RECONNECT CHRISTMAS

Update: Readying For The Second Floor

As the building goes up, it becomes more difficult to construct. We are now building scaffolding for the workers. It is made with tree poles and the horizontal supports are placed into holes in the wall. The holes in the walls will be patched later.

This view is the end of the building that will hold the library (on the ground floor) and recording studio (on the second floor). You can now get a good feel for the size of the library as the walls are completed for the ground floor.

The two window are for the kitchen of the community center (ground floor). On the second floor, above the kitchen, will be offices.

For the safety of the workers, I have forbidden bricks and mortar to be placed on the scaffolding. Not exactly OSHA approved.

Here is how the bricks are transported. These women work long hours and are very grateful for the job. This construction project is giving employment to many who are in great need of income.

We are getting ready to pour the second story floors. We decided to paint the floor joists (trusses) before installing them. Here we are giving them a coat of red oxide primer and a top coat of black paint. It is much easier painting them before we put them into place.

We poured a reinforced concrete lintel to place the joists ends. We felt this would assure the weight of the second floor being better distributed along the whole wall.

The joists are in place as we being the process of pouring the floor for the recording studio. Seen are the concrete and steel reinforced vertical pillars that will strength the walls. These pillars will be extended to the top of the walls. The joists are being placed on 21 inch centers, a bit closer than the plan calls for (24 inch on center) but that will increase the strength of the floor.

At the same time we are building the Community Center, we are also constructing a Utility building that will provide for water, power, and other essential services needed by the Community Center and other buildings on the site.

This is a picture of our 11,000 gallon water tank which we just finished. We are just getting ready to pour a concrete lid for the tank. The walls of the tank are five bricks thick and reinforced with rebar. Along the top of the tank two white pipes are sticking out. The one on the left is the water inlet from our underground well. The pipe on the left is the overflow pipe, so if our automatic pump switch fails, the water will come out of that pipe and can be seen by our workers — rather than flooding the utility building.

The tank will be the “end room” of the utility building. You can see the edge of the tank in the left of this picture. The foundations are already constructed for the rest of the building and we expect to start on the walls soon. We need to the building up as soon as possible as it will hold the backup generator and water pumps for the site. Other things like a laundry facitlity and showers are planned.

Again, a BIG thank you to Wheatland Salem Church for the gifts that are making this construction possible. We are doing our best to turn your generous gifts into a facility that will bring praise and honor and glory to Jesus Christ in the years to come.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.