February 14, 2015

It's Valentine's Day and Monday is Presidents Day! Right now, the weather is miserable - rainy and windy - so surely, the construction crew would not have worked today.  Hopefully, the weather will improve over this 3-day weekend.

In my last blog, I mentioned that the rain was a concern for me after the workers poured the library media/student center footings last week.  Bob Purdie from the DOE Facilities Branch emailed me that the water is not a bad thing.  He stated, "As long as the rain is not driving, and thus washing away the surface cement, an excess of moisture is a big boon to the curing process.  What you don't need is the silt and other floated debris, but that is easily washed or blown away from the surface later." Thank you, Bob, for clarifying my misconception!  His email was actually very informative.  He added, "In fact, concrete, properly batched, will continue to cure over its whole thousands of years of life and if temperature cracks occur, the presence of excess water without tensile stress will allow "autogenous" healing or sealing of the crack by re-activating the latent cements present." I am learning so much by watching and asking questions.  Thanks, Bob!

Once workers pour the last of the pad for the library media/student center (I think it'll be this coming week), worker will start on the building's exterior.  This is a 2-story building as well and will house a state-of-the-art library, a media center and technology lab, and lots of room for our counselors, instructional coaches, speech language pathologists, our Student Services Coordinator, the Tripler School Mental Health Team. There will be several meeting and testing rooms; we've been scrambling to find available space for meetings so this will be a welcome addition to our school.

I didn't take too many photos this week, but here are a few:

Pouring the footings for the Student Center part of the new building.

After the concrete hardened, workers took off the footing frames.  Next, we have a concrete pour for the SOG padding.

I will always wonder how they get the heavy cement up the long neck.  How does it work on much taller buildings?

Smoothing out the concrete on the pad for the front of the library media part of the building

Meanwhile, work continues on the special education classroom next to J-building.