foot back.
So far, we've torn up the old roof and chopped up and melted down chunks of oil by-products for the new one.
Unfortunately, on this job, those were the easy parts.
All right, rad, I've got a couple of buckets here, which I'm guessing go about like that.
Turn them this way.
Oh, I see.
That rope is attached to the Pump.
And the pump's on the kettle.
And the kettle's gonna start sending up gallons of this bubbling-hot tar through this galvanized-steel pipe and into this piece of high-tech cardboard.
The most critical thing is knowing when to shut this thing down so it doesn't fly all over us.
So, I'm gonna help you.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
Let me translate Rad will be doing it for me.
I don't blame you.
Go ahead.
Aw, it's pitch-black in there.
Who can tell how much is coming out? We don't want you to start smoking.
Look at that.
Bubbling-hot, black magma.
Good god.
This just seems really treacherous.
Heads up.
Watch the stuff.
I'm watching everything.
All right, now what incredibly stupid and treacherous thing can I attempt? Straight up.
Straight up.
The edge of the cart, the edge, the edge.
Move the bucket down to the edge.
Ah.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Oh, man.
Get it? Get it up higher.
Bring it down that line.
Spin it, spin it, as you come down that line.
Perfect.
You're doing it wrong, but that's okay.
Of course I'm doing it wrong.
When I said hello, I told you all I knew about hot-tar roofing.
Okay, that's plenty.
You went over the line again.
Pick it up.
Take your mop along that line.
Make a square.
Okay.
Sucker's heavy, isn't it? It really is backbreaking.
That thing saturates the asphalt up.
Bonds it together.
All right.
Constantly with the cutting and the shaping.
Customizing to fit all the existing protrusions.
Yeah, these guys have done this before.
Very tough.
Very tough.
But you see what it takes? I see.
I mean, it's It's dirty, it's tough.
I don't know what you pay these guys, but I'll tell you what, they earn it.
Every nickel.
Absolutely.
So, the goal here is to get the entire roof papered, tarred, paper, tarred, paper, tarred, essentially, but that roof over there They're already at that point.
So that's, what, the rocking phase? Correct.
Gonna rock it in.
What exactly is in those bags? Rock.
So we're gonna take rock via conveyor belt Up to the roof.
It's about 1:30 in the afternoon.
It's about as hot as hot gets.
And the hottest part of this inherently hot job is about to get a little hotter.
It's gonna get a little hotter.
Great.
Now, what's the best place for me? You want to see me down here being miserable loading or up there being miserable catching? We got to be up here loading, and then we can move up to the top, and you can do a little catching.
Spread the misery around.
Fantastic.
Set it down.
Oh, I see what happens.
Timing is very important.
Next.
Next bag.
Uh-oh.
Oh, crap.
That's close.
I'd hate for that to fall on anybody.
Uh-oh.
Trouble! Oh, man.
Grab it! Grab it! Oh, no! Doggone it.
That's all right.
Forget it.
Rookie mistake.
We need two-leggers.
Go, baby.
Now it's an episode of "I love Lucy.
" Holy crap.
It's moving now.
That's the way it's supposed to be going.
It's tough, man.
It's tough.
What the hell am I doing up here? I don't know.
You wanted to do it.
Now we'll go up and receive.
Receive? Should I take the conveyor up or actually No, no.
Very unsafe.
It's always better to hold the outside of the ladder, right? Yes, sir.
Why is that? So you never let go of the ladder.
When you grab rung by rung, you let go of it.
Right.
You feel your feet? I'm stuck to the roof, yeah.
Yeah, they're staging the rocks so when they're hotting in, they're able to grab the bags and roll with them.
So the drill is rock goes down, spread out even.
Tar goes on.
No, tar goes on.
Hot asphalt goes down.
Rock gets embedded into it.
And then no more tar on top of that? No more tar on top of that.
That's it, you're done.
This roof is finished.
Now, why don't you watch a couple times? Yeah, I think I will.
Oh, I got that.
[ Grunts .]
[ Laughter .]
Oh, good, a line.
I love a line.
Oh, yeah.
He takes it right in the chest.
Let's watch his technique.
Some guys like the shoulder.
Some like the belly.
He's sort of an arm man.
I'm gonna go for the shoulder.
If I can time it just right, I believe it should fall cleanly right onto my right shoulder.
I ought to be able to catch it like that.
Radenbaugh: Wrong foot back.
Wrong foot back.
Another rookie mistake.
That'll work.
Let it come to you, right? That'll work.
Whoa! Oh, that won't.
Okay.
If only I had a bag of rock.
[ Chuckles .]
Radenbaugh: You got to keep that hot going because it's got to embed into the rock.
The rock's got to embed in it.
So you've got to keep it thick.
It's not like a ply sheet.
Keep dipping and mopping, dipping and mopping.
What you're telling me is more hot.
More hot.
Coming up When laying down tar Dip it.
Get that mop going.
Let's go.
a word to the unwise is not sufficient.
I just tarred my toes.
Now I'm gonna have webbed feet.
And later You want to raise it? Yeah.
Just push that lever that way.
Holy crap, I'm moving a house.
Radenbaugh: You got to keep that hot going because it's got to embed into the rock.
More hot.
More hot.
I see why you're the boss now.
Dip it, dip it, dip it.
Get that mop going.
Let's go.
More hot.
Dip it again.
I think I just tarred my toes.
Now I'm gonna have webbed feet.
Great.
A lot of hot, a lot of hot.
Good job, good job.
Take it out.
Dip it again, dip it again.
Very good.
Now you got it.
Why is it sizzling? Hot! Here he comes.
He's got the more hot.
Oh, man.
Every time this guy shows up, it's more bad news and more hot.
I would welcome a nice third-degree burn right about now.
You don't want to even go there.
Go there? I live there.
There's not one easy job in the world of hot-tar roofing.
That poor guy's been lugging these 5- or 10-gallon containers of what they call "hot.
" He keeps dumping it into this bucket.
Then Mr.
Wonderful over there keeps yelling at me to spread more of it around, and merrily we roll along.
It's like one, big, happy family without the joy.
No más.
I'll shovel.
You spread.
No more hot.
I'll give this a try.
You take five.
Gracias.
It is tricky.
Too much.
It's very tricky.
Very tricky.
Can you do this? No.
I appreciate your candor.
Now, you would think putting rock down on this would just be a matter of shoveling and chucking, but there's a real technique.
Watch what he does with the side of the shovel.
He makes it look absolutely casual, you know, like he's just spreading rock, but I'm telling you It's harder than it looks.
It's very hard.
He's finessing it.
You're dumping it.
He's finessing it.
That's the difference.
He's a finesser.
I'm a dumper.
He's a professional.
Well, rad, if I had any energy or any brainpower left, I'd do a nice little recap right now, but since I can't remember everything, put this thing in a nutshell for me.
This morning we tore off.
We laid down base sheet.
We laid down ply sheet, and we rocked in.
Didn't I also take an ax and smash up some petroleum products? That you did.
Didn't I also carry some buckets of bubbling tar from roof to roof? That's true, but that's all in the process of what we did today.
Okay, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't hallucinating because I think I am right now.
Well, after this, some people do hallucinate a little bit.
You got a dirty job.
Thank you.
I'm glad I could share it with you.
My pleasure.
I'll never see you again.
All right.
Well, it's a beautiful day here in northern New Jersey, and we've come to one of those neighborhoods where everyone is terribly concerned with keeping up with the joneses.
Well, that's easier said than done because those are the joneses.
They're on the move, and they're taking their house with them.
The w.
A.
Stands for Wayne Albert.
This is Wayne right here, sitting on a bulldozer with me.
Yfor a living? S yes, I do.
How old is this place? I believe it's around 1780.
We will be picking this house up and taking it down the road and setting it up for the historical society.
How do you move a 200-and- whatever-it-is-year-old house without snapping it in half? Put steel underneath it.
Then we'll put the hoses on the hydraulic Jacks.
We unify everything, and we'll lift this house straight up out of the ground off its foundation.
How much does this thing weigh? Probably in the neighborhood of around 60 ton.
Is this a dirty job? It involves a lot of manual work and dirt, machinery, grease.
You name it, we have it.
Just watch out for any rolling stones because they're large and they move.
All right.
The steel beam will not bend if you hit your head on it.
In this area here, it seems to be the older part of the structure.
Wait.
This is the bottom of a 226-year-old house.
Exactly.
These are actual, obviously, yeah, they're trees.
Yeah, they're trees.
That's 225-year-old bark.
We have three chimneys.
This is the center chimney.
And it's pretty much large stone.
From there, it gets to become brick above us.
And we are in the process of loading this chimney out to the point where we're able to lift it and keep its original form.
What are we looking at here, Wayne? What we have here is the last chimney that we actually tunneled underneath it, and we need to go in there, and we actually need to clean it up so we can stick a beam through there and we can preload that chimney, too.
Don't be afraid to get dirty, now.
No, no.
I'm not afraid of the dirt.
It's the 60 tons of house over my head that causes some concern.
Just watch these rocks don't come down on your head.
Right.
[ Grunts .]
Try to go forward.
What? You've never been stuck under a 60-ton house? These things are monsters, Wayne.
Just watch you don't pinch your fingers.
And be careful no rocks roll out with it.
Right.
All right.
Yeah, don't touch that because now the chimney will come rolling down on you, and then we have more rock to move out of the way.
Well, then you'd have to move me out of your way.
Well, what you'd have is a dead b-list celebrity pinned under a very heavy house.
Just watch as you come out that you don't bend my steel with your head and you don't get hung up on any nails.
I would hate to bend Wayne's steel with my head.
Coming up, the house begins its journey What you're seeing right now is 60 tons levitate.
All of this stuff is now suddenly free from all the weight that's been sitting on it.
but not everyone will be along for the ride.
This, for me, is a, uh, particularly sad day.
As you probably guessed, it takes a little more than a crowbar and a TV host crawling around on his stomach to move a 60-ton structure.
By the time I'd emerged, Wayne was at the controls of a giant machine moving an equally giant "i" beam.
Backhoes, bulldozers, big rigs Wayne can operate them all.
The object is to push this beam straight through under the house to serve as a support for when we lift it, but I was about to learn why clearing rocks from the path is so important.
Wayne, you're like a surgeon with this thing.
How much does a girder like this weigh? This thing is probably about a ton and a quarter.
That's what's stopping us right there.
Just like before, remember I said the ones that are in the ground are the ones that haunt us? [ Grunts .]
Here's the problem Or part of it, anyway.
There.
See? That right there would have been a major problem.
Nice.
Yeah, right on course.
Perfect.
What the heck am I looking at here, Wayne? Well, what we have here is a unified jacking system, which raises these Jacks.
No matter how much weight's on each Jack, it raises the Jacks at the same speed.
We need to isolate each Jack, and once we isolate each Jack, then at that point, we'll put it in unified, and internally, the machine will control the speed of the house as we raise it.
How many Jacks are under the house now? Well, we're only using four, but we're using large-volume, extremely large Jacks.
So when you unify the Jacks, that just means they're all moving in concert, basically? Exactly.
They're going up at the same rate, regardless of how much weight's on each one.
[ Engine turns over .]
Everything is now touched ready to lift off.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna keep pushing until we see the first corner lift.
Once we get to that, I'm gonna lock that Jack off so it doesn't move.
Then we're gonna go to the other three corners.
As soon as you see the next corner lift, that's the next lightest corner.
We're gonna go all to the four Jacks.
Once we do that, and what I'm gonna do is once we're locked off, i'm gonna take all the pressure out.
I'm gonna flip it to the unified side of the machine, and this whole thing is gonna come up.
As we're jacking, we're gonna take these blocks, and we're gonna keep raising them up as we go so if we do have a failure, for whatever reason, okay, then we won't have anybody hurt and there won't be any damage done to the house.
If something like that happens, if a hose blows or something untoward should present itself, our signal between one another will be Blink and say, "what happened?" 'Cause it'll be that fast.
That's a good one.
There it is.
You can see it right there.
Yep.
It's coming up together, Wayne! It's up! Wayne probably didn't need me to tell him that.
When a 60-ton house moves, it's hard not to notice.
Yeah, it's coming straight up.
Unbelievable.
You want to raise it? Yeah.
Just push that lever that way.
Raise it up.
Go ahead.
I'm basically moving 60 tons.
More than that because of the steel weight, too.
Push it.
All the way? All the way.
Watch it go up.
This is telling you how high we're going over here, basically.
Holy crap, I'm moving a house.
What you're seeing right now is 60 tons kind of levitate in the air.
Inch by inch, all of this stuff is now suddenly free from all the weight that's been sitting on it for a couple of centuries.
[ Coughs .]
The job is definitely dirty, but it's also dangerous.
These are the hydraulic hoses.
Inside of these, there's oil, and the pressure in the oil is the thing that enables the Jack to keep 60 tons off of our heads, but as everything is raised up in the air, foundations like these, which have been supporting this house for over 200 years, suddenly they're freed.
All the weight is off of them.
So, these lines are lying around, and rocks like this can come loose, fall on the hose, rupturing it, thereby bringing us all to a rather messy and untimely demise.
It could kill us, in other words.
This, for me, is a, uh, particularly sad day.
A little earlier, I was lying right about here flat on my belly, and the house was right down against my back.
We're making progress.
In order to move the house, we needed a level surface underneath it for the equipment to roll on.
This is where I came in, with a sledgehammer and my bare hands And Wayne, of course, with another machine.
Wayne has embarked on a new mission to Bury me alive.
At this point, a smart guy would get out of the way.
Do you still get a kick out of this or have you seen it too many times to be impressed? Yeah, it's It's old hat.
Yeah, after a while.
You're all bitter and broken and jaded now.
"Oh, look, Mike, another 60-ton house went up in the air.
" Another one down the road.
Coming up, big house, big machines, big pieces of metal, and when it's time to roll, big wheels.
Closed course, professional driver.
Do not attempt.
These plates will go under the house so that the dollies can roll smoothly.
Like everything else on this project, they're big, they weigh a lot, and if one of them falls on me, I'll be a human pancake.
This plate goes right there.
Right up in there.
We're gonna shove it in there, and as we start to make the turn, we'll push it around just to make the radius right.
Wherever the Dolly wants to go, that's where the plate's gonna have to sit.
We're gonna pick it up with this machine, set it in here, and then fine-tune it with the other machine.
All right? You, uh, just you call everything "machine" basically.
Well, that's really a John deere 350, and this is a drott 50 c.
E.
I gotcha.
But "machine" sounds good.
Big machine, small machine.
Smart machine, dumb machine.
I'm just grateful I'm still alive.
Yeah, that's a one-ton plate coming right at me, pretty much.
You can't get anywhere without a set of wheels.
We have three sets.
When you're moving a 60-ton house, why take chances? All right, so that's one.
Well, it's not under the house yet.
We're gonna have to push it a little bit.
Oh, yeah.
Everything pivots on its own.
Like that.
Okay, hold on now.
Cut it.
Come on back.
That's it.
[ Grunting .]
Close enough.
Come on.
Hook me up.
Stop.
Up a little more.
Good.
Okay.
Good.
You may have noticed that large metal objects are a recurring theme in this process.
This one is going on top of a Dolly where soon it will be supporting half the house's weight 30 tons.
Turn it.
Hey, Mike, turn it around the other way.
There you go, just like that.
It's hitting this right here.
It's sliding on it, though, right? Yeah, it did.
I think it'll keep sliding.
Let's go a little more.
Then again, what the hell do I know? You've got to be a mathematician to do this.
I mean, I'm not [bleep.]
You got to be a friggin' mathematician.
We got so many things going on.
You have to watch out for everything.
It moves by millimeters, very, very slowly, but you can see it going up almost imperceptibly, at which point all the weight of this side of the house is gonna go right on these braces.
So the house has just been placed on this Dolly.
All the weight's being transferred from this Jack to this beam, which is sitting right in the bank of that Dolly.
This Jack's clear.
Well, there it is.
These beams are solid steel and very, very heavy.
If you look at them, you can see they're starting to bend.
There's dozens of tons of pressure on either side.
Hey, Wayne, we got ourselves a mobile home! Well, this is it.
The house is completely off its foundation and on wheels.
Three points of support This Dolly right here for the front left, this Dolly over here for the front right, and the whole back half of the house is sitting on that girder, which is sitting on the middle of that Dolly.
What happens now? I have no idea.
Next was horizontal movement Pivoting the house onto the road and then pulling it to its new location.
It was all so much fun, maybe we'll do it again In another 225 years.
Everything had been going smoothly up until then, but as the saying goes, "even the best-laid plans of mice and men can go awry.
" Anybody got a chain saw? We'd like to have a look at your dirty videos.
No, not those dirty videos, your dirty-job videos.
If you have a dirty job and a video camera, send us a videotape of you doing your dirty job.
Make sure it's really dirty.
If it's dirty enough, we'll put it on the air, and if it's really superdirty, I'll come out and do the job with you.
Go to discovery.
Com/dirtyjobs for all the information you need, and for god sakes, take a shower.
They're gonna start this motor, so we'll lose our Lives? No, we're gonna lose the Mikes.
It's gonna be The motor's gonna be going.
What, are you our director now? These rocks are like icebergs, Pedro Little on the top, big on the bottom.
I had an old girlfriend like that.
We got a lot to do here today.
[ Belches .]
Okay.
[ Grunts .]
Oh, god! Rock is so heavy! Can't shoot! Oh! No light! Oh!