d.wicke
October 22, 2007 at 1:12 pm

things have been going pretty well lately. we got everthing done last week we were hoping to get accomplished and we should be in good position to get everything ready to pour the slab this weekend. at this point we have the majority of the formwork up and we laid out the vapor barrier as well as the insulation and wire mesh. we spent the rest of the week getting drawings and things together because we weren’t going to be able to pour until this weekend.

everything looks pretty good for us to be ready to pour on saturday. john will be gone becuase it is his mom’s birthday, so we will be one down over the weekend. this week we need to lay the radiant floor tubing as well as level and straighten all the formwork. from here we have to make some decisions on whether to go ahead with framing or push to finish the rest of the concrete work which is the basketball court and front driveway.

here are some time lapse footage of us getting ready for the slab pour. enjoy.

d.wicke
October 15, 2007 at 11:37 am

it is always nice to have company on the site, last week we had a pair of chicago architects Ravi Ricker and Cheryl Noel of Wrap Architecture. They were a big help and it was great to have 4 extra hands on site for a few days.

We finished up the edging on the east side of the grade beam as well as finishing epoxying the bolts on the grade beam. They also helped dig the slab turndowns of both jutouts which was a huge help. as well as getting ready for the slab to be poured we finished laying out all of the water piping and got the electrical conduit ready for the wire to be pulled first thing next week. at this point pretty much everything is going according to plan if we can get the bobcat first thing this week we should be able to fill in all the trenches for the plumbing and start forming up the slab.

hopefully we will be able to pour the slab within the next 2 weeks. we still have to get all the form boards up as well as laying all the plastic, wire mesh, and radiant floor tubing. if all goes well we should be ready to go by this weekend. we still need to grout under the columns as well as finishing the column welds and welding the receivers to the bressemer beam.

d.wicke
October 8, 2007 at 2:44 pm

well last week proved as exciting as the week prior. we found a boom truck and got the bressemer beams in place on wednesday. johnny parker came out and helped us tack weld the columns in place, we will give them a final weld this week. we also finished setting the anchor bolts as well as finishing the plumbing. we got the anchor bolt holes finished on monday and finished the plumbing on tuesday. we filled the plumbing trenches up to where the pipes come into the slab, from there we filled them half way to lay our water pipes in the same trench.

it was pretty exciting seeing the beams go up and it was quite a spectacle with the boom truck and johnny up on the scaffolding welding. we also filled in the french drains, so hopefully our drainage work is done.

this week we hope to rent the trencher on monday to dig the electrical and waterline trenches. we went to buy conduit last friday and should be ready to lay the pipe tuesday and we would like to grout under the columns and finish welding the beams in place. once that is done we can cover the trenches and start putting up form-boards for the slab.

here is another slide show of the week.

d.wicke
October 4, 2007 at 5:33 pm

well we put the bressemer beams in place yesterday! it is nice to have them up and off the ground. putting them up was a little daunting because we knew we needed to have someone lift them in place for us with a boom truck, which we had no idea where to find someone that had one. just having to work in the air is significantly slower than on the ground and i don’t think we were looking forward to that. luckily johnny parker came out and helped us weld the beams to the columns. it took almost all day and thanks to joe and his crew from akron who supplied the truck we were able to get them in place and secured.

all that is left is to put structural welds on all the columns and prep the beams for the recievers to be welded on. we hope if all goes well that we can have them on by the middle of november.

here are a few photos of the raising, there will be more to follow in the next post.

d.wicke
October 1, 2007 at 11:47 am

we want to thank everyone who has made a contribution to our project, without your support this would not be possible. thank you to all who have donated fiscally and those who have donated their time and services.

we would like to especially take a moment to thank all those who have contributed materials. A special thanks to Jim Turnipseed and Turnipseed International for your gracious support, and to Jimmy Cox with Carolina Mill Work and Truss for the donation of all of our roof trusses. Lastly we would like to thank Jimmy Rane and Great Southern Wood Perserving for all the wood to construct our lamella roof.

without the support of all the people listed on our donations page we would not be in a position to make this project a success. thank you to everyone for their continuing support of The Boys & Girls Club of Akron and The Rural Studio.

d.wicke
October 1, 2007 at 11:00 am

last week was an action packed week. we erected the columns!!! the county came and dug our field lines as well as grading the front drive where they uncovered a man hole we didn’t even know existed; we got an excavator tuesday and dug the remaining trenches for the plumbing, and we nearly drilled all the holes for the anchor bolts as well as the holes for the connection of the column footing and the slab. we have nearly finished the plumbing and have a little more work until we can water test it and then cover it for good. things went pretty smoothly and i think that we should have everything in good shape to pour our slab within 2 weeks.

this week we hope to focus on getting the drawings for our gutter out to the fabricators so that it will be ready when we need it. we are going to set the rest of the anchor bolts this week as well as finish the plumbing. hopefully we can find a boom truck this week and set the bressemer beams in place next week. it would also be nice to finish the plumbing and cover both them and the french drains by the end of the week.

here is a slideshow so you can see some of the work done last week. enjoy.

d.wicke
October 1, 2007 at 8:27 am

hello all. we now have the capability of loading video onto our site! we hope this can be a new way to illustrate some of the building process and help everyone get a better understanding of what is going on in Akron.

In order to view our new videos you will need apple’s quicktime plugin. this works for both mac and pc and can be found at the address below. thanks again and hope you enjoy this new addition.

Quicktime link:    www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

d.wicke
October 1, 2007 at 8:17 am

Well now that we have enough construction photos we thought we would start posting them so everyone could see our progress.

Just click on the project tab just above at the top of the page under the image and then follow the link that says construction. each month that we have been on site is documented and if you click on the image it will open a slide show. hope this makes things a little easier and enjoy the photos.

d.wicke
September 26, 2007 at 10:50 am

with the help of johnny parker and the bobcat we have erected our columns!!! it was relatively painless and took only 2 hours. once we put them up we leveled the bolts and tightened them all down. hopefully we will be ready to raise the bressemer beams next week, unfortunately the bobcat doesn’t reach high enough for the bressemer and we think that a boom truck will be needed. so we are on the lookout for one; hopefully we can find one and hope to have the beams up in 2 weeks.

the columns are huge and it is pretty impressive to see how tall the building is actually going to be. it is also nice to finally see something vertical and not covered with dirt. hopefully once we get the bressemer beams in place we can start welding the receivers to the beam and then paint the whole thing.

d.wicke
September 24, 2007 at 10:23 am

last week was a pretty informative week. we made a decision on the pavement as well as figuring out our plumbing scheme and marking all of the anchor bolt holes for both the columns and the receivers. adam and whitney got back on tuesday, we took a hard look at the cost of asphalt relative to the importance it has to our project. just to be sure, we ran the numbers on what it would cost to pour the court in concrete, we were surprised to find that it was only 1/2 the cost of asphalt. this is due to the fact that we get a deal on concrete and have free labor. so the choice was pretty easy, we decided to go with concrete. this allowed us to contact the county for the grading, since we went with concrete we only needed the front drive graded, we will be able to make up the rest of the height with the concrete.

since the county will be coming today to grade the front we are going to have them dig field lines for the french drains. we talked with tim wanger and he suggested that we extend our lines and try to bring them to the surface to avoid any back-up from heavy rains. i am headed to tuscaloosa today to pick up the pipe for our plumbing. mark from the lions park phase III team helped me considerably on the layout for the plumbing and i am going to get it approved by the plumbing experts at northwest supply. hopefully once we have the pvc we should be able to finish the plumbing by the end of the week.

lastly, now that all the holes are marked for the anchor bolts we can start drilling them. we will probably start on friday of this week and will hopefully finish them by monday. once drilled you have to blow the dust out and then set the bolts with anchor epoxy.