In the style of our Rector, and to misquote the immortal words of Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Hammerstein, “Progress is bustin’ out all over!” The ODEC construction site is awash with contractors all plying their trades as the sluggish days of late March and early April are behind us so let’s take a blogging stroll around the highlights.
If there was an award for effort of the week it would certainly go to Messrs. Antony Beach (a close relative of your correspondent) and David Wilkinson for bring their expertise to bear by putting in a magnificent 14-hour shift from 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon through to 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning to bring the new computer network on line with minimal disruption to the normal business day. And a special additional thanks to David Wilkinson for going the extra mile to keep body and soul together with a timely supply of tuna tacos! Outside the work of the earth moving colossus that is Higgerson, Inc. is very evident with the completion of the third, and last, bioretention storm water tank, complete with its plastic milk crate filling, gauze filter wrapping and a contoured surface. Aficionados of this blog will recall that this tank connects the first and third tanks, so storm water is filtered three times to remove polluting nutrients before flowing into the underground pipes that lead to the Chesapeake Bay water catchment area. The storm water management system has been a recurring theme in this blog since ground was first broken in March 2020 and now all that remains to do is the connection between the roof scuppers and the first tank, a mere bagatelle for Larry Higgerson and his earth moving team! And there is more! Staying with the exterior, Higgerson has begun the task of grading and landscaping between our buildings and Witchduck Rd, and on around the west end of the Great Hall. Soon it will be time for pathways, carparks and exterior lighting, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves! Inside, it’s not all been about computer networks, far from it. The sheet rock finishing team of ladies have once again been gracing our site, this time in the Great Hall and Narthex. We have had variety of gangs on site over the course of the build ranging from the somber, the eccentric, the incredibly loud but the prize for “most jolly on site” must go to the ladies of the sheet rock finishing team who seem to find joy in every seam that needs filling, the higher that seam, the more joy it seems to bring! Looking ahead at the weather forecast there is a good chance for morning rain on Sunday 25th and so once again the 1000 a.m. service may relocate to what is increasingly becoming a usable Great Hall. Well, usable might be a slight overstatement because what you see on Sunday is far from the hurly-burly that fills the Great Hall during the week. In fact, its metamorphosis from building site to worship space is only made possible by the works of our very own superhero “broom-man” whom, when the last workman has left and the site quietens for the weekend, takes up his 24” broom and spends 2+ hours sweeping the Great Hall floor. I would not break the code of anonymity that surrounds broom-man but if anyone needs his special powers then, when the construction is done and dusted, I can hook you up! Broom-man is not the only superhero to grace the building site for this every week one of our parishioners donated a new concrete patio to ODEC. This patio fills the area between the Day School and Narthex entrances and will provide a space where one can sit to contemplate, admire the Old Church and ODEC grounds and give parents a place to sit and wait for their children at pick up time. A truly wonderful addition to our grounds! Before ending I would like to take a blogging moment to answer some questions that have come my way over the past few weeks. 1) The missing shingles on the roof near the Witchduck Road entrance resulted from an English to Spanish translation error and the issue has now been resolved. 2) The leaning columns at the Narthex entrances are not a building error. The columns you see are purely cosmetic with the load supported by steel beams nestling inside the polyurethane plastic faux columns. Please rest assured when the entrances are finished these faux columns will be standing straight and proud. 3) To quell rumors and set the record straight, there will be a display cabinet in the Narthex. It will be situated to the left of the door leading from the Narthex into the Angel’s office, and will run into the corner and make a 90 degree turn to the left and run along the adjoining wall, it will have the capacity to display a mannequin. 4) The courtyard will be renovated, there will be a new surface suitably graded so water runs into the central drain rather than the buildings. The courtyard will not be covered and there will not be flower beds nor, hopefully, wasp nests. 5) The contract includes a low level of landscaping mainly consisting of grass and the planting of some new trees, this is part of the site permit issued by the City. Additional landscaping to further beautify the site and replace some of the 30+ trees that were felled for the buildings will be addressed in the future after the construction is finished. Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach.
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Yes!! we are back to “arcing and sparking” on the ODEC construction site where the arrival and installation of insulation padding, and another City inspection, gets us back in “full on construction mode” both within and without. The tranquil days on the building site that so resonated with Holy Week are behind us as Monday marked the return of Higgerson under the leadership of none other than Larry of the Higgerson clan bringing with them, much to my delight, one of their very large yellow excavators.
As you may recall from a blog long, long ago, a third storm water bioretention holding tank must be dug in the area between the Great Hall and Witchduck Road. The first two tanks were excavated and installed at the beginning of the project. As a brief reminder these tanks remove pollutant nutrients from storm water that runs off, the now extensive, roof area and car park before it enters the Chesapeake Bay Water Catchment Area. This third tank, actually number two in the series, connects the two existing tanks so by the time the treated water flows into the underground culvert system, which loops around the rear wing, it is fresh, clear and ready for the Chesapeake Bay. Blog readers may also recall that a bioretention holding tank is really a rather fancy name for a hole in the ground that is packed out with what strongly resembles a stack of plastic milk crates encased in a permeable membrane that acts as the filter. So, with that highly technical description suffice to say Higgerson has started excavating the third and final bioretention tank!! And it’s not all about bioretention tanks, Higgerson has been busy “outback” and transformed what was, until the end of last week, a slightly abandoned looking building site into a fully landscaped backyard where the ground gently contours to the building, pathways and fence lines. The observant amongst you might notice in the picture the backyard grass appears to be a shade on the yellow side however, fear not, what you see is the bio-degradable straw matting that protects our “contactor’s mix” of grass seed until we see the green shoots of grass recovery! For those grass seed aficionados out there, I can report the “contractor’s mix” is rye and fescue of indeterminate portions!!! And it’s not even all about the exterior, far from it! Inside has been a veritable whirlpool of activity all triggered by the successful conclusion of another City building inspection. It is “sheet rock” time and here I’m talking about sheet rock on a significant scale. Walls and Great Hall ceiling are all being plastered with boards – which is a little play on words because in England it is called plaster board. Be it sheet rock or plaster board on either side of the pond it is darn heavy. Being a member of the sheet rock installation team is not for the faint hearted. Not only do you need to be pretty ambivalent about working at height on a scissor lift you also have to be blessed with a bit of muscle so you can hold the sections of sheet rock against the ceiling studs whilst your colleague pops in a screw or twenty to secure it in place. All this happens under the watchful eye of Eric (not his real name) who strides the floor like a sheet rock colossus yelling instructions at his aerial crew!! Forgive me for trying to make myself seem “acquainted” with the construction profession as I digress by throwing in some “technical detail.” As we are not blessed with a fire sprinkler system, believe me Scott Crumley left no stone unturned in trying to figure out a way of retrofitting a sprinkler system (which proved to be significantly cost prohibitive), we have “fire walls” intended to hold back any conflagration for up to two hours so we are fire code compliant. If I could be frank for a blogging minute, with these ground floor* buildings and their many doors and windows I think in our case the code must be making provision for having a good, leisurely meal before exiting - assuming you can tolerate the new fire alarm system blaring out its repetitive warning to leave the building! So back to the technical detail. To achieve this two-hour window the Narthex, deemed in fire code terms to be a corridor, is lined with two layers of sheet rock each rated to hold back a fire for an hour so doubling up satisfies the two-hour requirements! The spin off of applying sheet rock is the myriad of machinery, ducting, piping, conduits, cabling (fire system, electrical, audio/visual and data networks) will forever be hidden from view and although this is, of course, as it should be I for one will never be able to look at a finished wall again without thinking of the materials and skills hidden behind that skin. Moving forward, we should see "sheet rocking" (I hope there is such a word) done-and-dusted by early next week to be followed by the gang who will seal the cracks between sheets and apply a liberal coating of plaster*. Then it’s onto installing lighting, hanging ceilings and painting (perhaps not in that order but you get my drift) flooring and all of the other bits and pieces to finish the Great Hall and Narthex. It might not be the end, but I can cautiously say “it is definitely the beginning of the end!” Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach “Ground floor” Brit speak for a first floor “Plaster” Brit speak for “mud”! It has been a “slow” couple of weeks from the construction perspective, but this enforced pause did give Father Bob an unexpected opportunity to leverage the Great Hall, fully cleaned out and completely swept (at least six times) by Scott Crumley, and some of Scott’s construction equipment for Holy Week and Easter Day worship.
So it was that Easter Day found the 0900hrs service in the Great Hall attended by some 90+ parishioners, all carefully seated in their socially isolated pods under an array of hanging ducting, cabling, lights and partially installed insulation. The 1000hrs outdoor service in the Eden Chapel (a.k.a. the cemetery) saw some 320+ parishioners seated in socially distancing pods arrayed around the cemetery and treated to the spectacle of Father Bob rising above their heads, a on off performance brought to the congregation by Scott Crumley’s “person lift” and some hasty operator training for the good Rector. Let us turn to the construction, after all that is what this blog is supposed to be about, so what’s been going on? Over the past 4 months the pace of construction has been tantamount to frenetic, the progress made is a testament to that pace so when that pace drops off a tad, as is inevitable when there are so many moving parts (inspections, materials, trades, etc), a lack of visible progress is even more noticeable. Now that is not so say nothing has been going on, far from it. The brickwork has mostly been completed, trim installed, air conditioning and heating in the Great Hall and Narthex finished and the external aircon units for the rear wing installed on new concrete pads. Inside the buildings the cut over to the new data network is ongoing with all the new data drops and WiFi systems in the real wing and existing buildings now online. The office refurbishment is complete so soon we will be able to vacant our temporary, open office layout in Tucker Hall and return folks to their refurbished offices or, in the case of accountancy, their new offices in the rear wing. What has caused this lull in construction activity? Well, you can be sure it is nothing to do with Scott Crumley’s drive and enthusiasm to get the job done but rather a COVID-19 induced global shortage of building materials that has not only made materials hard to come by but also raised the prices when there is limited availability. Scott was kind enough to give me the “Building Materials 101 For Idiots” explanation. COVID-19 strikes causing processes, factories and supply chains that manufacture and deliver building materials to go into reduced production or even complete closure. Of course, it is not just the building material sector that shuts down, so do service industries, finance, manufacturing – you name it and it shut down resulting in many billions of people across the world spending a whole lot more time at home with a lot of extra time on their hands. What a perfect opportunity to plan and tackle that home D.I.Y. project or those renovations that have been sitting on the back burner for months, if not years! Off to Home Depot, Lowes and B&Q* for tools and materials or for those bigger jobs, and no doubt to correct the ensuing D.I.Y. failures, the construction industry. So here we have the conundrum, on the one hand construction material production is nigh on at a halt whilst on the other the demand for construction material has seldom been higher, and as a matter of interest builders, electricians, painters, plumbers etc, seldom busier. The result is, of course, shortages and price hikes. Let me try and give you some examples. There is a nationwide shortage of roofing shingles and I heard (he blogs trying to sound like a blogger who has his ear to ground in the construction world, which as I hope by now you know is far from true) about roofing shingle delivery to a supply company. In normal times they take delivery of 5 truckloads of shingles per week but in these COVID stricken times that is now one truckload every two weeks. Then there’s lumber, the truss package for our new buildings increased in price by several thousand dollars between contract signing and ordering – a gap of but a few months – as the price of lumbar sores. Lumber is currently at an all time high, increased by over 350% compared to one year ago and don’t even ask me about copper (surged 80% last week). Through careful prior planning, preparation and an encyclopedic knowledge of his industry Scott Crumley has guided our project around the rocks and reefs of outrageous construction fortune, savings have been found to offset cost hikes and an astute awareness of the supply chain, backed by an impressive list of contacts, has kept the ODEC construction wheels turning – until insulation for the Great Hall became an issue. True, there was a veritable “stash” of insulation tucked away in the new library waiting to be installed but, sadly, not quite enough and, as luck would have it, insulation installation is on the project’s critical path. Without the insulation, no inspection, and no dry wall hence no big activities in the Great Hall, if you don’t count Scott’s floor sweeping actions, and we have an indoor space available for Father Bob to exploit over Easter. A symptom of the extraordinary times in the construction industry or maybe a higher calling at work in creating time and space to contemplate the meaning of Easter? Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach. “B&Q”: As superstore chain, like Home Depot, of do it yourself (D.I.Y.) stores in the UK that, many years ago, had an advertising “ditty” that was an inspiration to a generation of D.I.Y-ers attempting home improvements and a cash cow to the professionals coming in after the failed D.I.Y projects to clean up the mess. Neither I nor my bank balance will ever forget those immortal words, a veritable titan in the advertising world: “You can do it when you B&Q it!” alas not so!!! |
AuthorDavid Beach is our Building Project Manager, and has been an active part of our parish family for more than a decade. He is retired from NATO and the British Army and is a joy and blessing to all of us. Archives
July 2021
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