January 28 - Inside and Outside Work

The Electrician Comes and Goes -

The electrician comes when no one else is in sight. I only know he was here because he leaves tracks. Tracks in the floor, tracks in the walls and pipes sticking up from the dirt. The photo on the right portrays the electrician’s work. What had been a perfectly good, solid piece of foam now has a fracture and a patch. On beyond the foam, a mostly buried pipe is seen. The buried pipe runs from the electrical panel towards the back of the building.  

Adjacent to the main panel is a series of pipes. These run through the dirt to various places in the building. I don’t know where all they run, but I hope the electrician remembers.

I asked Bob some time ago about wiring in a building with foam walls. I know with stud walls, the wiring is roughed in before the drywall is attached. Since the drywall will be attached directly on top of the foam blocks, and there was no provision for wiring in the concrete filling of the blocks, how does the building get wired, I wondered. I did not see it happen but again the electrician left tracks behind. Flexible metal cable is tucked into a trench in the foam, running down to an electrical box. So, how did the trench get cut into the wall? I am told that a hot wire did the trick. I did not see it happen but I think of a toaster and the red hot wire that toasts the bread. A device that heats a loop of metal wire gets inserted into the foam and melts its way down the wall to the spot where the box need to be. Maybe one of these days I wll sneak up on him when he is not looking and catch him in the act of making these electrical ‘foot prints’ that now adorn the floors and walls.





In Floor Heat - 

I got the story on the in floor heat tubing that was started last Saturday. The first noteworthy thing I learned is that there is a plan for laying the bright orange tubing. The vendor that sells the tubing, the manifolds and associated supplies also designs the layout.

The diagram shows how the whole building will be laid out. There are four manifolds denoted by the blue squares with a line to its location in the building. Each of the four manifolds has a number of tubing runs coming out of it. For example, the manifold on the lower left side of the diagram, physically located in the kitchen, has ten runs. Hot water comes to the manifold from the boiler at 140 degrees and is distributed out through the ten valves. Each run has a maximum of 450 feet of tubing. So the tubing for a given run must go out and back using less than 450 feet. So the only challenge is to figure out the number of manifolds needed, position them, they must be inside of walls, and lay out the tubing runs so the entire floor gets properly heated. The engineer figures this stuff all out and sends along this maze with the corresponding amount of tubing.  

The tubing comes in size large coils as shown stacked up in the corner. In total there will be about 12,500 feet of pretty orange tubing buried in the concrete floor.

Glen made up this handy dandy spool thingy to facilitate pulling tubing for positioning.

Plastic staples hold the tubing in place.

The maze of tubing will all be encased in concrete when the floor is poured. That is too bad. I think this maze would be a much greater challenge for the rodents than the wimpy rat runs in the trusses.



Pressure Testing the System - 

When all the runs for a given manifold are complete the system is tested. Glen hooks up a compressor and fills the tubes with 50 lbs of air pressure. Glen claims that if it does not leak air it will not leak water. Seems reasonable to me.

















Fifty pounds of pressure is approximately one and one half times the operating pressure when filled with water, so it is tested with a good margin of safety. For the final test it needs to hold the air pressure for 24 hours.








Planning the Next Steps -

Thursday evening the crew chiefs and their assistants met at the building to plot the next steps. Nate, Mark, Brent, Phil, Brian and Ken (behind Brian) gathered around the prints.

The result of the meeting is the chart now hanging on the wall.

























Immediately under the very legible chart is this diagram, which possibly encapsulates all of the chart information into one simple picture. It is also possible that it does not.
















Outside Work -
Saturday was warm enough that outside work could be done if one dressed warmly enough. And many workers dressed accordingly and labored out in the fresh air. No concern for excessive carbon monoxide levels on this day.

Aaron cuts soffit cover material.

Bill and Aare ascend the lift to hang the soffit covers.















Ed and Justin put up strips for
hanging siding.

I saw these benches stacked up outside the building. I am not certain how they are intended to be used. I could not help but wonder if after eight years of sitting on school cafeteria benches for services, is the building committee considering just using these for the church pews? I think it is not likely, but I have been surprised by so many things on this project already that I am just not sure of anything.

January 21 - Filling the Sanctuary Trenches

Big Blue Ducts - 

The ducts being buried under the sanctuary floor were delivered and spread out in the trenches. Not surprisingly, the product name is The Blue Duct. This is an amazing product. It is impervious to moisture, mold, mildew, air leaks and radon. It will not rust, rot, ravel, run or fray at the edges. It has an insulation value of R-10 so it keeps the warm air warm and the cool air cool as it flows silently beneath our feet in the sanctuary. The product can be direct buried and does not require a bed of pea rock nor does it require drain tile under the ducting. And it will not crush, corrode, leak or turn sour in hot weather.

According  to the company website, "The BlueDuct is the only proven, direct-burial underground duct system made from ultra-durable, advanced HDPE (high-density polyethylene)."  

In other words, plastic foam. So now we have foam walls, foam sealant around the windows, foam sheets underlying the concrete floor, foam ducts under the floor and foam coffee cups. Little could I have realized as a boy slurping the foam from the top of my root beer float, the glorious future awaiting those flavorful bubbles. 

Vishall, the factory technical rep, was on site Thursday to try to teach our guys the proper installation process. I think he largely succeeded. 

Brandon and Mark team up to connect two tubes.

 Line up the two pieces and apply the proprietary tape with a squirt of proprietary sealant applied to the lap seam.












Next comes the proprietary pipe clamp

 

which is secured with the proprietary stainless steel screws.











When the urge strikes to add a floor register, just cut the pipe, and using the proper adapter piece, apply gobs of sealant and secure it to the main duct with the stainless steel screws.













When the registers are a bit off of the main line you need to do a bit more fitting using still other adapters and duct pieces.

 After watching this process for a while I became convinced that with this product you can put underground air anywhere you can imagine and have it pop out any place you might want it.











The Big Bang - 
I did not happen to be on site when the incident occurred, but I have it on good authority, that when the wheel barrow tire blew out one evening earlier in the week everyone in the building took notice.
The tire blew with sufficient force to cause the tire rim itself to deform, as shown here. It was reported that the explosion volume was so loud that Sam had a seven second delay interjected between syllables when the blast came while he was speaking.

In Floor Heat - 

Friday afternoon I saw this item for the first time. It is the manifold that will distribute and control the flow of water from the boilers to the tubing that runs under the concrete floor.

Saturday I was not able to be on site so Ken and Adrian shared photos from the workday. In floor tubing installation was the primary task of the day.




 Kevin pulls the tubing from the spool.












Brian positions the tubing and Adrian follows applying staples to secure the tube to the foam panels. Pete supervises.

Up close and personal with the tubing

Kitchen, dining area and narthex tubed.

Adrian Inquires -

Did the anaconda multiply after it was buried?

January 17 - Cleaning Up Leftovers

The Plumber -

The activity at the church was intense the last couple of weeks, all the digging, piping, and floor smoothing going on. Looking back on my photos, I find a few pictures of interest that did not get published. So today I am cleaning up some leftovers from this active stretch.

When Don was laying out the drain line plan, he studied the print then walked around with a shovel and a tape measure. After determining the correct locations, he dragged the shovel through the dirt leaving the layout plan in the dirt. Greg followed with the trackhoe, leaving a trench in his wake.
I have already written about the writing, pictures and hieroglyphs on the walls and for the plumber it is lines in the sand.
Wherever Don roamed with his shovel, the trenches soon followed.

More Giant White Board Markings -

OK, Greg, what is with this snake and the epitaph? This is the partial burial site of  a tube through which the water main from the well into the building will be run. The tube runs down five feet below grade and horizontal out of the building 18”. When the well is dug, this will provide the ingress for the water into the building. Good thinking folks. It is a lot messier to run the pipes in after the concrete floor is poured.

The Wheelbarrow - 

Dirt was being hauled from the sanctuary to the kitchen area for a short time using wheelbarrows. Loading the hopper with shovels caused no difficulties, but was slow. A performance improvement measure was implemented. Load the hopper using the trackhoe bucket. While it was certainly faster, the load size increased significantly. Under this load, a flaw in the wheelbarrow was revealed.

The wheelbarrow was missing a fastener from the strap securing the axle. Not good. When Eric started to move the heavy load, the wheel went crooked. Lacking the factory approved replacement fastener, improvisation was necessary.





The maintenance engineer demonstrated skill with using available parts. Obviously, he was a student in the "if one is good, two is better, so five must be perfect" school of repair.
The repair brought to mind a story my uncle Ike once told me. He had a dogskin winter coat that was very warm and very heavy. He said whenever he used a wire coat hanger, the coat hanger deformed under load and the coat wound up on the floor. Tiring of this recurring event, he needed a better coat hanger. He fashioned one out of 3/8" curtain rod. After bending it into the proper shape, he welded a vertical rod directly below the hook, down to the bottom horizontal member. Many years after he manufactured it, he was showing it to me. "Now, this is a substantial coat hanger," he stated with obvious pride. Uncle Ike must have attended that same school.
The Man Said "Clear the Floor" -

When the floor needs to be cleared, everything must be off of the floor. If there is a table that still needs to be around since basic necessities of life, like the coffee maker, are  resting on it, then the table needs to levitate. That is the neat thing about these carpenters. When they need a bracket right now, they build a bracket right now.

January 14 - Lowdown on the Floor Prep

A Full Moon on a Crisp, Clear Evening - 

It snowed Tuesday morning then cleared up and turned cold in the afternoon. By evening, all the clouds had gone and left a brilliant full, or nearly full, moon. There are even a few stars visible in the picture. A serene and welcoming sight.

Meanwhile, inside the building, Greg started digging trenches in the sanctuary. The main trench work is for the ducts that will carry warm and cool air from the furnaces and air conditioners into the the sanctuary. Now that we have some real winter weather, with a good imagination you can look in the trenches and feel the heat coming from the soon-to-be heat ducts. Some of dirt from the trenches was needed in the kitchen area to bring the floor  up to the required level. While I was on site that transport was being done with wheel barrows. Soon after I left the small loader showed up and moved the dirt much more expeditiously.

With all the petroleum powered equipment in use, it is important to monitor the carbon monoxide level so it is not too high for safe working conditions. A meter with an alarm was added to the on site equipment to do the job that the canaries formerly did in coal mines. I was told that an reading of 50 or below for an eight hour shift is considered safe. In addition to the meter, a couple of exhaust fans are now operating in the sanctuary.



In addition the the trenches along both side walls and along the front wall, a size large trench was cut right down the middle of the floor where the center aisle is going to be.

Preparing the Floor -
After the plumber was done roughing in drain lines on the kitchen side, the trenches were filled and the floor was smoothed out. Once the dirt was at the proper level, a truckload or two of sand was added.
A two man drag plow was fashioned from three pieces of wood to help smooth the sand.

A layer of poly keeps the ground moisture below. This is then overlaid with two inch thick foam panels. Bob and his daughter Stella are shown putting a panel in place.















The foam was laid with the Dow trademark stamp showing on the top. When one piece was custom trimmed with a hole for a pipe, it was discovered that the blank side was up on this one panel.

Bob grabbed a marker and added the trademark so that all the panels would be upside Dow.

Bob was asked about aligning the panels where the bump out met the main floor area. Must the seams be staggered there also? "Certainly," he responded. "To do otherwise would be unseemly."

Stella demonstrated that she did not need dad's help to transport foam sheets.


The next step is for heat coils to be attached to the top of the foam. Training for that process will be in the coming week.









Curious Sights on the Building Site -

The fire breathing dragon has attained a new, elevated status. It is reported to be at 'hair-singeing height'












To do all this floor, and under floor, work, the building contents had to be removed or shifted about. The picnic table was stored outside. So, when lunchtime comes, the bench must be first scraped, which Brian does with great energy.





The diners decided that the bench was a bit too cold for comfort so a two inch foam pad was added.

Mark, being more sensitive than the others, needed a bit more insulation.

The bosses study the architect's plans.

Brian draws his own plans using his cell phone as a stylus.

No, Brian and Davin are not worried about the posts getting too cold. The posts are not made from treated lumber so they are wrapped with Flexwrap so the bad stuff in the concrete does not infect them.

On a beautiful, mild winter day Jacob and Brian dig out some long hidden rebar. The rebar will be used in the concrete floor.














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