Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

3-6 Apr 12

So – we don’t appear to recognise religious holidays over here, but never mind, we’ll make up for it.

Progress has now been made with log on details for the CAC and I now have access to an official e-mail address and some of the compulsory training.

Further progress has been made on the driver’s licence front. My wife, as she is German, has no need to take her test due to a reciprocal agreement between states…..and even though I did my test in Germany – muggins here has retake it anyway. I attended a compulsory 3 HOUR class on drug and alcohol awareness and let’s just say it was a good job I’d already had the suicide prevention training at work! The test is booked for 18 April in Annapolis (about an hour and a half drive away.)

I bumped into some of the sub-contractors for the Solar-wall project during lunch break and after the initial ‘oh crap – it’s the Client!’ sort of introductions they finally opened up a little to just chat about projects and work for the Government. I discovered that having just got my head around the whole ‘let’s spend $3.5M in the name of science to see if this stuff works.’ it now turns out there is another existing building with this system already installed. Upon asking why we aren’t just measuring energy usage from this building compared to an equivalent sized building on the base, nobody could say….and I’m now asking again why we’re spending so much money making sure the national debt is kept up to world expectations. I’m probably going to get punched soon for pointing this stuff out all the time.

We had our first RFI’s in on the solar-wall project relating to the construction of the internal racking system which actually forms the structural support for the roof itself. The structural engineer needs to prove that the existing walls and structure can hold the proposed solar-wall and needs certain ‘as built’ info. I have done some digging around and it turns out that the whole roof is to be completely replaced in the near future….so now I’m concerned as to whether or not the structural engineer needs to be worrying about this at all and if it would be better to get the structural engineer from the solar-wall project and the structural engineer from the roof project to liaise directly to save on potential cross-purposes and wasted effort. The issue arises because for maintenance contracts, the Defence Logistics Agency runs and manages it’s own projects, no matter how expensive, but for new works projects of over $750K they have to use USACE for the contract administration and quality assurance and quality control and hence the oversights. Hence we have two projects on the same building that involve different organisations. I have since booked in a meeting with the engineers at DLA to further orientate myself with the local procedures and will also go and see the overall project manager from the DLA for the solar-wall project to iron out these RFI’s in a sensible manner. I am sure that all of this has been considered and thought through and it’s now just a case of making sure communication channels are established.

Have booked in to go on an Officer Training Day with the Corps next month looking at how they clear and maintain the bays as well as some media training.

Child number 2 has arrived safely. Now trying to find non-expensive ways of entertaining the damn thing. (We love him really).

Enjoy the Easter break guys and gals!

McFry

Transpired Solar Wall – what’s that?

It’s a heat absorbing panel placed on the south facing elevations of buildings which creates a warm air pocket.

Great….so what?

The warm air is then ventilated around the building to reduce heating costs. It can be bypassed all together if required during warmer months.

Cool…who’s idea was that?

Obama’s – he freed up a whole bunch of cash to make the world a more energy efficient place and win the hearts of the people.

Nice – but it sounds expensive.

Yes it is…..$3.5M expensive for a trial run at the largest warehouse on the Defence Distribution Centre here in Harrisburg. Initially there were going to be 6 walls covered, which has now dropped to a couple of walls plus a number of ‘options’ if sufficient cash becomes available.

But it will save a whole bunch of cash in the long run right?

Well…..I’m not sure. My first set of questions included:

• What’s the current cost of heating that place?
• What’s the life expectancy of the building itself?
• How long do these panels last and how easy/expensive are they to maintain?
• Do the number of effective years available from the system multiplied by the annual energy savings add up to more than the cost of installation?

And you know what?

What?

Nobody could tell me.

So DO the savings outweigh the expenditure?

That’s what we’re trying to establish. Part of this project is to analyse the energy usage of the building as it is now and compare it to the usage post installation. I suppose if it’s a raving success we’ll be throwing this stuff up everywhere we can…..provided the funding is there ofcourse.

Hmmm – this sounds very Electrical and Mechanic-y.

You’re right – it is, but there’s some structural stuff in there, like making sure the walls are capable of holding the panels and the additional furniture, such as lights and CCTV etc. A large section of the structural integrity of the building itself is provided by the storage racking itself. There is a need to retro-analyse the racking to ensure that additional roof loads do not exceed design limits….but mainly it’s very E&M flavoured.

So what’s McFry doing on it?

Well so far I’m using this as an opportunity to get my head around the project management systems and the ways in which business sis conducted. As the project Engineer I will be doing a lot of contract administration and answering submittals. Those that are out of my area of knowledge I will allocate to someone who can deal with tn and I will ensure all info is turned around in good time. I act as the Clients’ engineer and make sure the contractors are hitting the correct quality standards etc. I will have a CONREP (contractor representative) who has lots of experience from the construction side of life to keep an eye on things too. I will need to get my head into the RMS software package for contract administration and will also have to use DR Checks which are for ensuring that professional types have approved documents where necessary (i.e. that design calcs are checked by an approved individual).

So what’s next?

After a ‘kick off’ meeting today I need the contractor to review his schedule so I can work out any critical time line issues and see how they may affect the contract. It’s complicated by the fact that the ‘body of excellence’ within USACE is in Alabama…….so they have the real technical know-how but we’re the local eyes and ears, so the submittal review process was described in a very vague way. I have been clear that I need to know delineations of responsibility – otherwise things will go Pete Tong. (After a brief discussion about Pete Tong it was agreed that the responsibility will lie here with the local office and that technical advice is called upon as needed.) Either way – before I get my soul dirtied by contract administration, I still need access to computer systems and complete the induction packages……yes the system is still not as it should be! In the meantime – it’s ‘broadening and deepening’ of my knowledge on how things work around here.

Any other news?

I have found that teenagers that normally sit in front of a screen all day and do very little will do exactly the same thing when transported across the sea to America. Also – my colleagues have been getting brave and have tried to emulate the British accent…..now they sound Australian.

Guys,

One of the introductory packages I was given was all about project management within USACE and it reeked of the APMP BoK stuff we did just before we were set free and released into the wild. I have spoken with the guys that run the systems here and they have agreed to release it from the secure part of the USACE intranet, the idea being that it might be useful to see the subject matter in a military construction management setting.

There is a ‘tool kit’ in hard copy that I will arrange to be sent to PEW via the SI to see if it is suitable for wider consumption – most of the language is the same as with APMP. I have also been invited to see their software tools at District office that they use for running these sorts of things which I should be able to scope out either on phase 2 or phase 3, whichever is most appropriate.

I have my first mini-project for the retro-fit of $3,500,000 worth of solar walls to one of the storage facilities here at DDDS. It seems to be another one of those projects where no one is sure who’s doing what. Another birds nest to unravel but it’s early days and shouldn’t be an issue. First meeting is tomorrow.

Essayons!

McFry