In addition to displaying the air handling unit “in flight,” you can see that construction of the entrance is moving along quite smoothly.

Here the unit is swung over and ready to be lowered into permanent location.

You can safely assume that the last few feet went as well as the rest of the move.

- Rob

These two photos show the new entrances to the hospital and Emergency Department are beginning to take shape. The foreground doorway is for the hospital and the further entrance at the right will be for the Emergency Department. (The doors shown are temporary for construction.)

Finally, underneath these words one can see that the creation of the Emergency Department Registration desk is well underway:

…painting starts next week!
- Rob

As of today, you can see through walls! Below you are looking from the new café area toward the reception and waiting area for the ED:

Here we are looking back at the café serving area from the entry area:

All this demonstrates that folks are working feverishly on the interior fit up of the first phase.

Next blog, well, this super human vision will begin to fade away as the wallboard is installed…..

More to come!

- Rob

There are basically three types of construction. Which one is required for hospitals?

1. Combustible (i.e. wood framing)
2. Non combustible (i.e. steel framing)
3. Non combustible protected (i.e. steel framing with a fire resistant insulation sprayed on, or poured concrete)

The correct answer is (3): non combustible protected. This allows for the building to stand for a longer period of time even in the event of a really intense fire breaking out. Since we have chosen to go with steel framing, fire proofing is sprayed on to insulate the steel so that it will not soften and bend in case of a severe fire.

What was the front entrance/coffee shop (and is destined to be admitting and expanded ER space) is partitioned with framing to delineate the wall locations for new rooms. Steel and concrete are in place for the addition and “fireproofing” will be sprayed onto the steel. Here is the addition before application of the “fireproofing”

Below is a closer picture of the metal deck and steel framing with the fuzzy grey “fireproofing” stuff. (I put the term “fireproofing” in quotation marks as it is really a method to increase fire resistance. A large enough fire could take down anything.) At the time of this update about one-third of the area had been coated with this material.

By the way, the hospital is also fully outfitted with sprinklers, which is the best protection against an extensive fire. Thanks for keeping up with the project!

- Rob

Before you peek at the pictures, however, let me say this. Where before I could give you an idea about the work area with a single picture, we now need two to show the full scope.

The first shot is of the expanded interior area. This will house the café, lobby and waiting area for the Emergency Department. To the immediate right you will also see part of the new canopy:

The picture below shows the framework and roof decking for the new canopy. The big improvement here is the new covering protects not only the walkway to our entrances, but also shelters vehicles as they drive up.

Next week we will go back inside to show the framing which will subdivide the spaces.

- Rob

Well, the steel came on Monday 2/18 and by Tuesday things are looking good!

Iron workers at work.

The crane setting steel

A birds eye view of the new framing

Things will start to move now! We’ll keep you posted as more progress occurs.

Hence we are at a near standstill for another two weeks until the steel arrives on-site. The foundations and compacting for the slab floor of the new lobby are awaiting steel for the building structure. As the following photo shows:

Patience may reward us in the end. HP Cummings (our Construction Manager) will work as hard as they can to make up for this lag time.

Stay tuned to see if we can beat the clock and bring this phase online by the beginning of July.

- Rob

The addition does not have a basement, but needs to have footing walls installed to support the structure itself. These walls are complete as shown in the following photo. Those of you who have been following this blog since we broke ground will note that the soil in the area has mostly been graded and all the trenches shown in previous photos are filled in.

The next course of action outside is to erect the steel superstructure. I am afraid there won’t be much to show over the next couple of weeks, as delivery of the steel has been delayed. But once it arrives it will quickly be assembled and the full shape of the addition will become apparent.

Until then!
- Rob

On the outside, forms are being removed from concrete footings that have been poured. Next week more footings will be poured. Honest!

Neither rain nor snow will prevent our progress! (Gloom of night does not particularly bother us either, but so far we have not needed to do anything after the sun sets.)

- Rob

Forms for the outside “footings,” as they are called, are being poured. Covered in black plastic to allow for proper curing, a section of freshly poured concrete footings are shown below. These footings make up the perimeter of the addition.

HP Cummings is on schedule and the weather is cooperating. But sometimes you find the unexpected. Coming out from the Dunham Wing, we uncovered some electrical and telephone/data cables that are not where they were supposed to be! (See the grey plastic pipes in the picture below)

Although visibly damaged, we are lucky that the lines themselves were not severed. This does pose a minor inconvenience to the project, but as the utilities did not disconnect this did not become a major crisis.

The circuitry housed in these pipes feed power and data to the Dunham Building, just across the road from the Main Entrance. So they’ll need to be relocated, which has been scheduled to take place this coming Saturday to minimize the impact on the staff and services located in the Dunham Building.

- Rob