Banana shaped HV substation slab and Beyonce!!
This week did not start well when South West Trains decided to terminate my train at Southampton at 9pm on Sunday evening due to an electrical failure. Having learnt from my last epic 10 hr train journey where a tree landed on the train roof a few weeks ago, I decided to promptly get on the next train back home to Bournemouth as there was no sign of anything going north. The 5am start on Mon to get back set me up well to write a great complaint letter to the train company anyway!
After finally arriving on site the day could have gone one of two ways depending on the progress with the HV substation slab and the tapping of the old pipe. I was happy to find that both tasks had been carried out but when I looked into them further I realised that the day had started at 5am as it meant to go on: a nightmare! Firstly, I went to have a look at my concrete slab and found this:
A banana shaped trench that was meant to be straight!! The as built survey showed that the trench was 47mm out about 3/4 of the way along the first picture. Apparently the formwork had got wet before the pour and as a result it had warped or not been strong enough. It is unlikely that the pour rate was too fast for the formwork design as some parts had deflected into the slab. A more likely reason was crap carpentry from the two cowboy builders who won’t be working on site again! The subcontractor may get away with it if the electrical company don’t have a problem with it when they visit next Mon. Otherwise I will be producing a non-conformance report next week for some remedial action to be taken.
Then there was my old pipe that broke the utility guys tapping drill last week. We excavated a straight part of the pipe and they were finally able to tap it and it was found to be an old gas pipe, not full of gas but full of water. The drainage gang took the bung off and spent an afternoon letting it drain and pumping out the water. A few hours later they gave up as it didn’t seem to be draining-back to the drawing board! Plan B involved hiring in a water tanker pump vehicle to hopefully pump it out. 2000 litres and 2 tankers later they were finally in a position to break the pipe and carry on. The south drainage area has now been nick named the aquatic area and they will have more problems to come when they encounter the run-off from the wheel wash that is also turning part of the site into a swimming pool.
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The week ended in a slightly more positive note with a free trip to the Beyoncé concert at the O2 arena. Our groundworks sub-contractor’s O’Keefe own a box there so they invited the construction team for a night out. With free drinks and food and a great view it was a great night out. However I have learnt that drinking on a school night isn’t much fun when you get given a list of RFIs to check if they are closed the next morning!
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Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog 
Beyoncé m’lud?
Is this some modern beat-combo?
( the acute accent must mean they/he/she/it really got S-T-Y-L-E….reminds me of the early scene in Pulp Fiction….a cheeeeesebooorger R-O-Y-A-L-E!)
John are you bored or just on something?
John were you as drunken as my carpenters making the banana formwork?!!
Reminds me of a very old joke…. But I think SLecs showing their age has already been done ‘cos I understand John’s comments…..
Angela
What more can you ask for, trains, bananas and beyonce – where do they fit in to your DOs
Regards
Neil
Bit concerned about your comment about poor carpentry and cowboy builders who won’t be working on site again. Were they contracted to design and build or just to build formwork to the design provided by others? I’d be interested to know who designed the formwork and who checked it and approved it. Whoever they may be, if it is poor design, they are guilty not the builder. If the design was adequate but the execution was poor, which site engineer checked the temporary works and approved it as ready for a pour? They are defintely guilty, regardless of the former responsibility for design, and if not brought up sharp now they might one day fail to adequately check something of greater significance (if let loose on bigger things).
The approval of temorary works to take construction loads is a significant responsibility site engineers/temporary works co-ordiantors carry. If the formwork had been saturated and it’s stability affected there is a further question mark hanging over someone’s professionalism and diligence. Although the site foreman might be seen as a scape goat because he didn’t play his part in pointing out the obvious to the engineer the truth is someone said it was Ok to pour that concrete.
Bottom line is that there’s an engineer in there somewhere that failed to adequatley check what was going on at one level or another, luckily on a trivial aspect – I know who I’d think about not letting work on my site or restricting to menial sub tasks and it’s not the carpenters.
Or have I misread this?
Richard-I tried to do a bit of digging about this before I left for my foot operation and the main responsibility seems to lie with the sub-contractor. The carpenters had a drawing of the formwork from the sub-contractors who were responsible for the TWD. Their site engineer also conducted his checks and I believe he was reprimanded by the sub-contractor’s project manager for producing such poor quality of work. As the main contractor Carillion fill out the pre-pour check sheet which ensures that it is built in the right place, the cover is correct, built as per the drawing, etc. Carillion also have a TWC but I don’t think the small scale things that are purely the responsibility of a single sub-contractor are recorded (but this is something I will look into when I get back). One of the other Carillion engineers signed off this particular pre-pour check and he was not brought into question. The only thing the my boss was interested in was a Non-Conformance Report from the sub-contractor accepting that if the client did not accept it then they would be liable to conduct remedial works.
I am finding it an unusual set up being part of the main contractor who are almost purely working in the management role. We have no actual labourers or supervisors of our own and we seem to be providing the project management and QA for the client to facilitate the work being done. I liken it to being a Sqn 2IC because you need to make sure all of the Subbies are doing their work correctly and producing the correct paperwork, you also need to get out and check that things are being done safely and to the right standard but you don’t actually do it yourself!