the sauna follies - cob oven, sauna, and aspiring hot tub part 1

About three weeks in - chicken wire frame and UVa-Real Tree Camo Busch Beer boxes showing... (someone over there at Busch Beer is a genius) photo courtesy Trevor Cox

about a week later having been fired a few times, Busch boxes gone, now need to coat it in a more lasting concrete + sand mixture + do some decorations

About a month ago my backyard blazing habits caught the attention of the local po-po... with genuine courtesy they asked that large (ok, yeah, 20' plus) flames not be created in the city.

Fair enough... it had been a nice run...

About six months prior Prof. Bill Bennett at UVa loaned me a Bread Oven book and a DVD by Andre Rublev. Before reading these books I thought that cob was some hippie's idea of building with corn on the cob... well anyhow... it isn't, it's a many thousands year old technique, and it rocks.

To begin with I raided some old construction dumpsters and hauled some short rebar sticks. Welded up a frame and began wrapping it in chicken wire. Around the chicken wire old beer boxes covered the wire to keep the cob from falling in. The oven measures about 10' wide x 5' deep x 5' tall from the outside, and the inner cave is more like 8' wide x 4' deep x 4' tall...

With the help of Lee French - in town for the weekend, and $19.95 - 1,000 lbs of sand made its way from Allied Concrete to the back yard and the mixing began. Mixing with the clay, and leaves from the yard plus some water, the form of the oven began to emerge. It took about two weeks of slow building plus another 500 lbs of sand (thanks Tim Hazelwood) and then another 500 lbs (thanks Hunter Cridlin) to finish the roughed up structure.**

On average I mixed ~100 lbs of sand + ~100 lbs of clay + a 55 gallon trash can full of leaves at a time on a nice blue tarp. Each batch took ~30 minutes to fully mix and stack on the oven. The walls are on average 6-8" thick, although they get much thicker in some places. Towards the end glass bottles were inserted into the structure to keep the cob from falling off, and to add some extra funkiness.

Over the sessions a sense of mixing readiness emerged... use of straw in the final several batches seemed nice, although not necessarily an improvement over the leaves. More sand than clay might have been better too... all said and done the mixture stacked up fine.

As Mike Kippers at Gaston and Wyatt noted, it's best to burn these slow at first.... I've been lighting fires now for about a week, usually slow and small... meant to get the oven up to temperature and slow baking.... The oven has now received about 40 hours of flame, and it's beginning to harden on the outside.... the inside had a few cave ins where the leave hadn't mixed sufficiently - a few lost inches here and there, otherwise looking nice... last nights flames were still felt on the outside wall this morning... hopefully in another few weeks the whole thing'll bake solid.

**NB - for reasons the author in no way understands always buy 1,000 lbs from Allied at a time. It costs less. 500 lbs'll set you back $26.95, and 1,000 lbs is $19.95... Thanks to Andy at Allied for helping me with this...


next up... the sauna....

what's in a name

"Hudson is beyond a character. Hudson is an archetype of a caricature of a character." - Bob Z

On the site characters may exceed the generally accepted street level boundaries. Guys like Hot Chocolate, Hawk, Iceman, Rhino, Frosty and Teeter all exist. They may have other names and characters, however the important thing is that they have characters. The Soul Brothers don't show up every day as whatever they are at home - or maybe they do. It's of no concern. The important thing is that every day they show up as Soul Brothers.

A house favorite then is Frosty. A mascot of the industry. Apparently he has a real name too. It's only spoken in whispers.... Now in his 60's he rocks instant messaging with the brat age, and parties every night - hence the "Frosty" beer nickname - emblazoned on his name tag.

Like Andy. He hasn't had a day when the clock strikes seven before he's lit someone up. It's hard to beat a 6:55AM warm-up on cold wintry morning.

Duct banks - heating PVC for the bends

The Greenlee PVC heater #847 helps get the blues outta the bends and saves a lot of money in couplings and prefabricated PVC bends. Overheating, however is a real concern and may lead to egg-shaped pipe. For best results set the timer, and be prepared with an extra hand in the ditch. In cold weather all of this is more critical as it may require 20+ minutes to heat a a single piece of PVC.

Photo
In the photo at left a piece has been overheated and removed. It's tricky to get the temperatures perfect in 15-20 degree weather - this piece'll be used for smaller cuts.

Tech specs
In general the older fellas on the site say they are comfortable getting ~22-45 degree bends in the pipe, and favor using couplings for anything over 10-15 degrees. Some of the younger and more ambitious guys swear they'll get several bends up to 90 degrees and beyond... am waiting to see it.

Tips
Probably the best thing to remember is that you need to heat the pipe only where you want to bend it. Most of the PVC heaters are ~4-6 feet in length and your pipe may be 8-10 feet long. Center the pipe where you know you need a bend and it'll save you time in the ditch.

Video - a nice 20-30 degree bend sent home (Rodney top, Ryan + Harley ditch)
Credits
Faulconer construction credits: Andy Fitzgerald = Superintendent - Greg and Dan Baily = foremen - Rodney on the top with the heater - Harley St Clair and Ryan in the pit

Clearing the air

Complaining much over air quality in Charlottesville may at times seem silly. Given that UVa is still notoriously producing much of its electricity from heinously polluting coal towers in the middle of town... such that it has been passed down by word of mouth that EVERYONE in the city - man, woman, child, critter - smokes the equivalent of 5 cigarettes PER DAY. So on the one hand - Thank you UVa for requiring Faulconer to have these great air scrubbers on their machines. Really. Thanks - we who are living around them all day genuinely thank you. Hint hint, nudge nudge - what about 'dem coal towers (fwiw the nuke lab on O-Hill is mighty rad :)

So anyhow... Hawkins and Graves showed up Wednesday to install diesel exhaust air scrubbers on the heavy machinery - including the IT38 Front-End Loader, the Hitachi Zaxis 350's and 450's, the CAT excavator, and a few others - eight in all... All the machines were installed rapidly and back in service sometimes within half an hour. Thank you Scott and Mike for your help - the scrubbers allegedly cut emissions down by 70% without dramatically reducing horse power. At a cost of $32,000+ total we certainly hope they do some work.



Often times less expensive techniques are sufficient to really help construction worker's lives. When cutting concrete a simple dust mask helps tremendously. You never now what additives may be in the concrete - cover your mouth and cut on through...

Originally purchased to better enjoy metal casting and the lost styrofoam technique - this nuclear, biological, chemical mask really made sewer manholes more tolerable. Granted my boss Andy Fitzgerald regards them as sissy and warns he's going to "flush me" if I have cardiac arrest while wearing one... whatever - time in a manhole may be necessary at times - it is hardly pleasurable - certainly a great task for robots...


One thing to consider too... there's often splashing in live lines and covering them mucous membranes is a fine thing.

Nothing brings folks together like running electricity

Nothing brings folks together like running water, electric, and HVAC lines in, plus raw sewage out.



Today's episode involves duct banks. Housed in PVC and encased in rebar reinforced concrete - underground duct banks make nice homes for 16000 Volt plus cables. The big fat kind that may arc flash and blow you to little bittie pieces. The kind that leave people looking for burnt embers to remember you by. So the specs on electrical duct banks are pretty tight... For more info on the safety for electricians go to OSHA's site



Anyhow, that's not really our deal - we prepare the lines. The prep work for duct banks may be done in the ditch or occasionally outside - really depends on the stretch being laid.

Helpful tools:
1) Tie wire and pliers - connect any overlapping seams, tie the pipe to the plastic seats, tie the rebar to the rebar and to the plastic seats... basically if it seems like it might wiggle free tie it down with plenty of tie wire.

2) Pipe primer and glue - here is a great video on glueing and priming PVC pipe

3) Sledge hammer and 2x4" beater block - especially with the larger lines 12"+ These lines may take a beating to get into place. Don't hit the plastic directly - it may snap - rail the back of a 2x4.

Setting 12" Megalug Style Chilled Water Lines at UVa South Lawn

Chilled Water Lines and the Megalug system
Water serves as a great way to move thermal energies. Many large and intensive heating and cooling systems are heated and cooled more efficiently with heat exchangers built with water lines than with traditional AC cooling.

The megalug system is designed to join ductile iron pipes from 3 inches to 4 feet in diameter. Placed around the UVa underground they serve with steam tunnel pipes, water lines, and chilled water systems.

Technical Notes
Capable of handling lines with up to 350 psi the megalug system is very popular. At UVa the lines are usually carrying a load of 60 psi and are tested for 2 hours at 200 psi*. These lines were given bedding in several inches of stone dust. All bolts are tightened to 90 lbs.

Insulation
Depending on the depth of the line the lines may require insulation of some sort - I believe this is the stinky glass insulation stuff we use - watch out! it's got glass shards in it and has cut many hands, beware of it in your eyes as well.

Tools needed
Every megalug kit contains a megalug, the nuts 'n bolts, and a gasket. Armed with an 1-1/4" wrench, a chipping hammer (for banging in gasket), and a torque wrench (set to 90 lbs) you're good to go. An air wrench may be helpful on larger pipes - deep-welled 6 sided sockets work the best. In case for some reason you need to back up a broken megalug use the 5/8" socket.

Here's a video of Johnny aka "Blaze", Travis aka "T-Bone", installing a 12" line for the South Lawn project - "Happy Dawg" is the bank man, Norris operating, Rick Lane foreman.



*When it comes to testing water lines
***Many lines are going to have small pockets of air in them - it's often impossible to avoid this. Over time air may leak out, or with enough flow of water it may eventually lessen it's impact...
***Remember to consider the temperature outside when you start and finish - 4 degrees Celsius water's most dense temperature.
***Seal's often require some time to harden into place - pressurize lines over night and expect the gaskets to be in better positions - a few drops of water in a line may lower psi markedly.

Z-forms, flow throughs, and other tools of the trade

(btw that little yellow thing is our multi gas monitor "sniffer" making certain no toxic waste is in the air...)

Twice our z-form shields collapsed. We had a ten foot unshielded dig under a steam tunnel, and a typically dry sewer line decided to rage during our replacement of the existing pipe creating a three foot deep soup of caca straight from the chemistry building. S*&! happens. When you're tying in to an existing sewer line, however, it may happen in the form of a river. And when it happens behind the UVa Chem building, you just hope that the undergrads remember to put their hazardous waste in the proper disposal bin... So fierce the raging river that our three inch pump made not a dent, and a four inch diesel line was required... All in a days work. We gotter' done and got outta there before four PM.

Well at least the 4" Godwin pump (see bottom right) is working and the sewage swamp is low enough to walk around safely.

Setting the pipe - Dan you are the man for getting under that steam tunnel - yes we use chemical detectors aka sniffers... yet it stinks, especially the pipe glues for PVC.

Whattup Harley - we got real flow :)

Steam Tunnels Part 2 -

OLD MAP OF THE TUNNELS - ALLEGEDLY FROM THE EARLY 90'S


The Bold and the Ruthless gets a new site - nice graphics tweaks too plus a great map of the tunnels... These folks are clearly having fun with the local scene - on a side note the edible Charlottesville deserves some credit - and during the recent summer at the South Lawn Project many a construction worker enjoyed the figs, apples, and plums in Pav IX, the pears in Pav 1, and generally napping around in the rest.... something about those serpentine walls... Perhaps when (if) they finish exploiting UVa grounds they'll explore the outlying lairs of C-ville too... Woolen Mills is awesome. The lochs along the river. And then there are the rolling hills..... Ah well fun stuff....

NB potential night hikers - the new steam tunnels we're laying are SERIOUSLY not great places to explore. There's no space plus two flavors of nasty bodasty insulation around the lines and the tar laid down to seal the boxes is still emitting toxic fumes.

DON'T DO IT (I know, thrill of the hunt and all, but really, there are much more beautiful places... this is just a dark, smelly, toxic hole.)

For more information read here Channel 19 News from last year.

Tunneling under UVa's famed steam tunnels

The UVa Steam Tunnels have a long and glorious past dating to the 1950's. Since then many students have spent hours and days wandering the underground maze. Working beneath them poses certain obstacles- hand digging is required and shoring must be installed as work progresses. OSHA guidelines for excavation are available, and must be tailored to apply logically to the situation.

1)The top view of a 50 foot long ditch. Visible as raised areas from the yellow ladder looking down the ditch are a steam tunnel, an electric line, another steam tunnel, a water main barely visible, and then another steam tunnel. That is a 24' ladder and it rests on the bank above a sewer line we need replace and move a few inches down and to the left. Digging under the steam tunnels must be done by hand. That's what makes it what it is.


The outside of the tunnel




A view from half way under a steam tunnel, about two hours in to digging ~11AM. By ~3PM we were through to the other side.

The next day with the laser set and Mike digging to make the grade ready for more pipe.

Stadium Road starting... today

We've been waiting for this for months. The last two weeks being the most brutal, waiting around for some real work to begin after ebbing times at MR6. This morning we met with the WM Jordan safety meeting. We're doing the site work for UVa's new ITE building beside the stadium. Five crews, sixty days, sunup to sundown six and seven days a week. 20-30' trenches and a few thousand feet of pipe - this is gonna be fun.

olks to get code straight and then began our inspection of the site.

A bitta bologna on the sandwich

Follies are often known for their central piece - whimsical centers with fun and perhaps some, albeit little, function. At the center of the sandwich aka courtyard rests a comfortable 6 inch slice of pink insulation. These fine fellas rode in from the coast to install it across a ~80x~200 foot section. Beneath this is a ~1' steel reinforced concrete footer atop approx 6 inches of gravel. Which I've heard rumor lays atop another 10' or so above two stories of vivarium stuff (houses for research critters). This sandwich requires structural steel (think toast) because of the plans to create another medical building atop the structure in a few years. Above the bologna is a layer of something we'll come up with a name for later...