Week 43, Part 2- Electrical & Roof wrap-up

Here is a preview of things to come- Electrical! In the final few weeks Electrical, and Landscaping to a lesser extent, is about all there is to discuss!

There was a slight delay in Duct Bank action until the vaults came in for Challenger Electric. Now we have all the vaults they need to route Power, Control and Signal wires.

These two outside of the east wall of the Mechanical Building are known as PV-A and SV-A (Power Vault, which also runs Control wire, and Signal Vault.) The power, control and signal wires, for anything outside the Mechanical Building, go through these vaults. The Motor Control Center will be on the other side of the wall to the right of the picture- inside the Blower Room. It will all become clear in the next few weeks!




Within a day or two the conduit was extended from the Duct Bank and attached to a plywood form in the vault opening-





The eastern end of the Duct Bank is past the Operations Building and heads to vaults PV-C & SV-C-



Todd takes a moment to review (admire?) the work up to this point-



As the week progressed Challenger dug trenches in all directions north of the Mechanical Building. In this area they needed to set vault PV-B and two light poles as well as connect conduit to the Transformer and Generator pads-



The roofers were also busy trying to wrap up Mechanical. Raw materials were staged north of the Sludge Basin for a few days-



The nearly-completed roof on one of the nice days-

Week 43, Part 1- UV units & Belt Filter Press room

Heads up to those following this Blog- you're about to get several e-mails in a short span! I've had some blog posts waiting for final review & publishing but the Electrical schedule and some Pre-Start-Up details have taken all my spare time for the last few weeks.

For time reference- Week 43 was the last full week in March so these events are just over a month old. We will catch up quickly!

The UV disinfection units were loaded in a couple weeks ago. Each unit has 10 racks of UV light tubes. Each rack of lights has it's own ballast. There are 3 UV units therefore 30 nice, stainless steel ballast units to be installed. Here a CNI employee has been patiently hooking these up at the west end of each UV unit-





Over at the Operations Building the "Bagging Area", an open work bay next to the Headworks room, needs a vented metal ceiling.



And here it is several hours later-



Meanwhile there is still work to do in the Lift Stations. This is a shot down into the Influent Lift Station. You can see the white hardhat of a CNI crew member-



In the Belt Filter Press room, things are happenin'. John Gabbard is helping get the main piece of machinery put into place- the Belt Press itself-



Against the east wall of the room we see the Sludge Pump. This will draw sludge all the way from the Treatment Basin, a few hundred feet away-



And now the Belt Press is in it's final position-



On the west wall is a 5 hp air compressor-



And within a day or two All Wall finished installing the Metal Liner Panel in this room-

Week 42, Part 2- Painting, roof & piping

Back at Mechanical, most of the interior paint work is done so it's time to hit the doors-







Here is the Belt Filter Press room after the high-performance interior painting is finished. In this room and the UV room (next picture), the walls currently covered with foil-lined insulation panels will have metal liner panels installed soon-



And the UV room after the epoxy paint has been applied-



The roofers are wrapping up details on ridge caps and soffits-



Here are "during" and "after" shots of the Blower units being bolted up-





And finally a site view taken early in the week before the chem tanks were in place-

Week 42, Part 1- Containment Pad & Electrical

Last week we poured the slab for the Secondary Containment Pad. We call it the "Chem Pad" for short since the Chemical Storage tanks will sit on this concrete pad with a short containment wall. Liquid ferric sulfate is needed for phosphorous removal in our system. It will be stored in two large tanks. On the same pad, inside the wall, our chemical feed pump & controller will sit in a hot box. But we'll be looking at that in a couple weeks.

Here is the fresh slab and the forms for the short containment wall being built-





Most of the early blog entries were about big segments of work- building the Treatment and Phosphorous Removal structures, the Operations building and finally the Mechanical building. Now, we're mainly down to details. But I will try to guide the blog through the details at a steady pace while still trying to find interesting pictures or observations on the work at hand.

We're going to see a lot of the Challenger Electric crew, or their work, in the final two months of the job. Here is a view I've shown before- one of the main duct banks going from the MCC in Mechanical up to the Operations building. This carries power, control and signal to the systems installed up there-



This week Challenger began setting all the sonotubes for light bases around the main site. Here Todd has placed the sonotube over the conduit stub-ups and is making sure it will sit straight after the concrete is poured in-



Another soon-to-be light base near the Chem tanks. Oh, wait- we didn't see how the Chem tanks got there!-



So, here's the first Chemical Storage Tank being hoisted into place-



You can see there is room for two on the pad-



And at the left edge of this wide view of the Phosphorous Removal structure & roof, you can see the 2nd chemical tank being lifted into place-



More details in the next entry...

Week 41, Part 2

As a part of the exterior finish on both Operations and Mechanical a product called Hardie Plank is being installed under the gables of both buildings-




In case you thought the bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle, well, they’re actually in Plummer, ID! (This picture has not been tested for Photoshop steroids yet…) Here’s a progress view of Mechanical from the southeast corner, still plenty of roof to install-



In the Office room of the Operations building some critical control panels have been installed-



And finally we pour the Chemical Storage containment pad- (they didn’t have any blue skies available this day)







The Belt/Filter Press room is done with the primer coat-



This is the UV room with a still-wet primer coat-



The Hardie Plank installation continues on Mechanical's south wall-



Electrical had to take a hard right turn at the PREM structure to route power for lights and a pump-



And finally in UV the trim is being primed before installation. That's all this week and we are almost up to date!

Week 41, Part 1

So this time we’ll take a concrete pad, a very small one, from beginning to end. Here Owens has carved out the dirt & gravel of our existing ground level, down to where structural gravel should be placed below a concrete pad for a large generator. This will be the emergency generator to run the plant during a power outage-



Using a laser and grade rod they set the gravel to the proper depth-



After it was rolled and tested for compaction, CNI laid out the corners with surveying equipment and built the forms. You can see the Mechanical building in the background. This generator will sit about 60’ north The electricians came in and stubbed-up their conduits which will receive the power lines from the generator. (This is not the finished form & rebar but gives you the general idea) -



Then we ordered 6 yards of concrete and a blue sky with white puffy clouds-



And, viola!- a generator pad, more complicated than you might think for a plain looking rectangle of concrete-



This week in the Mechanical building the taping crew wrapped up work. Here is the final phase in UV, sanding-



And they were sanding in the Belt Filter Press room as well-



The duct bank from Operations to Mechanical has extended over the past couple weeks. Here’s two ways of looking at it. The first looking mostly northeast towards Operations-



And here we’re looking west by southwest towards Mechanical-



More progress has been made lately on AeroMod control details. Much of the system is run on pneumatics so CNI pulled pneumatic lines out to the valves on the walls of the Treatment structure. AeroMod reps will finish the installation later-



This is the south wall of the Treatment structure. On top you see the end of one section of catwalk and a mud valve handle to the left of the railing. Down in the wall are the twin sludge draw-off pipes-



A close up of the sludge draw-off pipes. These will be tied into the “sludge line” and run underground over to the Belt/Filter Press room of the Mechanical building. This line enters through a pre-staged penetration in the foundation of that room. Below the floor there is a 90 degree bend and a pipe coming up through the floor waiting to tie into the Belt/Filter Press which is not installed yet. (Why? Because the taping crew is sanding there this week. There will be a quiz later- I assume you’re taking notes?!)-