Commanality in Construction Sites

During visits to two different construction sites on the Virginia Tech Campus, we listed items and tasks that were similar and items or tasks that were different at the two construction sites. However, after examining the tasks or items we noticed that if one zooms out on the task; the items that were different were actually happening on both sites, just in a different manner or fashion. For example, the phrase you say tomato i say to-ma-to (in a different accent), can be applied here, the end is still a red thing that is juicy inside no matter how you say it. However a company may run their site the end result is a completed project. There is more than one way to get to the top of the mountain.... Or finish the job.

Industry Day

At the recent Virginia Tech Industry Day for Building Construction was exciting. The Pathway in front of Squires Student Center was full of equipment like road graders, cranes, and simulators for other kinds of equipment. Michael Depp of the Virtexco Corporation and general contracting, along with Kiewit employees and American Infrastructure employees were on the best of their behavior showing students cool new things in the construction Industry. Items like GPS or Global Positioning Systems that control site preparation where computers control cuts and fills of dirt work were pretty exciting when the possibility of the amount of time saved were revealed to the students. The Industry day was a success, other Students at Virginia Tech were able to have a first hand experience of how the exciting possibilities of the construction industry is able to build the world today. The pictures below, respectively, are: A crane placing a demo wall assembly together, the wall assembly in mid-air, getting ready to pick the wall assembly up, A new Caterpilliar motor-grader, And my professor with the drivers of a concrete Truck that is in the background.

Sketches

The following sketches are of a mock up wall in front of Bishop Favro Hall (BFH), a stairwell in BFH, a drip pan and steel in BFH, and my room.

On a recent site visit to the new basketball practice facility that is being constructed i observed the following: The placement of lightning rod on the east side of the building -Masons laying Hokie Stone on the North side, or the front of the building, as well as capping off the top of the Hokie Stone -Electrical work on the West side of the building -Workers were also laying steam pipe on the South side of the building, as well as connecting the new steam pipe to the exsisting steam pipe line. The pictures (respectively): West side electrical work, South side steam pipe work and back of building, East side of building, Placing lightning rod, North side closer to the east wall, Steam pipe close to the exsisting pipe, West side, North side placing cap stone and laying Hokie stone.

Conceptual Estimating

Many know the book RS Means, a construction price estimating book, since the recent up rise of the internet the estimating book created a new tool online to estimate projects with. This new tool can be very quick and easy if you know what your doing on the internet site. During our recent project I used assembly estimating and unit estimating to price out our project. RS Means dot com was extremely quick if you have already taken quantities off because that is how pricing in both types of estimates work. Also, if there was something that your project included, but was not on the internet site you could move your to Microsoft Excel, and then play with prices. All of the columns stayed intact when transferred into excel; they were still formulated to calculate prices correctly.

Wall Assembly

This is a wall assembly of an updated old log cabin. All of the logs are now the same in size, making for an easy assembly. Walls provide structural support, insulation, as well as aesthetic pleasure. <>

I am here