To see pictures of the weekly progress click this link - Friday Fotos - be aware though that, dependent on your download speed, this page could take some time due to the number of pictures.
September 11th - What !!! Has nothing happened for 11 days??
That's what I can hear you saying and indeed at church yesterday morning one or two did actually say it. Well on the building front September 2nd saw high winds blow over one of the blockwork walls but little other damage. The bricklayers have pressed on and a walk round is quite different now, more on that later.
So why the lack of postings? Well, one of my other little projects came to fruition last week when my wife gave birth to a little girl, Ellie, a sister for my four year old twins. It all kicked off on Monday evening when I was putting the finishing touches to my PM's report to the Church Council. I was running up and down the stairs from the office timing contractions one minute and hurriedly typing the next. Eventually my wife insisted I had to make a choice - one of the most difficult decisions yet in the project! I plumped for timing contractions. The next afternoon after a long and at times difficult labour Ellie arrived. The PM's report was eventually finished two days after the meeting but on this occasion Steve has forgiven me and I think I still have the job. (I am sure that there is a joke in there somewhere concerning contractions and contractors but I can't quite get there!)
Back to the building..... with the twins out at their first day of school and the mother in law looking after things back home, it was off down to the site. Excellent progress I can say, all the first level scaffolding up, worship hall blockwork complete to high level and all internal walls up to 2m high. A walk round each room was like popping in and out of the Tardis; one room felt very big, the next smaller than before and so on. (By now you will have guessed that the Friday Fotos for the 8th were taken today, oops sorry!).
September will hopefully see the roof start to take shape and the race is on to get the building watertight before autumn sets in.
September 15th - As it is my birthday today I promised Dave I would pop in with cream cakes; however when I got to the site it was apparent that the word had got out as there were three more sat in the site office. So it was the usual chocolate hobnobs after all! The contractors have reworked the programme and believe that they can pull back some of the delay. That was the good news of the day, the bad news was that the cost of replacing the sewer pipe under the car park is horrendous. More work and sharper pencils ahead before we decide on the final solution.
The latest view of the site shows a forest of scaffold poles as work continues on the walls. The main Worship Room blockwork is complete in the background and the meeting room walls are starting to increase in height again.
September 22nd - The brickwork is coming to an end at last and today has seen all the roof trusses delivered. There is hardly a spare yard of space left and Dave has been busy all afternoon stacking them up - I even made HIM a cup of tea he was so busy!
An all action day has also seen scaffolding erected in the main worship area to provide access to the roof steels. A lot of huffing and puffing from the scaffolders as their direct access was blocked by...scaffolding !! Their only route in was up the ladder, across the scaffolding and back down into the hall. A lot of work when you count the number of poles.
I popped into the Nursery in the afternoon to demonstrate to Vanessa how the fire alarm panel worked. It all seemed so easy I decided to test one of the call points as well. "Oh look Vanessa", I said,"it doesn't have a break glass, you just push the button". No sooner said than done and crack!, the piece of glass cunningly disguised as a sheet of white plastic broke in half and off went the alarm!! Of course we have no spares and I had a crash course in dismantling and resetting a call point. Next time I think I'll stick to the panel..... or accountancy.
September 29th - The month draws to an end with some real progress apparent. At last the brickwork is almost complete and this week the roof trusses were erected.
This picture is taken looking down the central concourse towards the entrance. The scaffolding is now up through the area and the little black cupboards you can see along the left wall are actually the tops of doorways.
Looking into the building from outside the entrance the overall size can now be seen. From the road and the footpath it looks quite a low building now that the roof is going on. There have certainly been some strange optical effects as the building has gone up - or perhaps its just stress!!
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