New Construction Nail Clean Up

[slapshot]

I am in the process of building now, the house is up, all rough-in work is complete and the siding is going on now.
One thing that concerns me is that there is a TON of nails all over the place. I dont want to do the finish grade and just bury them, I have two little kids (4 & 2) who I'm sure will accidentally find them.
I've seen the magnetic sweepers, not sure how well they would work on the rough job site.
I was thinking of getting 2-3 250lbs pull magnets from Harbour Freight and sticking them to my 6' grader blade. My thought was if I could keep the blade high enough to pick up the nails, but not necessarily have them get knocked off again.
Any other suggestions of ideas, would be greatly appreciated.

-dave

[RobS]

I burned a pile last fall that included some pallets so I had nails to clean up. Got a hand held magnet from HF (looked like a golf club). It worked fine but you had to work it through the material to get the nails out. It won't just pull them out of loose dirt unless they are just laying on top. Took a lot of passes with clearing off in between but I think I got them all.

Not sure what to suggest for you though. Maybe one of the rolling kind, run it around now then do the grading and do it again?

Wish I could help more, maybe someone else will have something to add [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[twstanley]

I would just use the magnetic bar on wheels ( kind of like a push broom ) and run around with that before and after you do your final grading. The nails that are buried in the dirt will rust away very quickly anyhow.

[Hank]

<font color="purple"> The nails that are buried in the dirt will rust away very quickly anyhow </font color>

If you're somewhere that gets rain [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

I had our builder do a magnetic pickup of stray nails before I would accept the house, and he warned me at the time that we would continue to see some new nails whenever it did rain, as this raises them to the surface, like rocks, and it is true.

I think that over time they will go away, as they raise up and I pick them up. Not too many now, two years later, since I had the builder pick up the major amount.

[egon]

Out at the " Farm " the original house burned down over 50 years ago. I still find nails when tilling.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[mleininger]

You can rent clean up magnets.

[Pat]

The magnets help and a sweep of the construction zone with a metal detector helps a lot too.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

A barefooted walk walk will any that have been missed! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Egon

[slapshot]

I'm the builder so, everything is my responsibility. I'll try a magnet sweep, I'll see how it works on the rough terrain.
I just hate to do finsh grade and end up buring most of them.

Whats the going rate for finding nails if I have my four year old daughter and nephew collect them for me, a penny each?
[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

-dave