It’s hard to believe a week has flown by since the magnificent concrete spreading team were in action and already the “framing team” have erected the structure that is the skeleton of the outside walls.
Unlike the framing at home the rear wing's is made of steel but I gather the terminology is very much the same so the “uprights” are called “studs” and once they are covered up they are probably just as hard to find as the wooden ones at home (anything I try and to attach to our walls at home is always surrounded by a plethora of holes as testament to my search to that elusive stud………and those stud finder devices never work for me, it’s the same with touch less faucets and touch less hand dryers, I can never get them to work, it’s as if I have stealth hands!! but I digress, back to the construction). As you may recall, the framing rests on the top layer of concrete blocks that, together with the concrete poured into the foundation trenches a few weeks ago, make up the buildings “footings,” (I’ve received a couple of suggestions to set this process to the Dry Bones music). I was wondering what anchored the steel frames to the concrete or maybe it just rests there and relies on gravity to hold it in place? Well the answer to my musing was delivered by the harsh “crack” of what sounded like a gun shot! Peeping cautiously from behind the shed, where I'd taken cover at what I thought to be the sound of gunfire, it was with no small relief to discover the gun shot was all part of the construction process. The framers attach a steel base plate to the top layer of concrete blocks and they do the attaching with a tool that, with one “shot,” drives a metal bolt through the steel and into the concrete to make a very snug fit. I’m adding getting a crack* with that tool to my bucket list along with “driving the heavy roller!” Although wall framing “does not a building make” it definitely moves us from the abstract to the definitive, now you can see the dimensions of the building and once the internal walls are “framed out” the internal design will spring into life and then it will be on to installing the internal dry wall, the external cladding and the roofing. I couldn’t end without mentioning some major audio/visual (a/v) improvements taking place in our Historical Church. This week the a/v contractor is installing the new system in the Historic Church, a system that is completely compatible with the system that will be installed in the Great Hall. Once the construction is complete it will be possible to stream services and events from the Historic Church to an audience in the Great Hall and, via the system in the Great Hall, upload to the “cloud” for wider distribution into parishioners' homes. As an interim measure, a temporary link between the new a/v system in the Historic Church and our existing system will be established so quality content can be more easily produced and more easily disseminated to the ODEC family. Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach. * getting a crack: "having a go" English colloquial
1 Comment
My last blog focused on the pipe laying and hole digging going on beside N Witchduck Road but now it’s time to shine a light on the rear wing where a major milestone has been achieved!
In the early part of last week, in the heat of the day, a construction team was out on the rear wing sand pad to prepare for the much-anticipated concrete pour that will form the new building’s floor. First a thick plastic sheet or membrane was laid on the sand to serve as a water barrier and the base for the concrete pour. Next the team laid a steel wire grid on top of the membrane, this serves to give additional strength to the floor. My description doesn’t do justice to the real effort it took to do this preparation, whilst there might not have been any tears there was certainly a great deal of sweat, and I suspect even blood, with our own Scott Crumley joining in to install a steel pillar, at present the highest point of construction, that will eventually be part on the support for the rear wing’s roof. With this preparation completed and the work passing inspection the scene was set for the concrete pour, scheduled for first thing Friday morning. Friday 5.45 a.m. and it’s a clear, cool start to the day as the preying-mantis like “concrete-pump” truck gets itself into position and ready to receive the 700 square yards of concrete that will be needed to make the floor. Much as I like the heavy machinery this morning my attention is drawn to the bunch of Spanish speaking chaps who will be working, at the delivery end of the concrete pump, to spread and level the pour. There are ten of them in the team and they are a very happy bunch especially when you realize they have traveled down from Richmond to be here at this early hour (you need some specialist skills for this concrete leveling gig and these fellows are in high demand). Their banter is loud and laughter echoes around the site, no doubt to the discomfort of some of the closest residents. These guys will be literally wading up to their ankles in the concrete as it’s disgorged from the delivery nozzle so it’s no surprise that their common piece of attire is a stout pair of rubber boots. Now you may recall the term “rubber wellies” or “wellies*” from an earlier blog (English colloquial for rubber boots) so not wishing to be slow in offering an ODEC welcome I struck up a lively conversation. Not being blessed with too many words of Spanish I’m afraid I never really got any further than complimenting them on their “bueno wellies” and even though that seemed to get lost in translation I’d like to think we established a degree of international “wellie camaraderie!” The first concrete mixer truck arrived on site at 6:45 a.m., slightly late but apparently they had already delivered 1000 square yards (100 truckloads) to another job before starting the ODEC delivery. Once pumping started the “bewellied*” team leapt into action, directing, pushing, pulling and leveling the concrete flow – a short break whilst the next concrete mixer truck took its place behind the pump - and then back into action. I left the concrete gang to it to return to the site some 3 hours later and what a wonder to behold. By now mixers and concrete pumps had long left but not our intrepid gang. Now without their wellies, some on their knees deftly leveling and smoothing the concrete by hand to the precise depth whilst others using machines that looked like giant sanders. To me the floor already looked perfect but even so the work to smooth and level continued well on into the day to produce a surface that looks like polished glass. Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach *wellies – colloquial English for rubber boots *bewellied – word I made up as the wellie equivalent to bejeweled A very exciting day and not for any reason to do with the new building but rather because today, 12 July, the ODEC family was able to gather together again in worship albeit in, to use the in vogue phrase, “the new norm.” That is almost news enough for my blog but there have been one or two things happening on the construction site so let me bring you up to date. You may recall me writing in the past about the impact rain and standing water has on the site, it brings everything to a halt and even when it stops raining everyone must hang fire* whilst the ground dries out and, as it turns out, drying ground is just a small part of the problem. As you will know since the start of construction back in March a great deal of time and effort has been spent on building the new storm water management system and it’s still on going. There’s a mantra site construction workers’ use when building a water management system, “start at the lowest point and work back up the gradient.” Applying this simple rule means as work progresses water will run out of the new system even as it’s been built rather than pool in the system or worse still flood the building site. Last week Higgerson, our site contractor, excavated and constructed the first, of what will eventually be three, Bio Retention Tanks (aka storm water tanks). It sits underground between Tucker Hall and the curb, it’s big, it’s filled with those plastic milk crates, it’s complete, it’s working and here’s the thing; storm water runs into the tank just as it’s supposed to but there’s no flooding or pooling because the new tank is already connected to the new drainage system so storm water is already flowing to the Chesapeake Bay. The logic of laying storm water drains makes sense….work from the lowest elevation back so although the system is only partially completed water will drain from the site and help prevent future flooding. Now in the great order of things, the next Bio Retention Tank should be built about where the old herb (or for your ears "‘erb") garden used to be but that will create a problem. It must be possible to get heavy machinery (the good old yellow kit) onto the site and that tank would be exactly where the heavy machinery needs to go but the tank would not be able to support such a heavy loads. So Higgerson is moving on to excavate the tank opposite the entrance to Sentara car park. “Foul” I hear you cry, “having just given us all that guff* about lowest elevation working back then how will this tank empty if the storm water drain continuity is broken? How will water get from this new tank to the one completed by Tucker Hall if the bit in between is missing??” Fear not, there is a cunning plan. At the back end of last week Higgerson was laying temporary pipes to connect the next tank to the one by Tucker Hall so storm water will flow from this new tank through the temporary pipes to the Tucker Hall tank and from there via the new storm water drain on in to the Chesapeake Bay. Once the Great Hall is built the temporary pipes will be removed and the third Bio Retention Tank will be constructed and connected to complete our storm water management system. To end with a few words about the rear wing. The water and sewer lines have been laid under the sand pad and have passed inspection so in the coming week the concrete floor will be poured and then the building’s metal framework will be erected. Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach. *Hang fire: British Army slang for “wait” or “waiting” * Guff: Details (often a bit tedious) To say it rained would be a bit of an understatement even for a Brit, “chucked it down*” is much nearer the mark. Wednesday late afternoon and the ODEC campus was transformed into a water park and the recently installed “no parking” signs were looking like they need to be replaced with “no mooring” instead. The good news is the partially excavated storm water treatment tank not only survived the deluge but also made a significant contribution to moving storm water off the site and more importantly all the Higgerson chaps are all accounted for!
The rear wing sand pad also survived the rain and in the coming week the drainage, water and electrical utilities lines to the wing will be installed (to clarify these are the bits that run underground to the building so you won’t be seeing toilets and washbasins sitting in the middle of the sand pad). Once those utility lines are run the concrete floor will be laid and then it’s on with framing the walls. Before I end, I’d just like to wish my American readers (I know of at least 2) a very happy 4th July!! Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach. *Chucked it down: Colloquial English for “rained very hard” I know there’s considerable speculation about the giant, plastic milk crates that have been providing an “interesting” feature in our old car park for several weeks! To me they have almost become an accepted part of the ODEC Campus, our own take on a “Louvre Pyramid” like piece of art work albeit in our case made out of chunky, black plastic and lacking the artistic pedigree of Mr. Pei. Well today my friends speculate no more, our “Study of a Giant Milk Crate” by Precision Pipe is morphing into its rightful purpose as an intrinsic part of our storm water treatment system. When I last wrote in this blog Higgerson, our erstwhile site contractors, were just starting to excavate the first of what will eventually be three storm water settling tanks. Today the excavation got to the point where Higgerson could start installing the plastic crates and what a process to behold! It’s an interesting structure, to start with the hole is genuinely immaculate, beautifully contoured, even and the base so packed you could eat your lunch off it. That base is covered by a black, multi-layered cloth like material and then our plastic crates are very carefully set out on the cloth in an interlocking pattern, it very much resembles giant Lego bricks on a black carpet! Once the area of cloth is covered in plastic crates the ends of the cloth are drawn over the top of the crates to completely encase them like wrapping a gift. The wrapped crates are then buried in sand then the sand in a layer of special earth – that definitely has an earthy aroma – followed by a special mulch that will in turn support topsoil and grass. From the finished surface that grass will slope down from the edges of tank to a grating in the center of the now underground structure. Storm water will enter this tank in one of two ways, the first is via the underground culvert that will connect this tank, actually number three in the chain, to tank number two and the second as rainwater runoff through the grating. The layers of sand, earth and cloth are the filtration system each in turn removing ever finer impurities and nutrients from the storm water until the filtered water finally drains into the void created by our plastic milk crates and from there into those 24” concrete pipes and eventually discharging into the Chesapeake Bay water catchment area!! It really is fascinating stuff made all the better by the wide range of yellow equipment festooning the site. The heavy roller was briefly left unguarded and my thoughts were leaning towards taking it for a spin but, unfortunately, its operator was keeping a beady eye on his roller and me so no luck this time but one day? Well you never know. Stay safe and stay healthy, yours aye, David Beach. |
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
|