The Concrete Pump The Bueno Wellie Gang Truck and Pump United Wednesday, 0600 a.m. and a slightly misty morning around the ODEC campus illuminated by the many vehicle and working lights surrounding the Great Hall’s and Narthex’s sand pad. In the dark of the morning, an hour and more before sunrise, the muffled sounds of heavy machinery are suddenly swamped by a cacophony of yelling and shouts as our old friends, the bueno wellie* wearing, concrete smoothing gang from Richmond arrive on site to get this little party rocking and rolling!!! Yes it’s concrete pouring time and by midafternoon the Great Hall and Narthex will have their concrete floors! Before me, wedged between the N. Witchduck Rd’s verge and the edge of our sand pad sits the concrete pump truck with its hydraulic rams, to level and stabilize, extended to their very limits. Above the pump’s delivery system is slowly unfolding, as if a waking giant was stretching out an arm to retrieve a morning cuppa* from a bedside table* (Brit author so you get Brit metaphors!), as Clive, the operator, maneuvers his charge to make sure it can deliver concrete to the furthest reaches of our site. I was very taken by the concrete pump used for the rear wing but the machine before me is, my friends, in a completely different league. When fully extended the delivery arm cuts a graceful arc from N. Witchduck high into the night sky to the far reaches of the sand pad, as Mr Crumley pointed out it actually has a red light to warn aircraft of its presence. This is spectacular! Let me veer away from the descriptive and give you some of the “numbers.” The concrete aficionados amongst us may recall from the rear wing that the distance from the compressed sand pad to floor level is 4 inches. Yes, it was surveyed incorrectly at the rear and had sand not been added we would have had a concrete floor in the rear wing that would have done a bomb shelter proud. However, I digress, the survey is good at the front so our new concrete floor will be 4 inches deep and, of course, cover the Great Hall and Narthex floor areas. Now I used to be able to work this out (and that was using a slide rule*) but I take it on good authority from Clive’s boss that we are looking at 135 cubic yards of concrete and at 9 cubic yards per concrete truck we will need 15 deliveries to feed the beast that, with the help of the “bueno wellie gang,” will cover our floor in concrete to a depth of 4 inches. Enough of the numbers, back to the action! It’s now 0625 a.m., the wellie gang are all “bewellied*” and an eerie silence has settled over the site, no doubt to the great relief of the immediate neighbors, as humans and machines are poised for the first concrete delivery. Its now 0630 a.m. and suddenly with a fanfare of crashing gears and screaming engines (actually the engine wasn’t very loud so put that down to poetic license) the first concrete truck arrives on site. In an impressive display of driving skill, the truck is flicked into the Sentara car park entrance and then reversed back across the road, a bit of right hand down and the truck is backed-up to where it can disgorge its load of concrete into the pumps feeder. From the shadows a "man with wheelbarrow" strides onto center stage, he is the concrete tester charged with making sure the mix is what it should be and it is to him the honor of receiving the first concrete goes. With wheelbarrow now full he disappears back in to the gloom, concrete now pours into the feeder and, with revving engines, is then pumped high over our heads and to the furthest reaches of the site where it is met and spread out by the waiting wellie gang. It’s a pattern that repeats another 14 times, as soon as one truck has fed its load to the pump another takes its place. At the sharp end of the action, the wellie gang’s spreader-in-chief continues his wrestling match with the hose that spews concrete at his direction, a dance punctuated by short and well deserved breaks as one concrete truck leaves and another arrives. Now it’s after 0900 a.m., the pump and its supply convoy of concrete trucks have already gone leaving behind a blanket of concrete that covers the entire sand pad. To one side the wellie gang take a well-earned rest whilst the concrete starts to cure to just that right consistency for them to spring back into action smoothing the rough surface into a polished finished complete with freshly cut expansion cracks (101 lesson from Scott Crumley: concrete expands when it gets warm so the purpose of the cracks is to provided a little space for the concrete to expand into without causing damage). A subtle signal ripples through the wellie gang and it’s time for action (actually the signal was far from subtle, the gang boss stood up and screamed out what I take to be Spanish for “I say chaps lets crack on shall we?” The gang deploy to their respective smoothing duties, some operate the ride on giant skimmers that ply their trade across the site like overly aggressive floor cleaners, others have rakes to push, pummel and bully the concrete into place and some have hand trowels used with great dexterity to get into every nook and cranny. Now the job is done, the bueno wellie gang, machines, trucks and concrete pumps are all gone and we are left with a smooth, almost iridescent concrete floor that lays testament to the skills of drivers, pump operators, logistics planners and, of course, the Richmond based bueno wellie gang. The wellie gang is gone but certainly not forgotten, maybe you’ll see the wellie gang in your neck of the woods sometime in the future, if you don’t see them, you’ll certainly hear them, quite possibly all the way from Richmond! Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach “bueno wellie”: Wellie is colloquial English for a wellington boot, the then leather foot wear invented by the First Duke of Wellington (he of the Battle of Waterloo fame) that is now worn as the rubber boot across the world. Bueno because the Spanish speaking concrete spreading team all very much favor their rubber boots! “cuppa”: Colloquial English for a cup of tea “bedside table”: English for a nightstand "slide rule": If you are of a certain age you'll know what a slide rule is, if not then find some one who is and ask them to explain! “bewellied”: A word I made up to mean “people who are wearing wellies,” similar context as bejeweled is to people wearing jewelry. The Bueno Wellie Gang in Repose
1 Comment
Mal Higgins
11/18/2020 03:02:23 pm
David,
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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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