construction sites

[artemis moon]

I've heard that sidewalk tearouts and construction sites are great places to hunt. I live in an old town and I noticed that all of the asphalt was torn up in a parking lot off of the old main street. I thought this would be an excellent place. I found a lot of twisted iron bits and a few bolts. I have also hit a field where all of the vegetation has been cleared away to make room for a housing development with similar results. I have checked platt maps and know that there was stuff there going back to at least the 1840's. Is it possible that the goodies have sunk too deep to detect? My goal is to start finding pre-1900 coins and I think I'm looking in the right places, but I'm not getting the results. My oldest finds only date to the 1940's. Could it be my detector settings, the places I'm searching or the detectorist herself? Seriously, I love this hobby, even though I find a lot of junky stuff. I'd just be so happy to find something really neat just once in a while!

I noticed a few nights ago that they are widening a main artery and that runs through this area. The asphalt is torn up on both sides of the road where it passes by several 100+ year old structures. The workers are starting to level the area and put down gravel. Before they finish the job, is this a good area to detect? I'm somewhat self-conscious and I don't want to stand on the main road with my detector if there's nothing to be had.

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

Artemis, oldtown demolition sites are "hit and miss". Some are good, others aren't. The big factors are: 1) Did they scrape too deep (ie.: below the level of lossees)? 2) Maybe they didn't scrape deep enough? (to get under modern trash, fill dirt, etc..) 3) Was the area you're hunting already screwed up when the current building went in? Like for instance, maybe you're in an 1840s area of town, and the building that was demo'd was 1910s, for instance (ie.: 2nd generation structure already). It's entirely possible, in that case, that the 1910s const. had dug out to make a crawl space, basement, etc... and screwed up/removed whatever had been there from the earlier generation. And if, for example, they had a tight floor where nothing went through (drip grates, etc...) then nothing from the current building (unless lawns or whatever surrounded the bldg) would get through, and then you might not get anything there. This is especially true when you enter into 1920s bldg demo's, because that was entering into the age of heavy equipment (tractors, etc...) when they could and did do a lot more earthmoving, compaction processes, etc... whereas in earlier times (board & batton, or simple brick structures), they would often just build right on the naked earth, with little or no site/dirt preparation. Just stilts, and build right up So a lot depends on the evolution and types and history of the site, buildings, etc...

As for street ripouts, they are usually not that good. Not as good as sidewalk tearouts. Here's why: Although it may LOOK like you're staring at dirt beneath that street tearout, it is most likely DG (decomposed granite fill). You see, street asphalt is not laid right on naked earth, but instead, back when asphalt streets came out (1930s? 40s? earlier streets were crude oil and chip) they engineer them by putting the asphalt on a layer of compacted material. This can be the actual soil that was dug out first, and then put back in and compacted, or more common: DG. The reason for this is that roads have to be engineered to take a lot more weight than a sidewalk does. Whenever they grind out asphalt, to do repairs, they rarely even grind below this compaction fill level. So while it may look like native dirt, it's usually not, and will be sterile.

Sidewalk cement can be put down over a thin layer of sand or whatever. In the cases of earlier cement walks, they were sometimes put down with no prep. at all. Litterally right on top of wooden walks or dirt paths sometimes. So those are the best. 2nd generation walks (like, if they were already redone once in the 1960s or '70s) can be a bust, because maybe they scraped out back then, when removing the original walks, and the coins might've been scraped out at that time). The best sidewalk demo's will be when they're removing ORIGINAL walks. And also it needs to be in an area of town that had previous dirt or wooden walks. So for example, an neighborhood that dated to the teens or 20s, might not have coins under the walks, because quite simply, the cement walks went in when the neighborhood went in. Here in CA, seems that the era of cement walks started in the teens or '20s, depending the size of the town (bigger cities got them sooner, maybe even late 1800s?).

Coins in demolition sites can be right on top of the ground. Depth is almost never an issue in demolition hunting.

 

[re-tek]

youre on the right track, sort of.

the parking lot that got tore up..
what you need to know is what was there before. was it just empty unused land? was it a home? was it a playground for kids back in the day? basically the more a peice of land got used by folks, the more likely you are to find things. if its always been nothing more than unused land i wouldnt have too high an expectation but would still search it if i had the time to kill and no other important place to search.

the tore up roadway...
if it runs very close to old homes i would be all over that. homes with big yards where the norm back then, not the exception like they are now. that area occupied by the road may have been part of the yard to the house that had to be given up to make way for the road. where theres house theres kids. where theres kids theres goodies in the ground! being that it had a road on it you can almost bet that whatever you find will be as old or older than the roadway that was on it.

 

[artemis moon]

Thanks to both of you for your replies. I've done a lot of research on this area, and I even have photos of the town with wooden sidewalks a little before the turn of the century. I know that where that parking lot stood was the back of the general store where I was hoping that horses would have been hitched. I really got some insight into what happens during the construction process and now it all makes sense. After the depression, the town went through a period of growth and many old buildings were demolished to make way for progress. I'm thinking that the sidewalks were poured during that time and that's why there's nothing to be found.

Just out of curiousity, based on the timeframe of pre-civil war, could it be a case of lost items simply sinking too deep to be detected?

 

[stevesno]

In my opinion the replys by tom and retek is what make this forum so great. They both took the time to answer a serious question by another detectorist asking for help. The extensive knowledge that they shared will not only help artimes moon but also others who read this post...Steve












t-netters.

 

[artemis moon]

In my opinion the replys by tom and retek is what make this forum so great. They both took the time to answer a serious question by another detectorist asking for help. The extensive knowledge that they shared will not only help artimes moon but also others who read this post...Steve

I'm with ya 100%..without the support of all of youse guys , I probably would have broken my detector over my knee within the first two weeks. Thanks a lot to all of you who are willing to take the time to answer questions and foster a greater understanding of the hobby. I, for one, will pass these "nuggets" on to other detectorists and hopefully help to perpetuate the hobby.












t-netters.

 

[watercolor]

Just on a fluke. . . check out Kevo's post "A gift for all" on the MAP forum and see if there are any Sanborn maps for your town. If there are, you'll have some additional info that might turn up a few more potential sites in your area. I've used them and they're wonderful.

Good hunting!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Artemis, as I said in my response "Depth is almost never an issue in demolition hunting." And: "oldtown demolition sites are "hit and miss". Some are good, others aren't". So that is the answer to your depth question. If you came up empty under a sidewalk demo (or any demo for that matter), my hunch is, it just wasn't a good demo. Not that "coins sunk too far". In fact, usually under sidewalk demo's the coins are extremely shallow, since there was no vegetation, and no dirt able to be added, etc.... Ie.: they are trapped and frozen, once they are capped by the sidewalk. And as for bldg. demo's, bear in mind that no rain ever reaches the coins (like in a crawl space, or dirt basement, etc...) and no vegetation grows, so once again, potentially very shallow.

 

[teverly]

Hunt the torn up parking lot.If there are ol houses in the neighbor hood it is likely they tore one down to make the lot....