Parking Garage 091709

Wednesday
9am
Overcast

Construction has been underway at the new parking garage structure on campus. Just over a month ago an enclosing fence, runoff screen, and trailers were installed around the site. The site itself consists of an existing parking area. Trees and curbs were removed with excavators and dozers. Starting last week the caisson entourage showed up on site. Caissons will vary in size from two to four feet diameters. A crane and a caisson drill have begun drilling at the north west corner of the site. This photo was taken from the balcony of building across from the site.

The above photo shows the ReBar construction area. Workers use this space to build the caisson cages on site. This seems to be a space and labor intensive way to work. What is the cost/benefit of constructing on site as apposed to off-site and transporting it. It may have to do with paying for transportation twice (material to shop, shop to site).

The video shows the movement of the steel from the assembly to temporary storage area.

In observing the caisson drilling rig I noticed a safety cage which encircled the caisson excavation. This safety cage was roughly waist height and obviously meant to protect workers on the ground from falling in to the pit. Today I observed the drill rigs space needs. The caisson drilled is parallel or in-line with the tract. To the left was a spoil pile where the drill would shake loose soil (which appeared to be a shale of some sort) and to the right were some additional bits which could be swapped out when needed.
Note to self: consider safety enclosure for caisson, spoil area, removal of spoil, extra drill bits. Also there appeared to be a barrel of oil on the drilling rig which seemed to allow easy access to the drill apparatus.