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Makita XRH12

18V LXT® Brushless Cordless 11/16″ AVT® Rotary Hammer Kit, accepts SDS-PLUS bits, w/ HEPA Dust Extractor Attachment (XRH12TW) is a cordless concrete solution that features AWS™ capability for maximum efficiency and convenient dust extraction. The efficient HEPA filter captures 99.97% of particulates .3 microns and larger. The compatible Dust Extractor Attachment (DX05) with HEPA Filter is OSHA Table 1 compliant. It’s powered by 18V LXT® technology and an efficient brushless motor for maximum power, speed and run-time for corded demands, without the cord.

There is a 3-modes of operation: rotation only, hammering with rotation, and hammering only. The variable speed trigger enables the user to match the speed to the application. It is ideal for a range of trades including mechanical/electrical/plumbing contractors, concrete contractors, road and bridge contractors, utility workers, pest control, maintenance operations, and more. It accepts SDS-PLUS bits.

The Rotary Hammer is AWS™ capable with Auto-Start Wireless System, which utilizes Bluetooth® technology for wireless power-on/off communication between tool and equipped dust extractor. To activate AWS, simply install the Auto-Start Wireless Transmitter (198901-5, sold separately) and synchronize with an AWS-equipped dust extractor (sold separately).

For reduced vibration, it’s equipped with Anti-Vibration Technology (AVT®). More than just a padded handle, AVT is an internal counterbalance that uses air pressure to move counterweight pistons in the opposite direction of the drive piston to actively reduce vibration without a compromise in performance.

It’s part of Makita’s expanding 18V Lithium-Ion system, the world’s largest cordless tool system powered by 18V Lithium-Ion slide-style batteries. Makita 18V Lithium-Ion batteries have the fastest charge times in their categories, so they spend more time working and less time sitting on the charger.

For improved tool performance and extended battery life, Makita created Star Protection Computer Controls™. Star Protection is communication technology that allows the Star Protection-equipped tool and battery to exchange data in real time and monitor conditions during use to protect against overloading, over-discharging and overheating. For increased versatility, the tool can also be powered by Makita 18V LXT® and Compact Lithium-Ion batteries with the star symbol on the battery indicating Star Protection inside.

New Milwaukee Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades Make More Cuts with Less Blade Changes

Last May, at the annual New Tool Symposium (NPS) we got to test out the then announced extreme band saw blades coming from Milwaukee. Here’s a video from the event with the official news release announcing the blades and availability (below):

MILWAUKEE, WI- Milwaukee Tool announces Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades that cut 2x faster and last 3X longer than standard blades in thick and thin metals. When it comes to band saw blades, the biggest user frustration is the frequency of changing out the blade. Milwaukee’s new blades solve this frustration through a combination of enhanced high-speed steel and a variable TPI tooth design, making 2X faster cuts in thick metals and achieving 3X longer life in stainless steel. These features also unlock the ability to cut through cast iron!

The Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades will be available in two variations: Thick Metal Blade and Thin Metal Blade which are both available in all portable Milwaukee band saw sizes. The Thick Metal Blade (8/10 TPI) is optimized to provide best-in-class performance when cutting through thick/extreme metals such as black pipe and angle iron but has the additional versatility to cut common thin metals. The Thin Metal Blade (12/14 TPI) is optimized for best-in-class cuts in thin/extreme metals such as unistrut or EMT conduit but also provides strong performance in tougher thick metals.

The aggressive variable-pitched tooth design of these blades delivers the versatility to cut a wider range of materials with just one blade, providing much longer life in common and extreme materials such as strut, conduit, angle iron, threaded rod, and pipe, and even harder materials like stainless steel and cast iron.

Available Models 
Thick Metal
•    Deep Cut 8/10 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 3PK (48-39-0601)
•    Deep Cut 8/10 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 25PK (48-39-0605)
•    Deep Cut 8/10 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 100PK (48-39-0602)
•    Compact 8/10 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 3PK (48-39-0609)
•    Compact 8/10 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 25PK (48-39-0606)
•    Compact 8/10 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 100PK (48-39-0607)

Thin Metal
•    Deep Cut 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 3PK (48-39-0611)
•    Deep Cut 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 25PK (48-39-0615)
•    Deep Cut 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 100PK (48-39-0612)
•    Compact 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 3PK (48-39-0619)
•    Compact 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 25PK (48-39-0616)
•    Compact 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 100PK (48-39-0617)
•    Sub-Compact 12/14 TPI Extreme Metal Band Saw Blades – 3PK (48-39-0711)

Hands-on look at the new Makita Tools XRT01 Rebar Tool

This week we traveled to the World of Concrete event at the Las Vegas Convention Center to see what’s coming from some of the biggest tool manufacturers in the construction industry. If you’ve never been to the WOC show, like myself, its huge and full of hand-on displays for tool lovers of all types. We got our hands on a lot of tools, the Makita rebar tying tool was just one that left an impression.

Back in October, 2018 Makita announced the addition of 40 new tools to be available immediately. This announcement was made during the annual STAFDA convention in Atlanta and on the list of 40 new tools was the new XRT01 18V LXT Brushless Rebar Tying Tool. Normally a tool like this might slip by us here at MH but considering the usefulness to contractors tying radiant tubing to welded mesh or rebar for new installations, we wanted to get our hands on it.

Makita pulled out all the stops in designing and building their booth at WOC, they had literally dozens of tools powered up and ready to use in simulated scenarios. For the rebar tool they had two different forms built. When I first saw this tool back in October I immediately wondered how it would do for tying PEX tubing so I asked if they had any tubing around the booth to give it a try, they didn’t.

Get in the Uber and head to The Depot

The only way I was going to get first hand experience on whether my ideas for this tool would work was if I brought my own PEX to the show and tried it myself. So that’s what I did.

When I walked up to the concrete forms of rebar in the booth I got a lot of inquisitive looks, it only took about two minutes for nearly every one of the Makita employees to gather around and watch me as I began to test the XRT01 out as a true plumbing/heating contractor would on the job.

It worked flawless. All I did was adjust the torque setting to its lowest level and let’er rip. No kinking, not too tight, not too loose. The capacity of the tool is capped at tying two #5 bars together so the combination of the #5 bar they had and my 1/2″ PEX was well within that range. Check out the video from my tests, all tool specs included at the end of this post.

Makita Tools Rebar Tying Tool features:

 

• Up to 5,300 ties of #3 x #3 diameter rebar using an 18V LXT® 5.0Ah Battery (battery not included)
• Multiple bar tying capability; ties up to two #5 diameter bars or four #4 diameter bars in under 1 second
• 2-mode operation provides single or continuous wire tie actuation for fast and efficient tying
• Fast and seamless wire reel easy-load design with automatic locking mechanism built into protective cover
• The BL™ Brushless Motor eliminates carbon brushes, enabling the BL™ Motor to run cooler and more efficiently for longer life
• Digital adjustment of tying strength to match various tension strength requirements
• Delivers up to 120 ties of #3 x #3 rebar per wire reel allowing for maximum productivity
• Trigger power switch with lock-off feature requires two actions to power the tool
• Center load reel position provides added balance for more comfortable handling and less fatigue
• Transparent wire reel cover protects the feeding mechanism from harmful job site debris

It’s never a good thing when your building is known as “the leaky building.”

That, however, was the unfortunate reputation of Windsor Over Peachtree, a 22-story, 265-unit condominium building in Atlanta. The vapor barrier on the 53-year-old building’s existing steel and copper piping had deteriorated, and the condensation that was forming on the pipes was causing them to break down from the outside in. The combination of leaks caused by age and damage caused by dripping condensate was proving to be a regular and ongoing challenge in the building, and the need for an upgrade was apparent.

“The management and maintenance staff had been chasing leaks for years,” said Jeff Long, Southeast District Product Manager, Commercial Group, Ferguson, the largest wholesale distributor of residential and commercial plumbing supplies and pipe, valves, and fittings in the U.S. “We had several discussions with them about changing out the piping.”

As might be expected in a half-century-old building, the challenges with the HVAC system ran deeper than just the piping. Foremost among the other issues was that the old two-pipe fan-coil system was struggling to keep up with the cooling demand during Atlanta’s hot summers. So when the money for an HVAC system upgrade was allotted, it was decided that a new system of water-source heat pumps—sized to handle the building’s 500- to 600-ton cooling demand—would replace the old fan-coil system that had been sized for a 300-ton demand.

‘Not Your Typical Plastic’

For Joe Escher, Vice President of E. Escher Inc. Mechanical Contractors, Roswell, GA, the project represented his firm’s first opportunity to perform a large-scale installation of Aquatherm PP-R piping.

“This wasn’t your typical job where an engineer draws up a spec and everybody follows it,” Escher said. “We worked closely with the engineer and the building owner in a collaborative effort to determine the best equipment and the best piping system.”

Escher was on board with the conversations between the building owner and engineering firm about using Aquatherm, but he also wanted to see for himself the benefits of PP-R pipe.

“Everyone has an ‘a-ha!’ moment when it comes to choosing PP-R pipe, and before it was determined that we were going with Aquatherm we visited Joe at his shop,” Long relates. “We put together some sections of 2 ½-in. pipe, and Joe tried to drive a nail through them with a hammer. I remember him reporting back and saying, ‘This is not your typical plastic.’”

Escher pointed out that he also researched the pipe using more sophisticated methods, but he does not discount the value of the hammer-and-nail test.

“Aquatherm is a plastic, but don’t even consider equating it to something like PVC or CPVC,” he said. “If you look at a cross-section of it you can see that it doesn’t even compare to those pipes. It’s in a class of its own.”

Ultimately, the decision to use Aquatherm pipe to serve the new heat pump system was an easy one.

“The building management didn’t want to use any flame or welding in an occupied building, and the project’s engineer didn’t like the idea of having a copper-press system behind the walls,” Long explained. “That gave us the opportunity to discuss Aquatherm pipe, and it turned out to be the perfect solution for this retrofit.”

In with the New

At the Windsor Over Peachtree project, more than 6,000 ft of Aquatherm Blue Pipe® SDR-11 ranging in size from ½ in. to 4 in. was installed, along with new Raypak boilers, Evapco cooling towers, Bell & Gossett pumps, and JCI-branded WaterFurnace water-source heat pumps.

Installation was made challenging because the floors were concrete slabs 8-in. thick, with blockouts approximately 10-in. square in identical locations from the fourth through the 20^th floors. The existing risers went straight up through the blockouts without any offsets.

It was determined early on that the ability to fabricate Aquatherm offsite and transport the fabricated spools to the jobsite ready to install was going to be an important component of this project. Escher personally drew up the 16 sets of risers needed for the project and they were fabricated at Ferguson’s facility in Fulton, MS. The risers consisted of 1¼-in. through 4-in. pipe, with ¾-in. runouts.

“The fabrication was right on the money,” Escher said. “We had more than 4,000 joints in this system, and we had five leaks. On a typical solder job we’d expect around three percent. So we were very impressed with the extremely minimal leakage of the Aquatherm.”

Also impressive was the time savings of the off-site fabrication. Escher estimated it saved about four to five days per riser.

“It really worked out well to have Ferguson’s people fabbing and our people installing,” he said. “Ferguson had all the fabrication equipment and lower labor rates than what we pay our pipefitters. So when you combine the lower labor rate and the better equipped shop minus the cost of freight, they were very competitive.”

In addition, he said, having the fabrication done offsite allowed his company to use its shop personnel in the field.

“The result is that without adding any costs we were able to dramatically reduce the time to complete the project,” Escher said. “This was very important because whenever we took a riser out of service we had about 20 condos that did not have heating or cooling until the new Aquatherm piping and WSHPs were installed and operational.”

Escher noted that the light weight of PP-R pipe provided an added benefit.

“We had to take all the piping up in elevators, in nine-foot maximum sections, and even the four-inch pipe could easily be carried and handled by one person,” he said.

The installation and onsite heat fusions were performed by Escher’s team using McElroy irons and McElroy Spider^® 125 with Chain Clamping, which allowed them to perform heat fusions in the tight quarters of the blockouts.

“The Chain Spider allowed Escher’s team to get up against the wall like they needed to,” Long noted.

Unistrut Metal Framing Systems and Walraven hangers were used to position the new piping spools in the existing blockouts.

“It was very simple and it worked perfectly,” Escher said.

Benefits in Occupied Buildings

Other piping options such as steel and copper were initially considered for Windsor Over Peachtree, but the engineer had misgivings about those options in an occupied building.

“We were looking for a way to avoid welding or brazing pipe in an occupied building,” said Tim North, P.E., LEED AP, principal, Johnson, Spellman & Associates Inc. “The fact that no hot work permit was required was an important factor for us in selecting Aquatherm. It was the best solution in an occupied building.”

In addition, Escher noted that unlike welding, Aquatherm’s heat fusion process gives off no fumes or VOCs. That added to its attractiveness for Windsor Over Peachtree.

Investigation Leads to Appreciation

Although this was Escher’s first opportunity to use Aquatherm PP-R piping on a large-scale project, he and his team already feel like old hands with it. And he offered some advice to other contractors and engineers who are considering Aquatherm for a piping project.

“Do what we did,” Escher said. “Investigate it, look at other projects that have used it and talk to contractors who have installed it. You’ll find the same things I did: it’s tough, it’s lightweight, leaks are almost non-existent, and it has a built-in insulation value that may allow you to reduce the thickness of the insulation. In addition, the lack of flame and welding makes it very well-suited for retrofit projects.”

The fine aesthetic value of Aquatherm compared to steel also shouldn’t be overlooked, Escher added. “This system is running at 45°F to 90°F and didn’t require insulation,” he said. “However, we have some runs that are exposed in corridors, and if we had used steel pipe we would have had to paint it. Aquatherm, on the other hand, has an attractive exterior.”

A final bonus for Escher and his people on this project is something that can be all too rare in the construction industry: appreciation. The building went from a two-pipe system where the main HVAC system was either in heating or cooling mode to a system that can provide concurrent heating and cooling based on individual occupants’ preferences.

“Many tenants have been blown away by how comfortable it now is in their spaces,” Escher said. “We got tons and tons of compliments. So it was a very good project for us. The condo owners are happy, the building management is happy, and it worked out well for us. We’re very pleased and proud of this job.”