Week 39, Part 1- Building Interior Progress, PREM pipes & pre-platform

Early this week some of the process piping and valves were flown in by forklift and installed-





The Laboratory in Operations has been painted, HVAC ductwork sits on the floor and the painted man-doors against the wall are waiting for installation-



The Maintenance-Storage room is in final prep for painting and a crew member installs door hardware-



Water service is being brought to the sight from several hundred feet away, down a gravel road which leads to the plant site-



Before showing more interior progress pics I want to catch up viewers that might be new to the blog-
the Operations building was constructed first, CMU ("cinder blocks") on top of a concrete slab foundation, then the Mechanical building was built in the same fashion. The trusses were "rolled" on next, plywood sheeting and tar paper followed. For the last few weeks the sequence to finish the interiors has been- steel stud framing or z-channels on CMU walls, insulation, electrical and HVAC rough-in, drywall, painting, then follow-up with electrical and HVAC. Basic idea, at least. Each of these steps are completed in one building, then the next, back and forth.

Here an electrician is working in Mechanical on rough-in-



The Blower room in Mechanical has the insulation in place. The electricians have already been in here, you can see the rough-in on the back wall and in the trusses overhead. (Click on the picture to see the full-size version, then hit your "back" browser button to return to the blog)-



Here in the UV room we have drywall on the ceiling but you can see the seams so the taping crew hasn't been here yet. The back wall with the foil-covered insulation will be covered with metal liner panels. This occurs in two rooms in Operations and two rooms in Mechanical-



After the piping and valves were installed, the framework for the walkway was installed right on top of the tanks in PREM-



And back in Operations the cabinets were installed in the Laboratory-

Update note to Blog Followers-

There was a delay recently in updates so I wanted to point out the Week 38 update simply brings us up to Feb 19th, three weeks ago! I am going to press ahead in the next several days to get us up to date by the end of next week. The interiors of the two main buildings- Operations and Mechanical- are quickly wrapping up. Only one room is waiting for process equipment to be installed.

The weather is slowly changing for the better, although we haven't experienced bitter cold on the jobsite since early December. We have just over 11 weeks remaining before "substantial completion", in fact, we'll begin the "Dry Start-up" process in about 7 weeks!

More updates by Monday...

Kent Henderson,
Inspector and Blogmeister

Week 38, Part 2-Concrete & Interiors

The Bagging Area outside of the Headworks Screening room still needed a concrete pad. So on a typical, partly foggy morning in Plummer-



Here's a boot's-eye view of working the mud from the chute-



This is the east end of the Operations building. A month or so from now we should be ready for a sidewalk around this building and the concrete aspect will be done-



Inside the Operations building, All Wall has been steadily at work as you can see from the last few weeks of blog entries. All Wall took care of the steel-stud framing, insulation, drywall and now the tape-mud-and-paint phase is wrapping up. This picture is the Maintenance-Storage room. Last week's entry featured a picture of the taper sanding down his mud work. This is the paint crew wrapping up a high-performance epoxy finish-



And here's a two-picture look at the prime coat and the final coats in the Laboratory-





The painters lined up the doors for their green finish coat in the Maintenance-Storage room-



And in the Headworks Screening room the epoxy-finished ceiling is looking quite nice-



And Challenger Electric keeps plugging away at the big duct bank- Todd takes a look at the progress so far-

Week 38, Part 1- Building details, electrical progress

This week saw further progress at both Operations and Mechanical. The metal roof at Operations continued-



Every Monday we have a Construction Progress Meeting. After these meetings Alan Gay the Project Engineer from USKH visits the site and various City of Plummer personnel also check on progress. Here, Mayor Tim checks out a valve at the Effluent Lift Station with Engineer Alan-



And Alan reviews initial progress of the main duct bank behind Operations-



The welder continues to install panels around the Sludge Basin at Mechanical-



The CNI crew is handling most of the equipment assembly and building trim details. Here two crew members are installing doors in the Mechanical building-



By mid-week Challenger Electric was extending the duct bank past the edge of the Treatment structure and towards the Mechanical building down grade to the west-



So many pipes, so little time!



And the UV equipment started to roll in-



Here CNI places the UV disinfection troughs onto the lower floor of the UV basin and positions them for permanent installation-

Week 37, Part 2-

Speaking of the shallow trench we saw Owens' crew digging in the last installment, here is Todd of Challenger Electric trying to figure out what goes where-



And this is why you need to be patient as an electrician! We don't want to flip on a light switch and have the Belt/Filter Press start up in the next building!-



A major duct back will run from the Operations building to the Mechanical building. The installation process begins between Operations and the Treatment structure-





In the UV Disinfection Room (Mechanical Building) the welder installed the handrails leading to the UV floor-





In the Maintenance/Storage room of Operations, All Wall began sanding the finished drywall prior to painting-



After the concrete cured, the wall surrounding the Sludge Basin was covered with a welded metal liner-



And the roof began taking shape on Operations-



Finally, the PREM roof supports were put in place and another week is in the books!



(This roof is actually flat, the bending is part of the panoramic view process! I will get a true, flat picture posted later...)

Week 37, Part 1- Sludge Basin, Phos Tanks & Owens crew

When we left last week, we were ready to pour a concrete slab at the "Sludge Basin". This is where a trailer or truck will park and receive the pressed sludge material through the wall on the left. The discharge pipe has not been installed through the wall yet-





The finished slab curing in the midday sun-



The 2nd set of tanks for the Phosphorous Removal building arrived-



This wide view gives a perspective of the tank size with the Mechanical Building on the left-



Each tank had to be shimmed and positioned accurately for future piping-



Paul and Greg from the City of Plummer look over the on-going work-



The Owens crew- Jason, Matt, Greg and Randy- continued to do the work no one will see after the project wraps up. Everything they do is in the dirt (and mud) and gets buried by dirt!-





Here the Owens crew digs a shallow trench for an electrical conduit duct bank. That installation will continue in Part 2 of Week 37-