Brick rode tore up in front of my house. area settled 1600s. Hunting tonight!!!

SilverForBrains

SilverForBrains

Bronze Member
Feb 1, 2012
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Hi all,

I'm posting because I could use some advice. I live in a very old area on the eastern seaboard and the brick road right in front of me just got tore up this morning. they've been doing the whole road and now that the spot just presented itself ten feet outside my door I can't resist.

Have any of you had any luck with torn up roads or do you just find a lot of construction equipment? it looks like they took up the bricks and moved a bit of dirt around but not much. the road is open to traffic but a car goes by maybe once a minute tops, and that will die down tonight. Basically I will be in plain sight of the neighborhood and any cops that happen to drive by, I'm not sure of the legality of this but I highly doubt anyone will do anything expect ask me if I'm finding anything. Any advice is appreciated! will post results later tonight
 

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Sounds good.Good luck.Hope you can show us some cool finds soon.HH.
 

I just learned from a neighbor they put 6" of dirt on top after they scraped up the brick. I've only got a quicksilver bounty hunter which gets about 7-8" reliably so I'm still hoping. still waiting for traffic to die down. will keep you posted!
 

What the others have said- get after it! :icon_thumright:

Heck- I'd even take the brick if they let me. :laughing7:
 

GO NOW!!!! Keep us posted on what you find!
 

Get off the computer and GO for it! I found a large cent and. Seated dime when they tore up our sidewalk, of course just to make things interesting they used fill from the trash furnaces when sidewalk first put in, it was a little noisy, and my ears rang for two days after. And don't play dodge car!
 

hey guys thanks for the posts. Fell asleep on the couch last night waiting for traffic to die down :BangHead::BangHead:. It will be accessible all weekend and my pops will be in town so we're going to hit it. He won't let me fall asleep he'll be jumping at the bit. Will keep you all posted!!!
 

Silver for brains! It's dark, put the 'puter down, off the couch, no more Discovery channel, go out there!
 

All the brick streets I have hunted had a concrete foundation under them, had to wait until they broke it up to hunt it. May be different there
 

reply

SilverForBrains said:
I just learned from a neighbor they put 6" of dirt on top after they scraped up the brick. I've only got a quicksilver bounty hunter which gets about 7-8" reliably so I'm still hoping. still waiting for traffic to die down. will keep you posted!
Click to expand...

I have done scores of sidewalk and street demo's over the years, and sometimes done good in several of them. But if you say they've already added "6 inches" of fill/compaction material, then you may be too late. Even though your machine may go 7 or 8" (so you would *THINK* that affords you ability to see beyond that), yet it most often doesn't work out that way. Because you've got to figure that that top 6" is going to be a different soil type and thus different mineral composition. Thus any ability your machine (as do most modern detectors) to adjust and balance and acclimate to that, ... that your machine will be balancing to the matrix of that top 6". Go figure, that's what it "sees". Therefore you might have a hard time seeing beyond that into the next type minerals. This has been my experience anyhow, that when you have two different types of soil, that you might not get the full depth ability of your machine. Since it's not all the same soil type throughout the depth, that you're seeing *through*, in this case.

This just goes to show that in cases of old-town urban demolitions, you can't be timid and wait around for the bells of notre dame to ring. You have to be on it right then, before fill-dirt is added. I've even been on projects where that means rushing out furiously during their lunch hour, as they both tear out, and fill, all-in-the-same day !

As for the "legality" (which you question), why would you think it would be "illegal" ? It's a public street isn't it? Cars, for example, can drive over it now as we speak, right? They would you think you can't be there? As everyone else has said, just go for it. The only time I would ever ask a contractor, is if there was need to be right there *as* they work (like if it were about to get filled before their 5pm cutout time). But so long as it's after 5pm, I never ask anyone anything. That's just begging for a "no", when in fact, I bet no one cares less (till you ask).

If the streets were asphalt, then it's possible they had DG (decomposed granite) there from the 1950s/60s. And any demolition/removal of asphalt (the "grinding" out) is often-time no good, since they don't go below that DG layer. However, in your case, it's brick, which might have been laid right on top of virgin dirt back-in-the-day . I hope you're not too late, 'cuz it sounds good :)
 

Tey dug and hit the old brick road and sidewalk here. In a 20 ft square section I found a 1884 indian head.
 

I've had good luck in the past with road tear outs...I'd be hitting it HARD!
baggins
 

Hey all thanks for all the posts. some great info in here that will help me out a lot when I come across this situation again! now for the update, apologizes about the delay

So I hit it hard one night over the weekend while my pops was here. we started out on places where the sidewalk was tore up, but that was just little pockets. mostly bolts, really rusted pieces of iron and aluminum (unrecognizable), and a lot of nails. not even any clad. then we hit the street, same thing. lots of debris from construction it seems, although like I said most was unrecognizable so It was hard to tell the source. maybe the fill had a lot of old metal mixed into it that had been crushed when they flattened the fill.

So that's the bad news. the good news is next year they're going way down. it's now asphalt just temporarily for the winter. I will follow Tom in CA's advice and hit it on their lunch break if necessary. this has been a great lesson for me, no coins but a lot of knowledge gained. Thanks all, and HH
 

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