Hutchinson First Church of the Nazarene Construction Update

All 80 pilings are in the ground! And looking at the leveled site, you could hardly tell that they just spent three days digging 80 holes. The front parking spots now have limestone spread, and are awaiting the asphalt.

Drilling continued, and Rick's Dozer returned and started working on the new parking spots on the opposite side of the church (by 43rd and Monroe). They are adding 30 new (badly needed!) parking spots. 32 more holes were drilled - 25 more to go!


Today's Picture Gallery (78 pictures)

The world didn't end today (thank goodness) despite speculation about today's date, and the drilling of the 80 auger cast pilings started! Here's the process: Hutton Construction marked each of the 80 locations of the pilings and then a 6 inch piece of rebar is hammered into the ground to mark the spot. The crane then moves the drill over each spot and drills a hole to the depth that Terracon has determined is needed to support the building at that location (from 35-60 feet deep). After the drill gets to the desired depth, it is lowly raised up out of the hole. As the drill is moving up, concrete is pumped through the center of the drill into the hole, filling it completely. Then a 20' piece of 1.5 inch rebar is lowered into the cement, along with a rebar form. They are tied off with wire to a 2x4 above the hole, to keep them suspended at the top of the cement until it hardens. They completed 23 holes today - only 57 more!

Many more trucks came in today (I don't know how many because the web cam took a two hour break in the afternoon), and all kinds of equipment started spreading, compacting, and leveling the LVCS. Their goal is to have the entire worksite within one inch of completely level so that the auger cast pilings can be drilled tomorrow (and for the huge crane and other equipment to completely mess up the perfectly level ground). By 5:30PM, they had met their goal.