Moving dirt and leveling the ground for the new building
began on April 17, 2010.
The new building will cover 30,000 sq. ft. Looking to the southwest you can see part of our other factory buildings across the highway.
Spring rains delayed the work for a few days. Digging out for the
footings was the next step.
In between rainy days the concrete got poured for the footings.
Setting the rerod for the 740 ft. perimeter of this
building will take awhile!
By May 10, 2010, the forms were in place for the wall
foundations. Soon the concrete trucks will start to roll.
Lots of steel rerod must be in place before the foudation forms can be erected.
All hands on deck when the concrete starts to pour!
Keep the trucks coming! Once we start pouring concrete we don't want to stop.
Set forms, pour concrete, let cure, move forms, repeat.
The concrete is poured and cured, the forms are gone,
but there is still a lot of work to do before the footings trench is backfilled.
A factory production floor this size is built and poured in sections.
Here steel I-beams are welded into a grid to form the floor sections.
Each floor section is poured separately. Then a powered screed
is lowered onto the concrete to level and smooth it.
It takes big machines with a long reach to pump
concrete into an area this size.
All the forms are in place. It's time to start pumping some concrete!
The mixer trucks keep a constant flow of concrete to the
pumper truck as the checkerboard of floor sections is poured.
A 30,000 sq. ft. floor is made up of a lot of 20 x 25 ft. sections. Each is
individually poured. This steel I-beam framework eliminates seams that can
shift or crack, so the floor stays level. They also provide a line of site
reference for lining up machinery, and an anchoring network we can weld to.
Floor sections are poured, screeded and cured in alternating sections so the
crew can work on each section without disturbing the adjacent section.
See all that lush green countryside? It takes a lot of rain to grow that!
Around 6+ inches of rain in the last two weeks. Unfortunately the rain
has slowed the project, now almost 2 months old.
The last of the floor sections was poured on 6/24/10. And just in time!
Just before 8 inches of rain on 6/26/10 and much local flash flooding.
As soon as the concrete was cured the construction crew started erecting
the steel skeleton for the new building. The roof sections are assembled
on the ground and raised into place.
The wall I-beams are bolted to the floor. The roof sections are lifted into place
by the crane. But it takes some second story men (on scissors lifts)
to bolt everything together.
It's like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle, except each
piece
weighs hundreds of pounds!. So pre assembly on the new floor
makes the job easier.
Once the work went "above ground" the job seemed to progress quickly.
The west half of the building skeleton was erected in just a few days.
Now repeat the process one more time. The east half of
the building
skeleton went up even faster.
All of the building framework is now in place. Now the job begins to
add the steel skin to the walls and roof. July 9 saw the first steel wall
panels hung in place (far right side).
The job of installing 620 linear feet of steel wall begins with one 20 ft.
tall panel at a time. It takes men on the ground and in the air, inside
and outside to attach each piece.
The west wall is almost in place as each steel panel is attached to the
horizontal steel wall beams. Openings are left for the several overhead
doors to be installed later.
On a rare clear, sunny and dry day the building's steel skeleton casts some
interesting shadows. The west wall (right) is in place. This north wall still
needs its horizontal steel beams to be installed before the wall panels can go up.
Rolls of insulation taller than a man must be handled by machine.
It takes a couple of trailer loads to insulate the walls and ceiling.
Each steel wall panel is custom fitted in place. It can be a slow process,
requiring a ground crew and an aerial crew.
Work continues, but notice the gray sky and puddles on the ground?
It just never stops raining this year!
The walls are all up, now the roof has to go on - all 30,000 sq. ft. of it!
Bundles of steel roof sheets are lifted up to the roof crew by crane.
At least it has stopped raining - for now.
Heavy rolls of insulation go from the bobcat to the skyhook to the roof crew.
The west side of the roof is done. That means the job is half done!
The east slope roof starts in one corner and works its way across.
All those rolls of insulation have to be laid out and secured before the
sheet metal goes down. We use lots of insulation in our buildings.
The job isn't finished until the steel roof panels are in place and secured.
Then more insulation. Then more steel. All of this in between the rain storms
(yes, it is still raining).
All of the inside walls are also insulated, including a vapor barrier.
Tens of thousands of square feet of insulation have been installed in
the ceiling and the walls.
Installing and balancing all the overhead doors is a big job itself.
After all the wall insulation is in place, steel inside wall panels are installed.
The shell of the new building is complete! Walls, roof and
doors are all in place. Now the wall between the original building and the
new building has be removed.
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