On Tuesday, Marsa, Inc. finished laying the block for our foundation, clearly outlining the footprint for our new addition. The block must now be waterproofed and filled with concrete, a process called grouting. Finishing the foundation doesn’t mean we are ready to pour the concrete for the floor. First, several things need to happen. Over the next few weeks crews will install plumbing – primarily waste lines – conduit for electricity, data and audio-visual cables, and high-density polyethylene underground air ducts – as large as two feet in diameter – for HVAC.

Original Plan

At its bi-weekly meeting with RDC and TEDCO, the new home construction team approved several changes to the plan. Four air vents 12'-6" high in the rear wall will replace an equal number of floor vents in the sanctuary. This will improve air flow, especially during the summer cooling period, and simplify the underground duct-work. 

Approved Plan

Doors to the two storage closets were moved from the rear wall of the sanctuary to the hallway. This move will improve traffic flow, create a large gallery space on the rear wall of the sanctuary, and eliminate the need for two 90-minute rated fire doors, which saves money. The doors to the administrator's office and the uni-sex bathroom were relocated so the doors between the fellowship hall and the office hallway could be moved closer to the fellowship hall and keep all office and restroom doors within the hallway.The stairway to the lower level was slightly modified to widen the entry to the hallway serving the offices, classrooms and restrooms. The janitor’s closet was moved to make room for an ADA approved water fountain. 

A typical Blueduct installation - not Sunnyhill

Two HVAC ducts running vertically from the mechanical room in the attic down through the floor were moved to work around a conflict with the concrete footings. And modifications to the underground HVAC duct were approved so the ducting could be ordered and delivered in time to prevent delays to the critical path.

Carl Taylor & Sons Concrete Contracting, Inc. has completed pouring the footings and piers that will support our building. Today, Marsa, Inc. began to lay the concrete block for the new front wall of the basement, which will be about eight feet high, and for the exterior foundation under the slab, which will be less than three feet high.

The new front basement wall will enclose the space for the new stairway and the mechanical room that will house the new furnace, pumps and hot water heater. Because of its height, and for strength, the basement wall will be built using 16”X8”X12” deep (front to back) concrete blocks.The much shorter foundation walls that will support the floor slab and the walls above it will be built with 16”X8”X8” deep concrete blocks. 

The voids in all of the concrete blocks will be filled with concrete – a process called grouting – for increased strength and to make them less permeable to water. In addition, the basement wall will also be waterproofed. All of the foundation work should be completed within three days.

We are also making progress in other areas.The red front door of the church is being reversed so it will open out instead of in – a requirement of the fire code. Because our door frame is one solid piece of oak, the outside of the jamb had to be routed to allow for the thickness of the door and to provide a stop – a job that calls for a skilled carpenter. The door hardware has already been reversed, but recesses for the butt hinges and the latches must also be routed or chiseled into the frame.

Our temporary forced hot air furnace is ready for the cold weather. The roof over the unit has been finished and gas and electric have been connected. Hot air from the furnace is blown into the building via two very large flexible ducts – one through a window into the fellowship hall and the other through a window into the large basement classroom. While the furnace has more than enough output to heat the entire building, getting that heat distributed throughout the building will no doubt require some trial and error until it is worked out.

Today Bartlett finished cutting down the large maple tree in the back yard. While no one wanted to see the tree go, it was directly in the way of the new sewer that will be installed to carry water from our storm water containment unit to the municipal storm sewer. Dennis Sweeney has rescued some of the wood from which he will create beautiful objects. Jen will also use some of the wood for an RE art project. The tree measured 51 inches in diameter at the lowest cut.

Vijay’s beautiful Hibiscus, along with the bulbs of other flowering plants, have been removed from the garden by the front door. We thought the plants would be safe throughout construction, but the design of the new entryway into the church calls for a wider sloping sidewalk and larger steps, which will cover Vijay's flower garden. Until the Hibiscus find a new home at Sunnyhill, they will reside in one section of the RE garden.

Last Friday, Carl Taylor & Sons Concrete Contracting, Inc. began laying out, digging and pouring concrete footings for our new addition. The purpose of footings, or footers, is to transfer the structural loads (live load, dead load, snow load, wind load, etc.) from a building to the Earth. They are an integral part of a building's foundation, and their importance cannot be overstated. 

The building code for our area requires concrete footings to be made with 3000 pounds per square inch (psi) concrete and the excavation to be 3’-6” deep, which is below the frost line and will prevent damage to the structure from frost-heave caused by freezing water in the soil. Our footings are 3’-8” deep and one foot thick. 3000 psi concrete is strong in compression, but weak in tension, so our footings also contain steel rebar set horizontally to increase the tension strength and vertically to provide attachment points and added strength to the foundation and piers that our walls and steel roof pillars will sit on. To ensure that our concrete meets specifications, samples are taken and tested. 

Carl Taylor has made excellent progress in pouring the footings. In addition, they have framed and poured some piers and repaired the foundation wall that was damaged during demolition. If you had a bird’s-eye-view of their work, you would be able to see the entire footprint of our new addition.

In other news, the winter heating issue has been addressed. TEDCO has installed a large gas fired hot air furnace in the area behind the dining room and is currently building a temporary roof to protect it. Next steps include running a gas line and electricity to the furnace, installing a thermostat and running flexible ducts through windows into the fellowship hall and the large basement classroom. Portable fans will be used to help distribute the warm air within the building, and small electric heaters will provide additional heat to the offices as needed. TEDCO has also created a new building schedule with a projected completion date of June 19. It is important to remember, however, that the schedule is a living document and could be affected by weather and other factors. A copy of the schedule will be available at church on Sundays, and a pdf version should soon be available on this blog. 

Finally, we are going to lose the large maple in the back yard. The trench for the storm drain for the new addition will go right through the root ball of the tree, compromising its health. Due to limited space, there is no alternative route for the drain. TEDCO recommends removing the tree before the addition is built and makes removal a delicate process and potentially impacts the building schedule. We will be soliciting bids today.

New Home Update – October 5, 2016

By the end of the day, Wednesday, Oct. 5, when the last truckloads of fill are dumped, graded and compacted, site preparation will be complete. As reported last week, the process began with the removal of tree stumps, vegetation, the swimming pool, and poor quality fill that would not support our structure.  

Completing site preparation required sixty truckloads of fill,which was excavated from the construction site of a new Sheetz near the Wexford exit of I-79 about 25 miles away. The fill was compacted with a 48,000 pound excavator and rolled smooth with a six-ton roller. The 900 cubic yards of fill raised the grade just over two feet at the highest point.This was done for a very good reason. Our new building does not have a basement or a crawl space like the demolished wing did: it is “slab on grade.”  To compensate for the lack of a basement and the slope of the site, it was necessary to raise and level the grade so that when a four-inch concrete slab is poured, the floor of our new addition will be level with the floor of our existing building. 

Another essential part of site preparation was the excavation of a trench 10 feet by 40 feet by 8.5 feet deep that, with the addition of gravel, perforated storage chambers and geotextile, will be used for storm water retention. Rain water from the downspouts of our new building will collect there. Some will percolate into the soil, and the overflow will run to the township storm sewers.  Coming next – concrete footings!

New Home Update – September 28, 2016

The Tower of Pisa leans because it was built on a bed of clay, sand and shells that could not support its weight. While the leaning tower allegedly was used by Galileo to prove his theory about the acceleration of falling objects and has been a boon to tourism, the lean prevented the building from being used for its original purpose – as a bell tower. In the 12^th century there was no such thing as geotechnical (soil) engineering, which would have kept the tower standing straight and tall. Today there is, and Sunnyhill has contracted Professional Service Industries, Inc. (PSI) to perform the geotechnical engineering for construction of our new home. PSI has already conducted a laboratory compaction test on some of our soil, and a technician has been onsite this week observing the work of the excavation company. Whenever dirt is being moved and compacted, PSI will be there to be sure it is done right. While the excavation and geotechnical engineering phase of construction doesn’t make for exciting pictures and videos, the work being done is essential to ensuring that the ground we build on will support our new home for generations to come.

 In other news, the New Home construction team, TEDCO and RDC discussed the issue of heating the building over the winter. TEDCO has agreed to look into some options, which we will discuss at a special meeting, and we expect to have a solution before the heating season begins. 

Also, a three-minute time-lapse video of the demolition of the north wing has been published on YouTube. It can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ECiJgTeDI .

New Home Update – September 21, 2016

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, TEDCO completed the demolition phase of construction when the last pieces of the foundation scheduled to be removed were pulled from the ground and carted away. The remaining sections of the foundation will become part of the new building. Today, the excavation phase begins, starting with the removal of the swimming pool and several tree stumps, which Dennis Sweeney will turn into bowls for sale at a future service auction. As the work progresses, the excavation company will grade, fill, and compact the site. They will dig a storm water retention pit behind the new sanctuary and excavate trenches for the footings that will support the walls and the steel roof trusses. An essential part of the process will be geotechnical testing, which will ensure that the ground under the footings is stable enough to support our new home. Pictures of the work will be published in next week’s Beat. In other good news, the township has approved our drawings and will issue a building permit today; removing the last roadblock to building our new home. The remaining foundation seen in this photo will house our utility room, the stairway to and from the main floor, and the new entry into the main RE room in the basement.

New Home Update – September 15, 2016 (From the October Drummer)

The north wing of Sunnyhill exists only in photographs and memories. At 8:53 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15, an excavator with a grapple bucket – the technical name for the heavy equipment – took the first bite out of the building. By 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 17, the north wing was gone and most of the rubble had been hauled away. Remaining demolition – parts of the foundation and the entire patio – will be completed by the time this edition of The Drummer is published. The next step will include removing the swimming pool, grading and compacting the site, and excavating for the footings and foundation of our new wing.

Earlier in the month a new team was formed to oversee the construction of the building. The team meets every other Tuesday with our contractor, TEDCO, and our architect, Rothschild Doyno Collaborative (RDC), to review progress of the building, approve changes in scope, and authorize payment for work done. The team is also responsible for communicating with the congregation. At its most recent meeting the team reviewed the design changes mandated by Mt. Lebanon to meet its fire code, which is much more restrictive than the state code. The most significant change was to create separate “fire areas” of less than 5,000 square feet to eliminate the need for sprinklers, which are prohibitively expensive. RDC’s design solution will turn the rear wall of the sanctuary into a fire barrier by adding a second layer of drywall and installing fire resistant doors. In addition, the new plans call for fire dampers in certain air ducts, additional smoke detectors and emergency lighting.

At the same meeting Denny McCracken reported that we had received the final documents for our construction loan from Huntington Bank. The agreements have been signed by President Denny McCracken, Vice President Jay Thornton, and Treasurer Regina Yankie. Our loan is now secured, and all of our financing is in place.

Now that the church is a full-blown construction site, TEDCO has installed fencing along the front and sides of the property and lockable gates on the driveways from Washington Road and Sunnyhill Drive. These gates will be locked at night during the work week and all day Saturdays and Sundays. Our access is from Sunnyhill Drive. That gate has two padlocks linked together – one belongs to Sunnyhill and one is owned by TEDCO. Anyone needing access to the building in the evenings and on the weekends should see Roy for a key to our padlock and a tutorial on how the locking system works. The gate is heavy and not easy to open, so be careful.

Finally, with cold weather approaching an issue that we are addressing is heating the portion of the building we are occupying. While the offices, kitchen and bathroom must be heated to comfortable temperatures for our staff, the fellowship hall only needs to be heated to about 45 degrees to prevent the building from deteriorating due to the cold. TEDCO is working on a solution, which should be in place before heating season begins.

The New Home Construction Team will continue to provide updates in The Beat and The Drummer, and once demolition is completed, we will post a time lapse video of the process on our website.

New Home Update – September 14, 2016

Temporary walls have been installed in the fellowship hall and basement, and the separation of the building will be completed today. As you might imagine in a building that has been rewired many times in its 90-year life, separating the electricity has been a challenge. But, now we are ready, and tomorrow, Sept. 15, the walls of the north wing, like the walls of Jericho, will come tumbling down. Instead of ram horns, our demolition crew will use heavy construction equipment with giant jaws. A construction camera has been mounted in our oak tree to capture the event, and the video will be posted on our website when the demo is finished. The camera captures one frame every 10 seconds.

New Home Update –  September 7, 2016

At 7 a.m. sharp on Tuesday, Sept. 6, Craig Frye, our construction manager from TEDCO, and members of his construction team arrived on site and set to work. The first order of business was to seal several doorways with plastic to prevent dust from their work in the north wing from getting into the areas we are occupying. For security, plywood will also be nailed over those doorways. As the day progressed, equipment began arriving on site. A dumpster, a portable toilet and a high-lift were the first to be delivered. Later in the day two trailers arrived – one to be used as an office and the other for meetings. By the end of the week the construction area will be fenced off and lockable chain-link gates will be installed across the driveways.

Inside the north wing crews removed the newel post caps and set them aside for use in the new building. Then they began the delicate and dusty task of separating the walls of the north wing from the walls of the foyer, fellowship hall and basement. Electricity, gas and water will also be separated this week. This essential work will allow heavy equipment to demolish the north wing safely without damaging the remainder of the building. 

Although we submitted our plans for township approval on July 26, we are still waiting for our building permit. While we can continue demolition and site preparation without the permit, we cannot begin construction until our plans have been approved. The approval process was initially delayed while Mt. Lebanon hired a new building inspector. Then we were told that our plans did not comply with Mt. Lebanon’s fire code. Our architect, Rothschild Doyno Collaborative, has reworked the plans to address the issue, and Mt. Lebanon has agreed in principle that the modifications are acceptable. A meeting to finally resolve the issue is scheduled for Friday, and we expect to have the permit in hand shortly thereafter.

New Home Update – August 31, 2016

Our months of planning, fundraising and due diligence are finally going to bear fruit. On Tuesday, Sept. 6, TEDCO, our construction manager, will begin the 10-month process of building our new home. During the first week of the project, the infrastructure for the new construction will be set up. Office trailers will be placed in the parking lot, construction site boundaries will be established and signs designating construction and staff entrances will be installed. At the same time crews will be working inside the building to separate the utilities – electricity, gas and water – so the north wing can safely be demolished while our staff continues to work on the premises.  To secure the fellowship hall and the south wing of Sunnyhill and protect them from the elements, temporary walls will be built on the main floor and in the basement.

The second phase of the project, demolition of the north wing will take place between Sept. 14 and 21. The third phase, site preparation, will begin immediately after demolition. This phase will include removal of the swimming pool, pulling out tree stumps and grading the site so footings can be dug and construction can begin in earnest. Throughout the construction process the New Home team will meet regularly with our architects and construction manager to ensure that we stay within budget, on schedule and our design goals are met. The team is also committed to communicating the progress of our project with the congregation through articles and photographs in The Beat and The Drummer.

Beginning next week, if you have a meeting or business at Sunnyhill, please use the entrance off Sunnyhill Drive and park in the row of spaces in the southernmost part of the parking lot, which will be reserved exclusively for our use. Construction sites can be dangerous, so please respect the boundaries established by our contractors. If you must go into the construction zone, check with the construction manager first and please wear a hardhat, which will be available in the office.