Stuff You Should Know - How Jackhammers Work

Episode Date: February 17, 2016

It's likely that without the invention of the pneumatic jackhammer, the Industrial Revolution wouldn't have hummed along quite so smoothly. Certainly a lot more trains would go around mountains than through them. Learn about this essential tool here. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building your website today at Squarespace.com. Enter our offer code STUFF at checkout to get 10% off. Squarespace, build it beautiful. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know

from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And Jerry's over there, which means time for Stuff You Should Know, the jackhammer edition. Coming at ya. That's right.

The most annoying. One of the most annoying sounds. I know you hate the leaf blower. Yeah. It's established. I think the leaf blower. Can you throw the jackhammer up there? Sure.

But we don't live in New York. If we lived in New York, the jackhammer would be number one. I feel like I've never stayed in a hotel in New York where there wasn't a jackhammer below me. No. Not even a chance. Every single time. Yeah.

Leaf blower? It's a lot more frequent down here in Atlanta than a jackhammer. Not a lot of leaf blowers in New York City. No. Not a lot of leaves. Well, that's not necessarily true. None. It's been somewhere you are.

So we don't usually shout out a thank you at the beginning of an episode. But we got a couple of gifts that are so special. We want to do that. We do. So Peter O'Donnell in the gang at Built Sharp Knives, B-I-L-T, Sharp, out of Philly, sent us, sent me, his chef's knife, sent you, a filet knife.

Beautiful. And it's one of the most gorgeous pieces of handmade craftsmanship I've ever seen. Yeah. It's amazing. I cannot wait to catch a fish. Oh, dude. I can't wait for that for you.

Cut that thing open. Yeah. After it's dead. Oh, really? You can't lop the head off while it's still alive? No. I think you're supposed to. You're supposed to hit it with a hammer, I think.

Some people do. I do not. These things are gorgeous. I mean, the blade itself. I mean, they handmade these. The handle, the weight. It's just a piece of art. And not only that, it is the sharpest thing

I've ever seen in my life. I know. It's dangerous. Well, I don't want to, you know. It's dangerous. They're knives. They're supposed to be sharp. But wield it with respect.

Well, yeah. Well, they're respectable knives. Yeah. You can actually go into Tumblr. You can just search, hashtag knives you should know. Oh, right. And it chronicles in pictures and short captions, or brief captions, the process of them making our knives.

It's awesome. Yeah, it's just really neat. I just love like hand crafting and forging steel. Like, those are lost arts in a lot of ways. And they're doing it right, man. They're really beautiful. Cool, man. So anyway, thank you for indulging.

Yeah, thank you, guys. Yeah, thanks, Peter. That was really cool. So jackhammers. Yeah, jackhammers. If they were sharp as built sharp knives, they'd be onto something. I don't know if it would work quite the same.

Probably not. So yes, it's true. We are actually talking about jackhammers. And yes, it's true that jackhammers are about what you think they are. But they're also kind of interesting when you start to look into them, right? Oh, yeah?

Well, yes. So think about it. I didn't realize this. This article points it out. A jackhammer is a hammer and a chisel. That's right. But it's a hard core hammer and chisel. Yeah.

And it takes out of the equation largely. The human whose back and shoulder muscles have to be involved in every single strike of that hammer and chisel. You're talking John Henry and the sledgehammer. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Because prior to the advent of the jackhammer,

about the 1840s, 1850s, by the turn of the last century, we had jackhammers kind of down pat. It was sledgehammers and pickaxes to remove rock. It was a real deal. That was like it killed people. Like it literally could kill you with that kind of work. Yeah. I mean, mining is still a very dangerous job.

But pre-industrial revolution mining was no fun, dangerous, deadly. And even if you didn't die, it's just brutal, brutal back baking work, baking work, slinging the sledgehammer. Yeah. You ever slung a sledge? Sure. It's the worst.

It's hard work. You ever used a jackhammer? No, I haven't. It's awful. Well, that's the thing. It's better than the sledgehammer. Yeah. Well, in some ways, but it's brutally difficult.

It is. It is probably one of the most brutal tools you can use on any kind of site. Yeah. And for any kind of project, there aren't that many tools out there that are going to take as much out of you as the jackhammer. It's tough on your body.

Yeah. Because they weigh about 100 pounds, like a normal heavy duty jackhammer, weighs about 100 pounds. You have to hold it in place upright, because you don't want to jump it around. Although it's probably not going to anyway. It's designed not to jump around. But you still have to, you want to kind of keep it

in a fairly confined area, which means you're using your muscles to steady it while it's going up and down at a very, very fast rate. Some of those things impact with the ground 1,000 to 4,500 times a minute. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. It's the only tool that and the hardwood floor skimmer,

you know, like the orbital floor cleaner, you can use that on it, like put a sanding pad on a hardwood floor. And that thing and the sledgehammer, the only time I've ever used tools that I felt like were controlling me and not me not controlling the tool. I got to. Until you get it.

Once you get it, it's a little better. But at first, when you first start to use it, you can rent a jackhammer, you know? So yeah, yeah. And if you want to bust up your driveway, you can go do it yourself if you're a fool. Make sure that you don't need the driveway anymore before you do that.

Yeah, yeah. But once you get the hang of it, you kind of can wield it a little bit. But it's tough. I mean, it feels like I have no power or control over this thing. Right, I can imagine. So it is a very difficult tool. But again, the alternative is early death.

And the other alternative, which is to call someone to do it for you, is the best option of the three. But so say that you are King Carlo Alberto of Sardinia. And the year is about 1830 something, 1840. And you want a train tunnel built through a mountain. And the tunnel is going to need to be 12 kilometers long. You do call somebody else, but that somebody else you call goes, I don't know what to tell you, buddy.

We could try pickaxes or whatever, but you're not still going to be alive by the time we finish. What can we do? And actually, this call for a 12 kilometer long tunnel through a mountain in Sardinia prompted the early forays into developing pneumatic tools like a jackhammer. Yeah, in 1848, a guy named Jonathan Couch built what he called a percussion drill.

And this had a bit that went through the piston of a steam engine. So it was piston driven. Then contemporary Joseph Fowl actually attached it to the piston. And then he started in 1851 using air, which is pneumatic, to power it. But these were still attached to a piston.

And it wasn't until 1895 with Charles Brady King when he actually is given credit for inventing the traditional looking handheld modern jackhammer. Modern pneumatic powered jackhammer. Right, and he gets a lot of credit for stuff that was already built. Like a lot of people say he was actually the inventor of the automobile.

No, he wasn't. Oh, well, he was the inventor of the gasoline powered automobile. No, he wasn't. He was the first guy in Detroit to build and drive one around. And he did end up inspiring and mentoring Ransom Olds and Henry Ford and some other early car manufacturers and is almost single-handedly responsible for making

Detroit Motor City this guy. But he also, Paul Stanley, right. And what's wrong with Ace Freely? I like that guy's stuff. What do you mean? Didn't he get kicked out of kiss? Oh, I think he was sort of not invited back. Yeah, I think it's a money move.

They don't have to pay the nameless other guitar player nearly as much. Still, he was the founder of the band, right? Yeah. How do you get kicked out like that for money? I think Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons probably own Kiss, Incorporated. I know.

Anyway, Charles Brady King, he put Detroit on the map as far as auto manufacturing goes. And he did do a lot of refining of pneumatic tools, including the jackhammer. And he does hold the pattern or he did hold the pattern for it. Yeah, and he invented a lot of stuff. He was a sharp guy. And the pneumatic, the fact that it's pneumatic,

which means air powered, compressed air powered, is the reason why most jackhammers today are still compressed air powered. It's because of the mining application of it. Yeah. Like when you mine, you're releasing a lot of potentially explosive gases. Yeah.

And you can't have something like a steam engine that's combustion powered down there. Yeah, or you can't have an engine in there releasing exhaust. And you can't have a jackhammer that will spark a rock. Well, that might happen no matter what, right? Well, no, that's what I'm saying. You can't have that among volatile gases. Right.

So you've air driven is the perfect key because it doesn't matter if that hose is 1,000 feet long, you're not gonna lose power because it's compressed. Yeah, it's gonna be compressed air up against compressed air. And up in the surface, you've got a diesel engine that's powering a piston, just like in your car. Yep.

And the piston moves up and down the cylinder as it moves down, it compresses the air in the cylinder and pushes it down into a storage tank where it sits as compressed air and that's released out the other end through the hose and it ends up into the jackhammer. And yeah, no matter how far away it is, it's still going to be just as powerful

and that compressed air is inflammable. So you can be a happy miner all the live long day. Well, buddy, you're getting excited. So that means we need to take a break and put this pill under your tongue and we'll come back right up to this. Okay. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called

David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in

as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough

or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you.

Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.

And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen.

So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. How are you feeling now? Relaxed. Good. I love the title of this next section, Air Power Destruction.

Yeah. You can get an electric jackhammer if you've ever gone to a hardware store. They have these kind of smaller handheld jackhammers that you can take up like your bathroom floor tile pretty well with it, plug it into the wall, has a little chisel bit on the end of it. But that's small beans.

You can't do a driveway or concrete or asphalt with something like that. Or a 12 kilometer tunnel through a mountain in Sardinia. No, you need the big T-shaped jackhammer. And here's one of the things that didn't really occur to me. One of the reasons it works so well is because it's so heavy. Right. It's not like they say, well, let's make this thing weigh

15 pounds or 20 pounds to make it easier to run. Which they probably could. Yeah, you maybe could do that. But it would jump all over the place. Yeah, you want that thing super, super heavy because that's part of the power and force behind it. That's right. So these things are pneumatic, right?

And just like on the compressed air compressor up on the surface when you're down in the mine, they actually have a jackhammer has a piston in it, a piston and a cylinder in it, right? OK. And it's actually really kind of simple when you cut the thing open and draw a cross section of it. Which we did.

Yeah, on our hands for crib sheets. You can see that really the whole mechanism comes down to a trigger valve, right? That's right. So what you have here is you've got the pressure chamber. The compressed air enters that chamber. Yeah. Activates the trigger valve.

And it just, because of the compressed air, opens and shuts really fast. Right. And so the trigger valve moves the air either above the piston or when it closes, the air goes down below the piston. Which means chisel goes up, chisel goes down. Right. Because the piston is striking the top of that chisel bit,

driving it downward when the compressed air comes in and pushes the piston down. And then when the valve closes and the air goes underneath the piston, there's also a spring in there that brings the drill bit back up. Because it wouldn't work very well if it knocked it down. They had to go down and reset it. And apparently the earliest jackhammer

had that very design. That feature? That was it. It'd go bam. And then you'd have to reset it. Bam. And then reset it. And they were like, this isn't going to work.

Yeah, that's sort of like the pneumatic cattle punch. And what's this face used in? No country for old men. Yeah, it's exactly like that. Not very good if you're trying to bust up concrete. But good if you want to put a rod through. Stun a cow. That's right.

It doesn't stun them. It does. The eternal stun. I think it stuns a cow. And then they kill them. Oh, I thought they put it into the brain to kill the cow. I don't think it actually, I think it can and probably does sometime.

But I think the main purpose of it is to stun the cow so it's not like, it's just dazed in out of it when they kill it. Oh, yay, yay. Hydraulic jackhammers, it's the same. The jackhammer would kill a cow. Hydraulics use fluid. Same principle, but it doesn't use air.

And if you've ever seen the, they have jackhammers you can, they're really large that you can't handle as a person. But it's like attached to a backhoe or something. That's for big, big jobs. And those are usually hydraulic and pneumatic. But probably not every time. I'm sure someone in the construction industry will correct me on that.

Well, I went and looked. And if you go on Alibaba, that has everything. And they have hydraulic jackhammers for sale. What's Alibaba? Is that like SkyMall? It's like China's Amazon, but they sell everything on it. It's nothing like SkyMall. You think everything's like SkyMall?

It's because you want SkyMall to come back. I sure do. But it did seem like all of the backhoe attached jackhammers were hydraulic that I saw. Okay, all right. Well, here's what happens at 1,000 to 4,500 hits per minute. That chisel bit. And if you're breaking up rock,

there are different kinds of bits. A pointy bit, if you're breaking up like a driveway or something, is really good. Or you can use a flat bit for other applications. So yeah, if you're breaking up a driveway and all you want is for the driveway to go bye-bye. Yeah, the pointy bit's the one you want because it's not a controlled cut.

The flathead screwdriver style bit is the kind where you can really kind of control where the cracking goes. Right, or if you want to, like I said, if you're taking up your floor tile and you have the handheld version, that's what you want to just scoot it underneath the tile and chip it up.

And there's actually like some insane mathematicians have actually tried to figure out how you can predict how cracks propagate. Oh really? Yeah, there's like a... For the most efficient jackhammering? Pretty much. Wow.

Like what bit will work best and where to place it and how to use it. But one of the things that I didn't understand before is that when you are jackhammering, you are creating different types of flaws basically in the solid state concrete structure, right? Okay, yeah. And when you're doing that,

the first flaw you're doing, the first flaw you're creating is this kind of surface powder that the initial chips you're making are actually powderizing and congealing around the drill bit, right? Right. And that powder actually transmits the impact of the jackhammer throughout the rest of the concrete pad

in that immediate area. Yeah. And that actually starts to create cracks. So you think, well, it's just the drill bit creating crack. It gets in there enough. Actually no, it's generating like these different materials from the very concrete itself. And it's using those materials to distribute the force

and create cracks that ultimately start to spread and propagate and as they spread and propagate, they get bigger and bigger and then a chip comes off. And when the chip comes off, the amount of force that's generated in there goes down again and you have to build it back up by more jackhammering, but eventually these larger cracks that you're making come together

and then big chunks break off. Yeah. And then when a big chunk breaks off, you want somebody to come in and clear the chunks away while you move the jackhammer because you're just gonna be breaking up those chunks and that's not the point of a jackhammer anymore. No, the point is you're trying to remove

whatever material in as big a pieces as can be removed, you know? Right. Like a backhoe with a bucket or something. Sure. And obviously it can't be too big because you might have to break up into smaller bits. Right, exactly.

But you don't want a three million little tiny rocks at the end of it. Right, you're not breaking it into gravel. No, no. They have machines that do that. Right. Some of these things actually, when you create a crater, that's good,

but you don't want your crater full of junk. So some of them actually have air or water that blasts the stuff clear as you're going, which is pretty neat too. Yeah. It's a big, that's an issue, because the stuff that dust that accumulates, that forms what's called the crush zone,

that powder that distributes the force throughout, is actually can be a health hazard. And there's actually a lot of health hazards with jackhammers. And we'll talk about them right after this. ["Paydude the 90s"] ["Paydude the 90s"] On the podcast,

Paydude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal?

No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy,

blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place

because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael.

Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now.

If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, Josh, health hazards of jackhammering. The dust is no joke.

Well, before we go to health hazards, let me say this. What you, and actually can be a health hazard. It can be dangerous when you get your bit stuck. And the general rule of thumb is you don't want to put the bit farther down. You don't want to keep going down farther than the link in the video. And you don't want to put the bit farther down.

You don't want to keep going down farther than the link in the video. You don't want to keep going down farther than the length of the bit. Because if you get your bit stuck, then it's really tough to get back out. Yeah. And while it may give you a little break,

your boss isn't going to be happy. Or if you're renting that thing by the hour at your house, you're not going to be happy. Yeah, because you just used all of the force of that compressed air to jam that chisel bit, several inches into concrete. Yes. It's not, you need like King Arthur to get that out.

Yeah, so move it around inches at a time so it doesn't go straight down into one spot. And you want a sharp bit as well. Obviously, a dull bit is going to get stuck easier. And it's not going to break up the material as well. Exactly. And like you said at the beginning, Jack Hammer's one of the noisiest tools around.

It's the worst. It might be the noisiest tool. Jack Hammer's create a noise at about 130 decibels from what this article says. Yeah. That is the sound of a jet engine taking off. Yeah. That's how loud those things are.

And driving here, no joke, I passed a dude using a Jack Hammer and he wasn't wearing ear protection. You know what I was just about to say is I bet you've never seen a Jack Hammer operator not use ear protection. I never have until today. That's nuts. Isn't that a weird coincidence though? It is totally weird and like just dumb.

He's like, screw it, I got health insurance. Construction headphones are a must. Yeah. And because we're talking about how much it wears you out, if you're on a road crew, you're probably going to be rotating out Jack Hammer duty. Yeah. It's not like, Chuck, you're on the Jack Hammer for 10 hours

today. For the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a real thing. People who use Jack Hammer's as their profession, they do face a lot of problems. I already mentioned that, but concrete

has a silica in it that's been proven to cause lung cancer. And so a lot of these Jack Hammers will have like a water sprayer at the end of them that just constantly is introducing water that keeps the dust on the ground and like a puddle. All right. And what's the difference or the deal with this? I know you didn't get a chance to look at it,

but you sent a pretty interesting thing on the negative effects of vibration on the human body. Yeah, it's weird. What's the deal there? So vibrations are very odd. They used to belong in the realm of Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain. They did a lot of research in the effects of vibration

on the body. Right. And it does everything from cause insomnia, to digestive issues, to motion sickness. And this is bad vibration. I mean, there's also good vibration. There's also good, good, good vibration. Yeah.

No, there's vibrations that vibrated a certain frequency, certain hurts. And I don't remember what it is, but it's like a low frequency vibration. And there's something called whole body vibration, which apparently GM is dealing with a problem right now. They have like their largest, I guess maybe their Tahoe or something, but their large SUVs.

They had to really strengthen the cage so that if it rolled over, it wouldn't crush the bottom of the truck, wouldn't crush the roof. But the thing is so rigid that when it goes at highway speeds, it vibrates at this frequency that's perfect and is giving the driver's motion sickness. Oh, really?

So yeah, there's all this weird stuff that happens from vibrations and exposure to vibrations. And so that's whole body. There's also hand arm vibration. And there's something called Reynolds phenomenon. And it's basically like your hands being exposed to vibrations for that many hours out of a day. And this can happen, too, if you're

working with a gas-powered weed wacker all the time. But especially a jackhammer operator is going to run into this. This circulation gets basically cut off from all the exposure to vibration in your fingers. And it can get so bad, especially when it's cold out that they just turn white. It's called blanching.

They lose sensation if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, there's a tremendous amount of pain in them. You can't grip things. And if you're a jackhammer operator, that's a big problem because you need to be able to grip the jackhammer. Yeah, and I mean, weird psychological issues

brought on from fatigue and that constant noise, headaches, and the insomnia that can all lead to you kind of losing it a little bit. Yeah, I never really thought about that. All of it put together is called vibration sickness. And we're only now just starting to really understand it. Shrapnel is also a danger, of course. And these are, if you're on a construction site,

you know all this stuff. But since you can go out and rent a full-fledged jackhammer, because you want to take out your driveway this weekend, I think a lot of people go into it lightly, like, I've seen those things on the road. I can do that. Be careful. Don't do it in flip-flops or tennis shoes.

Oh, man. You know, get your big, heavy hob-nail boot. The great Larry Munson said, put those on. Get your ear protection, wear eye protection, wear long pants, and don't be a dummy. It all seems like basic safety issues. But I bet you there's been a dude with short pants and flip-flops that tried to jackhammer something.

Jackhammered right through his foot. It'll happen. Oh, the also important thing, too, if you're doing this at home and you don't like your sidewalk that leads to your house, get the electrical and gas companies out there. And I don't even think they charge for it, or they might. But they'll come out there with a little spray can,

and they will show you and draw paint on the ground where your gas lines and your power lines are. Yeah, because you do not want a jackhammer into either of those. No. That's fun. Be careful. Don't be a dummy. Well, that's our PSA, huh?

Yeah, jackhammers, the most interesting tool on the planet. Oh, I actually got one more thing, believe it or not. What? In 2000, because these things are so loud, the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory released a helium jackhammer called the Raptor. And it had some of these things come with rubber boots to try and soften the noise, but I don't think

they do a great job. This thing actually lessened the noise to 87 decibels. It's like nothing. Nothing. It's like how loud I'm talking right now. But apparently it never caught on. Then in 2011, another equipment maker had an electric model that said it's faster than pneumatic,

and it's only 100 decibels. And they have sold a few, but apparently breaking into the construction industry with a new type of tool is super hard to do. I think in New York, especially, they were very resistant. The unions were like, that won't work. We're not using those. That seems like where they should do it,

because I looked it up. Apparently 62% of noise complaints from 2014 to 2015 in New York City were jackhammers. That's almost 34,000 complaints in a year. Jackhammering in New York. And supposedly you're not supposed to do it after 6 or before 7 AM, but they allow it in certain cases. And I feel like that is like all the cases.

It's Chuck in a hotel nearby? Well, then do it. Start at 5. That's all I got. If you want to know more about jackhammers, you can type that one word into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said jackhammer, it's time for Listener Mail.

I'm going to call this cool program for kids in Austin, Texas. Oh, yeah. Hope you guys are doing well. I've been listening to the show for some time. I'd like to thank you for giving me the edge on many debates and discussions. I live in Austin, Texas, and I'm writing today to let you know about a program I recently started working for.

I think you'll appreciate. It's called Totally Cool, Totally Art, TCTA. It is a free afterschool program designed to reach out to youth and give them some exposure to the arts. The class I teach is called The Art of Machines, and we build various contraptions. We have sent you an example project, which we call bugs,

that the students build in our class. Did we get this? We haven't gotten it yet, I don't think. I don't think I've seen this, Brian. So he sent it a while ago. Oh, he did. If you did, I don't know if we got it. No, we haven't gotten it yet.

So if it's recent, Brian, then it's on the way. If not, then send it again. That was one of a kind. See what you think about it. That is the prototype. I hope not. He said my dogs go crazy for these things. This is the actual 20th anniversary of the program.

We're trying to let people know about it so it can be around for another 20 years. We also have other classes, painting, film, fiber arts, and photography. Anyway, I was just hoping maybe you'd give a quick shout out for Totally Cool, Totally Art in Austin. It's so totally cool. And you can just look that up on Google

or go to HTTPS colon slash slash austintexas.gov slash TCTA. That's nice. That's a secure site. Yeah. That's from Brian Freitag. And good work, buddy. And we're going to be in Austin for South by Southwest this year. Yeah.

Do you know if we're going to be selling tickets or if there's like a registry or what? I don't know. We'll find out and let everyone know. But I believe it's going to our deal live podcast going down Sunday night. But we're going to be around cool town, cool. Look out for us.

Sunday night. Okay. Indeed. If you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at S.Y.S.K. podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web stuffyoushouldknow.com.

For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it.

And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you

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