Whats the biggest job you've done???

Just wondering what's the biggest job you've done? How many linear feet? HC's, fire lane ect. Any horror stories that went along with it. Post away! Biggest one I've done in the couple of months I've been striping is 3,500 linear feet, 6 HC stalls along with signs , 1,700 ft. fire lane curbing, 21 No Parking Fire Lane signs, and 3 stop signs, all new layout. Im sure its nothing compared to the veteran stripers on here, but man that one was tough with just 1 helper! Only thing that went wrong was the sprinkler went off a couple of times almost getting to the wet HC symbols, hadda jet over to the hose and cut if off, take off my shirt and stop the stream of water headed right for one of them Have a couple of apartments coming up in the next couple of months, should be interesting Sean Paramount Asphalt

No horror stories, a big job is the same as lots of little jobs. Apartments can be a pain, seems there's always a car in the way, that hasn't moved in months, and no one knows who owns it.

No real horror story, but one of the most memorable was a complete signs and markings job at a regional mall's new 4 level wraparound deck. At the pre-con meeting I noted there was a LOT of 7.5' compact spaces on this new deck, and pointed out that an upscale mall like that would be having a lot of large cars parking at it. "No problem" said the mall manager. We had completed the first section, and it had been open for a week when the first complaints started coming in. Then one night a section of the new deck collapsed and pancaked to the ground. The deck was closed and during the subsequent reconstruction, I was tasked to remove all of the compact spaces and replace with full size spaces. Also the mall was being expanded and renovated and the ground floor of the deck was filled with construction materials and we couldn't stripe it until the day before the grand opening. What a madhouse. We were striping the ring road right behind the paver. Two days ofter everything opened, we had to add lots of markings, as the arkyteks and engineers did a poor job of setting up traffic flow. It took a year to get the final retainage check on that job....and I have a similar story about doing the new terminal at our airport...

Parking decks are bad about "compact" spaces. When it costs $15,000 per stall, the arkytek feels like he is accomplishing something by squeezing in more. I will be removing about 200 lines inside a new parking garage, and re-laying out bigger ones. The whole thing was planned with 9 foot stalls, but they are on a 75 deg angle with 20 ft. of backout. I told them there would be complaints, and there are, but the only part getting fixed is the physician parking. They have more clout than patients do.

Largest job 6000 stall's.(No drawings,no arkeytec's...no LL) Largest stencil job 2000 numeral's (my back still ache's) One of my nightmare's It was December,new 900 stall lot. Drawing's not even close (driveway apron's,muliple lamp post's,building and a transformer! all not where they are supposed to be.) The arckeytec asked me why the transformer was there!!!!! I worked it all out,the arckeytec told me to rough sketch it and send it to him. (yeah right) Ready to paint SNOW!!!!!. Layout GONE. Week later the job was canceled. (Man in charge said do not need line's to park car's) After 5 days of rain we recieved a call from the Man and was wondering if we could paint in the rain. Drove down to the lot and they had about 30 security guards trying to control traffic and parking. forgot to mention this place run's 24/7. Complete CHAOS, car's triple parked,boxed in,abandoned,cab's driving people home. Met with the man,and told him when it stopped raining I would be there. It was a blessing in disguise when it snowed. The arckeytec forgot to mention the accordian buses that were pulling into the lot and building to pick up and drop off employee's and out to the street again. We had to cone off and guard section's so people would not leave their car and run away ( not joking,stop and bale.) They brought light tower's in for us and food (the light's at the lot were not hooked up,probally looking for the transformer.) Tired,frozen and frustrated we completed and left the lot. It took us 21 hour's.

Best "horror story" (learning experience) was by far not the biggest job but a good lesson for newbies. Big "Super-Size" (former K-Mart) grocery store. Parking lot had been sealed by somebody with squeegee machine so old stripes were clear to see. Project manager handed me striping prints and said this is exactly how we want it. Like the other horror stories light poles were in wrong places, distance between islands was off, "store" was not square to parking lot so we couldn't square from sidewalks or building. Remember this was my FIRST job from prints and I wanted perfect. Spent an entire day measuring, popping a few lines, measuring again, etc. ended up so frustrated by 5pm I decided to quit and try again the next day. Took ALL the next day but finally got it laid out perfect, was a real pain because there was a low drainage area running completely across the lot (and I hadn't yet discovered cables) so some places the chalk like would be 3' off the ground...you can imagine. 3rd day came back & realized I hadn't "marked" the bad marks so spent an hour or so being sure which ones were the "right" lines. Spent the day painting it perfectly including fire lanes, truck loading area in the back arrow stencils etc...oh and this was before LazyLiners and the whole job was on a hillside slope, some areas just a slight incline but 1/3 very steep...Finished my perfect job DEAD tired & hurting & noticed how whoever did it before just allowed for stuff like the light poles and such by making a few larger & smaller spaces and thought how sloppy the K-Mart stripers were. Figured I didn't make any money but I had a job to prove I could do a perfect one "by the prints". Next day took the invoice and the prints back to the project manager. He was happy, I was proud, when he complimented how nice it looked I mentioned how it had taken 3 days because everything was "off" from the prints and how much trouble it was to make everything come out right.... That's when he said "well why'd you go to all that trouble? Those were the original old K-Mart prints we just changed the names & copied 'em, we just wanted to be sure it was back like it was before" I could have striped it in 2-4 hours just going over the old lines easily visible through the thin sealer... But that's not (as Paul Harvey says) the rest of the story. That thin sealer didn't last a year & they needed re-stripes & the store manager called somebody else. They painted about half the originals & half mine...and it's never been re-sealed so it's been painted that way every time now for over 17 years and is always the craziest & worst looking layout you can imagine... For all you newbies it was good because no prints ever scared me again AND most of all I learned a big lesson I never forgot about communicating with the person "running the show" to find out what they REALLY wanted...

Great stories Thats harsh Don, I'm always going to communicate more often with whoever is in charge! Sean Paramount Asphalt

Did a truck stop addtion: 230 spaces @65' with layout. Plans called for 4 HC spaces 65' each. I asked the GC and he told me if its on the plans put it on the ground. You should have seen the looks and comments truckers gave me about the HC spaces. Truckers were alot more polite and careful than cars are.

Truck stop, Doh... Never again, EVER! I am working on a job right now with over 200 arrows, 75 HC, 250,000 LF. And I would do it again and again before any truck stop or any parking lot where the business is open 24/7.

not my biggest but the worst 400 stalls over gravel

Best & biggest (new construction). 14 miles (staging lanes on 4 ft centers) inside a warehouse distribution center. 2 days with a LL and Speeflo 4000 w 2 guns. Piece of cake. Not sure on the biggest restripe. 10 mile-ers happen infrequently.

TheStripeZone wrote on Apr 25, 2005:Go to #8

Truckers were alot more polite and careful than cars are.

Not down here, for 10 years we had an annual contract on a Petro and every moment was taking your life into your own hands...

Toyota plant. 7500 stalls. Each with a 6 digit number stencil (i.e. AA500-1). Paid well though.

4,420 lines all with hoops! all the hundreds of arrows, chevs, stenciling, center lines etc had to have a black out line to high light, as well. Then we had to do the rest of the malls straight after. Lovely. We do these very second year and the traffic calming yearly. worst place we do is this place there's about 2000 spaces, with a LOT of stenciling every where, the Kiwi's are mad for stenciling so I have seen and done my fair share but this place has a LOT! up six floors of very tight ramps, you can never get a clear run at it as its 24/7. Very difficult to get trucks up, so before we had the ride ons the lads used to push the machines up these steeeeep ramps! Bless ! with 20 litres of paint! then back down for more!

Don, I did a few of them old K-Marts with my old Binks, I think every one of them were built in a hole. We just parked by the store and when we ran out of paint, we let the machine roll down the hill to the truck.

All these big jobs My biggie: 57-20' lines.

Shea Stadium, 5500 restripe and 3800 layout plus 175 handicaps. Jim

Jim wins??? Sean Paramount Asphalt

New layout on a 10 million dollar church with 1800 lines small islands everywhere and all the curbs were off. Truck stop with six acres to be sealcoated and striped!! I dont know if i ever want to do one like that again. The trucks just come flying through my cones and ribbon . And then they get mad at me .