Site Visit 10/03/08

friday 10/03/08
7:45 am
40 degrees
clear skies

This morning I walked around the outside of the site and got a good idea of some changes that have taken place since my last visit on (09/24/08). There were only two workers visible on-site. They were over at the SE corner above the mechanical room - possibly pipefitters who had moved their equipment to that area a couple weeks ago. Some PVC piping has been delivered and is being stored at the west of the site. The pipe appears to have varrying diameters and a constant length of about 20 feet.

The installation of the concrete slabs seems to be complete. The first pour was in the SE corner above the mechanical room (on 09/15/08). Subsequent pours were on the South side, West side first and second floor, and main gymnasium space. The Concrete at the South and West (1st & 2nd) is unprotected so I assume it has curred to sufficient strength. The slab at the gymnasium was covered in a brown paper to retain moisture and, as observed this morning, was kept moist by a couple of standad lawn sprinklers.

At the south-east corner of the site, water-proofing has been installed and formwork that had been installed at the perimeter of the first floor has been removed. The red-iron appears to have been coated with intumescent paint (note the white color of the steel columns, girders, and cross-bracing). Also at the south-east corner the site entry gate has been moved southward about 30-40 feet.

The entry has large crushed stone and a concrete culvert close to where it meets the service road.
Some questions were raised during this observation: Did the entry gate and work road have to be relocated? Could the future roadways serve as temporary site roadways, thus reducing the amount of site work required to change from working roads to finished paved surfaces? In observing the workers a week ago during the gate relocation a crew of about 4 workers was involved in relocating the entry and regrading the roadway. Assuming that task took a minimum of 1-2 days, the overlap of the site access road with the future driveway may have shaved a couple of days off of the sitework (small amount over the course of the project but a reduction non-the-less).

At the North of the site the steel structure for the gymnasium is complete (there was one girder at the north-east of the gymnasium which had not be installed because of trenching equipment which needed to be removed). The structural steel is completed and the metal decking for the roof appears to be installed. I cannot seem to grasp how the decisions for painting certain columns, girders, and braces are made (perhaps it has to do with the construction type?). At the north-east corner some stone was being installed around a low wall. Additional stone was stored between the wall and the constuction manager's trailer. As I said earlier, hardly any visible activity on site today.

More posts to follow - Monday I resume a regular schedule of on-site observations.
And a reminder larger views of all photos posted at the upper-right hand corner of the blog can be accessed by clicking.