Yes! The Glazier’s strike is over!!!

I know it has been a while since I provided my last Lecture Hall construction digest. I’ve been pretty darn busy, plus I took off work last Friday to make it an ambitious long weekend for me in spending quality time with my beloved motorcycle. I put in almost 1,400 miles of fun. It was all worthwhile and now my mind is clearer and I’m ready for more challenges at work.

One challenge we won’t have to worry about anymore is the Glazier’s Union settled their strike and are now back to work. Now our contractor will be able to look at the schedule and revise it to reflect progress resuming with the window installation. Once I have that update I’ll share it with you all.

One milestone for this project this week involves not part of the building but part of them team working on the building. Absher’s Construction Superintendent, Dwayne Hiam (aka: Dewey) is retiring today (Thursday) after 36-years in construction. All 36-years of his career have been with working for Absher. The fact that he has worked for this one employer for his entire career is amazing to me when I think of all the different places I’ve worked in my lifetime. A lot of the jobs I’ve held wouldn’t necessarily be in the career category, such as dishwasher, warehouse grunt, newspaper delivery, shoe salesperson, as well as pizza delivery. Others were just summer jobs in between academic studies, yet helpful to my eventual career, these were in the field of swimming pool construction and steel shop drawings. After college my real career began and I just now realize that Evergreen is my eighth post-graduation employer.  To be able to produce a resume and have only one employer on it is certainly remarkable.

Anyway, congratulations to Dewey for 36-years of successfully being a part of the built environment! It has been a great experience to have worked with you on this challenging Lecture Hall project. Enjoy this new turn in life and may it be free of snakes and full of grandchildren!

Dewey in action. He’s the one in the hard hat and the goatee. The white hard hat and white goatee that is.

Today is the last mud pour as they construct an area under the new sign to the lecture hall. Next week we will see more windows go in and more metal siding panels being installed. The “Purce Hall” sign near the new entry will be painted. We will also see some landscaping work beginning and shortly after top soil will be imported for placement.

That is it for now.

Cheers,

Tim

Timothy Byrne

Project Manager

Facilities Services

The Evergreen State College

360-867-6093

I don’t know about you, but when saw the news headlines this AM I was really disgusted. What is this world coming to!? Racism has been part of our country for far too long, but it cannot be solved with violence. Whether you are black, white, or any shade of brown, man, woman, trans, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Atheist, conservative, liberal, straight, bi, gay, queer, or neither, we all live in this world together. I personally think contrast is a good thing, it is one thing that makes life interesting and it draws one to emerge forward in life.

I subscribe to the Seattle Times and I think the timing of one of their projects is timely with current events. If you are not aware of it they are taking on racism. How do you do so? You talk about it. It will make some people uncomfortable, some people will get mad, some people will be enlightened, but it needs to be discussed by people of all the various races if we are going to understand one another. This project consists of videos of local people talking about racism, prejudice, white privilege, empathy, ignorance, etc… You don’t have a choice in the color of your skin, and no sunburn does not count in this discussion, but we are all humans that deserve the respect of each other. Join the conversation, read the viewpoints, be enlightened: http://projects.seattletimes.com/2016/under-our-skin/# but please do so on your own time. It is suppose to be a rainy weekend, so why not hang out at home and join in?

Well, the Glaziers and Glassworkers Local 188 are still on strike. Why do I care? Because this will add days to the completion of the Lecture Hall project. No Glassworkers means no windows. We won’t know how this impacts the construction schedule of the Lecture Hall until this strike is resolved. The union representatives are scheduled to meet again with federal mediators next week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed so they get back to work!

Next week some of the new metal siding will start going up. We were suppose to see some of it being installed this week, but there was an error with the first shipment. Anyway, if things go per plan we should also see the “Purce Hall” sign being installed just north of the new building entrance. If the weather cooperates we will see more roofing work take place. Inside the building the drywall work will be wrapping up in areas, more wall painting will occur, and ceiling finishes will continue to be installed. On site we will see more sidewalks being formed, poured and finished. In the not so distant future we should see the new landscaping taking place.

That is it for now.

Cheers,

Tim

So, we are seeking LEED certification on the Lecture Hall project. That is nothing new to Evergreen, we already have at least two LEED Gold Certified buildings, which are the CAB and Seminar II building. I also understand the Lab I 1st and 2nd floor renovations achieved LEED Certification. Our goal is to achieve LEED Gold on the Lecture Hall project. If you don’t know already LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a third-party verification system for rating “green” or sustainable buildings. This system was established by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to create a verification system for sustainable structures. The main goal is in having minimal impact on the environment while building a facility, and also considering the long term impact on the environment once the facility is up and operating. I bring this subject up at this point in the project because recently I’ve been coordinating portions of the LEED checklist with our design team.

The LEED checklist consists of a long list of opportunities to consider before the design even begins. You use the checklist to create a list of goals that once achieved will give you points. The amount of goals / points achieved is tallied and verified once the construction is complete. The paperwork is filed with the USGBC and they go through the submitted checklist and all the supporting documentation and they certify (or not if you did not do your job) what LEED benchmark has been achieved. Currently there are four levels of certification, all based on the number of points achieved on a project. The first of these levels is “Certified” which is the easiest level of achievement; a building must achieve a minimum of 40 points to meet this benchmark. The next levels of achievement are Silver, then Gold, and the highest level is Platinum. Being able to achieve Platinum would be ideal for a college like Evergreen, but there are certain costs associated with a number of these points, thus you really need to strike a balance between costs and benefits. We also have a budget to adhear to, which we are continuously keeping in mind. We are a public institution, so striking that balance is especially important with spending tax payers dollars. It currently looks like we may achieve 62 LEED points, which is a few points into the Gold level. Here is the LEED scorecard for New Construction and Major Renovations if you are interested in this subject:U.S. Green Building Council score card

Yes, we had another power outage on campus. I don’t know about you, but these seem to be an all too common experience this year. We had our weekly construction meeting during the power outage. I joked that we should get LEED points on this project for holding construction meetings without using any electricity. It made me think that maybe we should plan on having planned power outages twice a day. Doing so forces you to step away from the computer and actually talk with your co-workers. And think of the resources we would save! I’m sure our computing and networking offices would love it.

We are now officially behind schedule on the Lecture Hall construction. The stars don’t seem to be aligning for me at this juncture in time. Don’t worry though, we have a huge buffer between when we are supposed to be substantially complete to the time we need to start holding classes in this facility. Anyway, there are a number of factors that are hurting us. Some of the issues include light fixtures not shipping when they should have, fire sprinkler inspections not taking place as planned, and just today the Glaziers Union is on strike. We need to get all those windows installed ASAP, and nobody ever thought a strike was even in the works! I’ve asked our contractor to provide us with an updated schedule so we can see what the new substantial completion date is that we are shooting for. That won’t really be possible until we know when this darn strike is over with.

Hat channels and clips that hold the channels in place are currently being installed on the new exterior walls of the Lecture Hall. These hat channels are going to support all the exterior insulation. Yes, the current building code requires exterior wall insulation in order to minimize thermal bridging that occurs if the insulation is just between the structural members. Once the Rock Wool insulation is installed we’ll soon see the metal siding being installed. More about Rock Wool can be found here: http://www.roxul.com/ Fine grading of ground around the perimeter of the Lecture Hall is currently taking place. As is the grading for the new ADA ramp that will lead from Red Square to the upper area between Lab I and II and the Lecture Hall.

More sidewalks are currently being formed around the Lecture Hall. We will see those being poured on Tuesday, July 5th. Keep an eye out for the concrete trucks accessing the job site.

That is it for this time. Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

Cheers,

Tim

Timothy Byrne

Project Manager

Facilities Services

The Evergreen State College

360-867-6093