Ken's Blogpost

Update as of October 20 ^th:  The past 2 weeks have been very busy at the construction site. Previously, S & S Excavating Company prepared the site by removing excess dirt and defective building base. A soft spot was encountered and removed, filled and packed back in with clay borrowed from Frank Riehle’s pasture. We are very thankful to Frank, as this replacement dirt would have been very costly to haul in. Also, Frank is allowing us to store excess dirt in his pasture after we ran out of room on the east end of the hall. Last week, Bruns & Gutzwiller Co. started to dig out the footers and pour concrete. It is a four step process: #1- dig out dirt and pour concrete to support the piers that support the steel vertical beams, #2- pour the concrete that make the piers, #3- pour the concrete between the piers called grade beams, #4- pour the concrete that will support the center hallway which will be laid up with concrete blocks. This particular hallway will be the tornado shelter in the school on the first floor and will support the steelwork for the 2 ^nd story floor. Gravel is filled around the footers up against the 2 inches of styrofoam on the inside. Dirt fills the hole on the outside of the footers. Steel rebar is placed strategically throughout all the footers and piers. The piers have large bolts placed into the wet concrete to attach the vertical steel columns. All the footers were completed on Friday, October 19th. The 12-foot concrete wall forms on the north end of the building were started this week and will continue next week. Also, next week a crew will start laying the cement blocks that were delivered on-site today. We got a lot of work accomplished considering the heat last week and a rain-out day on Monday of this week.