Today I can report a significant change in the economics of the emergency roof repair business in Virginia Beach. The cash-cow that was the ODEC flat-roof is no more and we now have a fine, pitched roof covering the rest of the day school, library, corridor, and the front façade of the building. True, the roof is, as yet, without shingles, but it is, as they say in the construction business, “now dry” because the water barrier and felt layers have been installed. I very much hope the message of a “dry future” will soon gain the trust of the day school’s directors and teachers and they no longer feel the need to leave their classrooms and offices festooned with buckets and bins to catch those inevitable leaks that have blighted their lives for so many years. I was lucky enough to get a tour of the new roof. From ground level you just can’t appreciate how complicated and vast it really is or the way it spans the old flat roof and integrates a veritable smorgasbord of existing pitched roofing into a seamless entity. Underneath the plywood covering there is a myriad of frames and beams that very much reminded me of the J2A’s pilgrimage visit to Salisbury Cathedral. We were taken on a Cathedral tour up into the roof and then up the tower to the very base of the Cathedral’s famous spire, led by a guide who must have been in his late seventies but as spritely as a mountain goat. I recall the roof space and it looked very similar to our construction with spars, beams, and frames in every direction albeit on a slightly grander scale! Whilst I well recall the Cathedral’s roof space my powers of recollection and description of the inside of the spire or of the, no doubt, phenomenal view from the aspect of a small exterior walkway at the spire’s base, are somewhat muted. This is as you should expect from an acrophobic standing 230 feet above the ground on a small ledge built in the thirteen century and without the benefit of any City inspectors!! Well enough of the roof, let me shine the blog’s spotlight on “firewalls.” If you’ve visited the ODEC campus, or perused through the online new building photo album, you may have seen or noticed some pretty impressive, concrete block walls being erected in what seems to be the middle of the building. These are the firewalls and are a building code requirement designed to ensure that a fire in one area of the building is contained in that area for two to three hours. We have firewalls between the rear wing and the existing library, between Tucker Hall and the narthex and between the narthex and the office wing. All these firewalls will, in the final build, be concealed as internal walls but in the meantime an interesting side effect is the apparent “bricking” up of existing windows. Father Bob’s office is now a dark, windowless cave as is the old library whilst part of the kindergarten classroom is now windowless. This is also happening across the palladium window in Tucker Hall and as the bricklayers ply their trade the light behind our stained glass panel is gradually fading but take heart, there is no doubt a bright future for the stained glass panel when it’s relocated to grace one of the palladium windows in the new Great Hall! Now I confess I am a big machine “groupie,” I don’t actually hang around outside garages or construction yards you understand but I am keen on the big machines and this week was an absolute treat. We were visited by a “slipform concrete curb machine” that very much resembled an early twentieth century tracked tractor with one steering track at the front and two drive tracks on either side. The machine’s purpose is to extrude concrete curbing and to do that this lumbering contraption lays a continuous line of concrete curb whilst being guided by a small metal filament resting on a string marking the line of the new curb. I was struck how it brought to mind a blind person reaching out to a handrail for guidance and support. This wondrous machine is no “one trick pony,” far from it. I have learnt there are different types of curb stone. There’s the rather common “parks” curbing for edging sidewalks and grassy areas and then there’s the curbing that includes the flat gutter that we frequently see at the side of roads. With a quick change in the “form” the clever machine can extrude a wide variety of curb types, we have both the parks and the gutter type on our campus which gives me a nice segue into my next piece of news. All of this curb laying is just a small part of the bigger picture of constructing vehicle entrances and pathways around the new campus. Within the next week the new entrance/exit, the one where the herb garden used to be, will be given a temporary surface and made operational for one-way traffic. This will be used as an exit from the campus, so vehicles will enter via the Cathedral Drive entrance and leave via this temporary exit thus avoiding the need to make a U-turn by the bell tower. And there’s more, next week will also see the opening of the new, concrete path that connects the N. Witchduck Rd crossing to hard standing by the Bell Tower. This will allow folks to use the Sentara car park and walk to the Church doors without the need to navigate around flower beds and over wet grass. It has been a very full and busy week on the construction site and I’ve not even touched on the windows and electrical systems being installed in the rear wing or Troy who has been digging the new conduit that will provide high speed internet connectivity to the Historic Church. Enough if my ramblings, stay safe and stay healthy, David Beach Troy Digging the Conduit
2 Comments
Gretchen
10/21/2020 08:35:54 am
Cash Cow flat roof!!! Ha!! Perfect description!
Reply
Mal Higgins
10/22/2020 10:08:03 am
A great shot of "Jesus the Good Shepherd" in the Palladium window. And it's nice to see a photo of one of the workmen, Troy, who is helping make the internet connection a reality to the church.
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
|