Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

Monday – Rainy/Stormy

Tuesday – Rain/Stormy

Wednesday – Rain/Stormy

Thursday – Patchy Rain/Windy

Friday – Sunny with spells of rain.

So, even though, over half the workforce is Irish, Tradies in Australia don’t work in the rain! I think they must melt.

The Zone 5 suspended slab sits quietly rusting in the South, and now the clients are unhappy that there are rust patches on the formwork. This was also an issue with the Zone 4 slab but after negotiations at PM level, JHG eventually issued a site instruction to the formwork contractor (who is responsible for a daily blow out of debris (including tie-wire) from the slab) to powerwash the deck. It visually made bugger-all difference but there are minimal rust marks on the soffit now the formwork has been stripped. On the stripping of formwork, I did think it was rather open beneath the slab and pretty soon realised they had stripped all the backprops. I asked the question of the formworker whether he thought it wise to strip all of the propping from a suspended slab on which they were forming the next level on, but he seemed fairly unfussed that he was stood under a loaded, unsupported 3week floor. I pointed out the requirement for backprops in the design and sent the email to ensure it was rectified.

The big news for the week is that the structural engineers report into the Zone 3 concrete has come back and indicates that although the concrete is not to the expected strength and exhibits de-bonded steelwork and delaminated aggregate in some places, these places are in areas of contra-flexure and therefore any remedial work to the slab may in fact make the situation worse. This is a massive bonus as I was expecting to see Sappers down there chipping out concrete with chisels. We can now forge ahead and form up the columns and decks and push onto ground level.

The rain did very little to affect the programme, it only affected the amount of work completed during the week. Therefore milestones that were set to be complete in May remain where they were before the inclement weather and Strike action. This increased pressure on Engineers to hit targets doesn’t really transmit to the tradies though who continue to amble along at their normal pace. Frustrating.

The phrase that has been thrown around most of the week is attributed to one of JHG’s senior managers who stated during the planning for the NCH that “It doesn’t rain in Perth so don’t factor in that many days for wet weather.” Sensible. This decision was also made at a similar time as the one not to build in days for strike action – we currently sit at about 25days in just over a year lost to industrial action.

I organised a meeting with my PM this week to discuss a few issues that had arisen over the last few weeks. I put my suggestions to him as positively as possible in an effort to make them heard and maybe effect a change in the team structure. They were:

1. A weekly mid week meeting to RAG status the Short Range Programme in order to proactively manage and focus the effort of the team for the following days to meet the level 3 milestones. Currently the SRP is slipped weekly and I don’t think there is any buy in by the engineers as there is no real incentive the aim for milestones if they are all verging on impossible from the time of publishing.
2. Following on from point 1, a team review of the SRP to set realistic targets that will be bought into as everybody would have had a role in the planning. I quoted the Project Director who said “I realise the SRP’s are near impossible.” By having a programme that is not achievable, targets are continually missed and this damages team morale.
3. Following on from point 2, we need a team social. Time is obviously short so a day out of the office is not feasible, and nobody would go for  a weekend, so I suggested volunteering for a charity for the afternoon (assisting in local image and sustainability targets set by JHG) or at the very least a team lunch for 2 hrs once a month. I had also noticed that in the pub down the road from my house there is the 141 challenge (141 beers to be imbibed by a person or team in the shortest time possible – 28mins seems to be the record, so must have been a huge team or big drinker, but days seems quite common). Probably not in keeping with the 0% tolerance on alcohol on site though so maybe this is just one for after my TMR submissions.

The overall thought on my suggestions was that they are not new, there are changes in the pipeline, and a monthly lunch would be good. 1 out of 3 isn’t bad. I am still planning on a daily “RAGing” of the South area as a method to highlight the risk to the Snr Engr and PM.

So the Stormy weather has ended in time for the weekend, now the next couple of weeks look set to become a thrashing to meet the milestones that are in danger of being missed.

On a brighter note, I have just fired up the BBQ.

With everything on hold until the submittals are answered it has been a quiet week. The big news however is that one submittal is a potential problem. In the roof are a series of pipes that will take the rain water away from the middle and out to the edges. These pipe runs are 500 ft long, 12 inches in diameter and are made of PVC . In last week’s site meeting the contractor asked about expansion joints in the pipes. In these conditions PVC expands over 6 inches for every 100ft and the design has no mention of expansion joints. After some research the contractor has come up with a price of $750,000 to incorporate the design change (each joint is $1000). One school of thought is that the contractor should have thought about this even though it is not mentioned in the drawings or specifications as it is common sense the pipe work will expand and not our problem.  However to further complicate matters the current design doesn’t actually have any expansion joints in it and has never leaked in the the past 25 years!  Mike, my mentor thinks this is more of a bluff on the behalf of the Contractor who has under priced the scaffolding he needs to work above the high bay storage area. This has therefore gone back to the designer to make a decision.  I think they will risk it for $750,000 and not bother. I would like to see where the liability lies with that.  And apart from a 5 hour Safe Driving computer package, interviewing my department and learning everything I can about the project I did go on a site visit to Mechanicsburg.  This is an Army Reserve project for a new Drill Hall and Servicing bay that is a year behind.  When the design was done the designer missed a large rock pinnacle just below the surface that just so happened to have every underground service running through it.  This meant a huge variation to the contract was required to dig out this hard limestone.  From the geological data I saw it seemed obvious there was rock there but the site was going well now the warm weather is here.

Hopefully more to do next week.

And in other news:

A quiet week in the US. A turf war has broken  out between rival Ice Cream Vans in New York.  Snow Cone Joe has been chasing Mr Dingle Dangle around the streets offering free ice creams to under cut his rival and put him out of business.  Joe has now been arrested for threatening behaviour.

Road Kill Round Up:

5x Deer

6x Ground Hogs

2x Possums

2x Racoons (actually from last week still)

1xFire Chief (a DUI ran him over whilst he was marshalling a HLS)

Country Hit Parade:

I am looking for my next Heart Break

How are you doing Country Pumpkin (like the frost on the pumpkin)

She was acting single, I was drinking doubles

And finally a warning for all parents (particularly those who shop in Walmart!)

As last week included ANZAC day (thu) and yet another Rostered Day Off for all onsite trades on the fri, actual production has been very slow. So this post covers a week and half as we continue to try and get out of the ground at Dickson Rd. We have now excavated and blinded the four Embankment Retaining Walls (deflection walls) which are utilising as laydown areas for the pile cap steel. We have had a few problems in de-watering the pile cap excavations over the past couple of weeks as the shale material has been acting like a conduit to trickle water further down the alignment into what is the lowest point in the vicinity into our holes. The CSR is also not helping in that respect as they currently stop just before the excavations so water literally floods down the services conduits. After acquiring the a de-watering permit to discharge our ‘clean’ water (floculant added overnight) into Scalabrini Creek we got an enviro slap on the wrist when the pump head slipped out of the bucket and started sucking up the snot at the bottom which meant we were pumpng ‘dirty’ water for a while without our knowledge. We then pumped the other pile cap using a ‘sucker truck’ and eptied it into a holding pond a few hundred metres away having seen the civil team do this yesterday. The pond is geofabric lined and is treated regularly before emptied. The pond holds about 500 ‘sucker truck’ loads and we added 1 which again seemed to cause an enviro stir and our second slap on the wrist. Apparently the civil team ‘dobbed’ us in even though we didn’t think we were doing anything wrong. Theye claim that they had ‘flocced’ the pond the previous day ready to be pumped and that we had now dirtied the water. In our defence we asked for permission to pump from the General Superintendent who also seems to be the civil superintenednt as well. We were also told we require a permit to de-water everytime we want to pump and on the permit it has to state exactly where you are pumping to. Overall it has been a slow and frustrating few days but lots learned about enviro and especially the particulars of Erosion and Sediment Control Management.

We finally started to fix the reinforcement for both pile caps last week and after hoping to pour both by fri we just about managed to pour pile cap A on fri evening before the sun went down.

The shutters are about 80% complete on pile cap B and we should be able to pour this on mon afternoon. Before we can backfill we need to reach 32Mpa (75% of the design strength) which from testing has given us 4 days so by wed this week we should be able to start backfilling pile cap A and fri afternoon or most likely mon morning for pile cap B. We have been instructed by TPD to also carry out Pile Continuity Tests for which one pile from each abutment has been selected and after finally getting rid of the water and sludge at the bottom I was able to get them in to carry out the tests. This seems to involve grinding a bit of the surface away and banging a hammer on the top of the pile and recording the sounds. This will check that the pile is of consistent diameter throughout its length with no voids – I await in atticipation for the results!

Kemp Creek bridge is slowly edging towards completion although we will be cutting it fine. We were originally told that by 15 May the bridge needs to be complete as track will be laid, this has now moved to thr right by 7 days giving us some breathing space. I conducted an 86m^3 pour on tue of the CSR walkways which house the services but also tie in the pre-cast parapit sections. I seem to be getting a reputation with the concreters for being able to order the exact amount everytime we pour which I find rather to close for comfort if I’m honest. On this pour I had 13 ‘agi’ trucks and with 3 to go got my calculator out to work out what I needed to add for the message. Having ordered 80+ I activated an extra 6m^3 and all we had left was about 0.5m^3 which was left in the boom pump. I repeated this with Pile Cap A at Dickson Rd but it was a little more stressful but after we blew out the pump and emptied the hopper it was exact – I may just order a little more on the next pours to give me some wiggle room!

All the walkways are now complete for Kemps Creek apart from a few bays at abutment A. We have poured half of these to the construction joint level. The remainig parapit sections will now be fixed onto these ‘plinths’ and the top half’s poured to tie the parapits in.

The CI’s visit went well and after dropping both off at the Pyrmont office I manged to get back to pour Pile Cap A and see the concrete pump on Kemps Creek bridge die and dump 50 litres of hydraulic fluid on to the deck before it dissapeared rather sharpish

This has been a glorious week to be on site here in Southampton, only I haven’t found myself on site much this week.  I can’t really put my finger on exactly why that’s the case but it seems to be mainly because I’ve been doing paperwork. 

After inheriting the Site Waste Management Plan from the other assistant site manager who left the company a little while ago I was told it was all fine, after who knows how many HOTOs you would have thought if anyone said that it should ring alarm bells in my head, clearly I haven’t learned my lesson.  So digging into the SWMP allowed me to discover that all was not well and being that it’s a legal requirement it probably shouldn’t be the work of fiction that it was.  That took up Monday. 

I had yet more students on site this week as the ones that I spoke to last week had obviously said there was some old bloke who still thinks he’s down with the kids that is willing to give out answers freely.

The most interesting day this week was Thursday.  The problem of artesian water continues to be an issue, a meeting was called with the client, the geotechnical consultant and the site team to discuss what has happened in the past and where we might go next.  With the best estimate of the borehole location (the log only recorded it to 100mm accuracy) plotted on the ground 4 very well paid men and me stood around looking into a hole next to a pile cap with some dirty water in it.  We spent 3 hours discussing what could be done on site and in the meeting room and all the while the geotechnical expert was remarkably quiet on what could be done.  Not much of plan came out of the session other than to find out what would be the opinion of the EA in a round about way if we did nothing.  The tip that the Great Orator mentioned on one update about the water problems about the UK spec lead me to do a bit of a search on IHS and allowed me to reveal a few choice lines that would indicate to me that the Geo Consultancy haven’t done what they should have done and didn’t inform Osborne of the potential problems.  I didn’t wheel this out during the meeting but mentioned it one of the client’s representatives (who is also part of the Osborne Group) afterward who seemed very excited about what I was telling him.  This morning (Friday) during a conversation with the same guy I mentioned where I will be doing my consultancy placement and he asked me to initiate contact with them explaining the problems and exploring the possibility of them coming to advise on the situation, they have accepted.  In 2 days I’ve managed to make both my current and future employers happy.  This is all TMR gold dust so I’m also happy.

This week started in the normal manner of Mad Monday where everything that was meant to be done over the weekend was started on top of the planned works. The focus this week was on the continued preparation of the Zone 5 suspended slab and column, wall and ramp fixing in Zone 2. The slab finally started on Mon, after the calamity of reo deliveries last week, but was held up by cranage moving the bottom mat across from the slip-lane. Zone 2 is more of an issue. Drawings issued on the same day by both the architect and structural engineers differ in their portrayal of the detail around the ramp and were missing detail on slab set-down levels which dictated soffit levels for slabs and beams. After several RFI’s to the Architects I received a satisfactory answer for set-down levels which allowed work to continue but a vague and pretty non-committal response on whether a wall was ramped or horizontal. This matter is still open.

I received an email from the concrete testers stating that the 3 and 7day tests on the 65/20/140 mix used for a column poured last week were significantly understrength. My initial response was to investigate with the tester what the expected final strength would be and whether the mix was as designed and noted on the docket. This was confirmed and it was suggested that it may be a mix that was on the lower percentile of the range. It may reach the approximate strength after 56 days but the question now is whether the risk can be taken to accept this or whether remedial work is required. I forwarded all info to the structural engineer to investigate the situation and recommend a course of action. In my view, as the column forms a corner of a vertical stairwell that is tied into the slabs it may be possible to increase the reinforcement around the connection in order to minimise the loading on the column. This may be the best COA as it will allow construction to continue with minimal rework, and if the column does not reach the required strength it will have an element of redundancy built in to assist in carrying the load.

Tuesday was largely spent in preparation for the work I would not be able to complete during CI’s visit on Wednesday. I think the visit went well and I imagine the change in the site since the CI’s last visit was considerable. From my perspective it was good to talk through the project and highlighted just how much I do actually know about it.

Black Thursday

During the later stages of the CI’s visit we became aware of an altercation between one of the contractors and the JHG H&S representative. This must have escalated after our departure from site as on arrival at site on Thursday there was a significant union presence at the main gate. I had no dramas getting into site though. The lads had more of an issue and the pre-start was lacking numbers. As it happened the rain had effectively stopped play on site (Aussies don’t work in the rain!) which pretty much negated the strike outside. The issue can about 1100 when it was noticed that there was a small fire outside the cab of Tower Crane 2. The operator raised the alarm and evacuated effectively, which resulted in a full evacuation of site. This would not usually be an issue but the fact the union was camped out on the assembly area 1  and after H&S closed the slip-lane (assembly area 2) to access from outside site it meant that the Union propaganda machine whirred into action to get as many photos of their ‘massive’ turn out until we managed to gain access to assembly area 2. The incident was handled well from an operational perspective with the Fire-service on the scene within minutes, but in my view the JHG information flow to the workforce was lacking and the fact a contractor took charge of information passing was a little embarrassing. Work was later put on hold, and eventually stopped for the day (for the lads). A team meeting was called by the PD who briefed that an anonymous text had warned him of a Picket Line for Fri morning.

Evacuation to the Union Assembly Area

Quiet Friday

I planned on arriving early to avoid the masses so parked up my bike at Steve’s and walked down to site. It was relatively quiet along the main road, but as I approached the main gate there were about 12 union blokes blocking the path. I weaved my way through to find the gate locked and padlock injected with glue. A couple of choice words and a push in the back and memories of Ex Broadsword flooded back. I walked back along the fence-line and was let in through a manned gap in the chain-link. I have spent the morning walking around with a H&S as the site has been locked down and everybody told not to bother coming in.  So I am sat here with my fellow 10 JHG inmates listening to the Union songs and chants whilst the remainder of the staff have a day off. This had better be remembered come report time. I just hope I can get out in time for my flight to Melbourne this afternoon.

The Union Camp across the road

Memories of Longmoor and Ex BROADSWORD. This was my initial entry point – Foiled by a glued padlock

A reassuring police presence has kept the unions at bay so far

So in effect, I have worked 1.5days this week. It is lucky the CI visited when he did – what a difference a day makes.