What a very active week on the ODEC Campus! A great quantity of earth has been moved, the rear wing has been picked out in a steel lattice and the Historic Church has been prepared for the arrival of its new audio/visual system. Where to start? Well let’s kick off* with my favorite topic, moving earth! Ryan and his Higgerson team (featured in the above photo) have been hard at it this past week and making good use of the wide array of heavy, yellow equipment to excavate the storm water bio retention tank #1. The new tank is where the old herb garden used to be and unlike tank #3, which is located between Tucker Hall and N. Witchduck Rd and was the first to be dug, this tank is designed to support vehicles because it will be under the new main access and parking area. This is a big tank, filled once again with the plastic milk crates (our onsite supply is dwindling fast) and, as regular readers will know, is already connected by a temporary pipe line to the Tucker Hall tank and thence onto the Chesapeake Bay water catchment area. In the coming week, the effectiveness of our storm water management system could well be put to the test as Isaias passes through our area. Meanwhile great things have happened around the back. Just a week ago the steel framing for the rear wing began and here we are but a few days later and “voilà”* the external and internal walls, the doors and windows are all picked out in a web of steel. If you stand looking through the framing around the back door in your mind’s eye you can see the rooms and offices filled with staff, parishioners and children all going about God’s business. And it’s not just about framing, where the new wing shares a common wall with the library and the day school wing a new concrete block firewall has been erected (this goes right up into the roof space) as mandated by the fire code. Turning our attention to the Historic Church, in these difficult times Father Bob, the Clergy, singers and musicians ably assisted by an off set team of “production staff” have been producing online content with a very “cobbled together system.” As our time in isolation has rolled on their experiences have highlighted the significant short falls and limitation in that cobbled system and so a revised set of requirements was drawn up and, with Vestry approval, a new and far more capable audio/visual system is being procured for the Historic Church. Installation is ongoing and we are expecting equipment delivery (camera, sound system, channel mixer) and final installation next week. There is something else that's new on the construction site. This week saw the delivery of a "shed load"* of roofing trusses for the back wing and to replace the flat roof that has been the bane of Church maintenance for so long! I feel a roofing activity coming on in the not too distant future! In a break with my “blogging modus operandi” to date by ending with a request for some assistance on the ODEC Campus. Last year the Historic Church’s exterior wood work was cleaned, restored and painted but to keep it in prime condition for years to come the wood work needs an annual gentle power washing to remove organic debris and general grime that if ignored will eventually damage the paintwork. I’m looking for any volunteers with power-washers who would be willing and able to give the Old Church’s exterior woodwork a “mild and sympathetic” washing – no ladder climbing required, water and power provided. If this is something you could help with then please drop me an email to [email protected] or text to 757 339 3679. Stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach. Kick off: Get started Voilà: French word meaning “there it is” or “there you are,” used in colloquial English to mean “there it is” or “there you are.” Shed load: English slang for "a great deal" or "a lot""
1 Comment
Mal Higgins
8/13/2020 05:00:08 am
David, I like seeing the photos of the workers who are doing the construction and site work. Ryan and Higgerson team deserve a lot of credit for so much dirt digging on our drainage system. And, hard to believe that all the black milk crates are now underground.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
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
|