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Changing Seasons
An interesting Chemical Anchor letter in the NCE, link below:
What is interesting about this is the warning which the author gives and the prevalence of these anchor systems on my site. In one case design starter bars were ‘RFI’d out’ of the design in preference for a drilled and epoxied system to be installed at a later time. The rationale being that leaving the starter bars out of the floor room my subsequent work, and was less of a safety issue.
Epoxied rebar to replace CMU starter bars
I had HILTI delivered training which supports the letter; there can be a huge loss of design strength in these systems if they are not installed properly and, by HILTI reckoning only 20% of anchors are properly installed. HOWEVER, these systems can be very effective. So what? If these are specified on your site, or indeed if you end up specifying them as a part of your design phase then just make sure that the tradesmen installing the systems have the correct qualifications and equipment otherwise, as the letter highlights, especially in safety critical applications you may ‘have dramas.’
Changing Seasons affecting Work
The cold weather is encroaching slowly but surely (a bit like my progress towards the finish line of a recent ten miler). This has highlighted a slight lapse in the PC’s QC process in-so-far as there is a cold weather plan for the placement of CMU at my central utility plant, but it is not being stuck to. On a recent cold snap the block had become too cold and the grout samples were not being taken by the specialised testing sub contractor at a representative time. Nor was there a QC rep on site to remediate the issue. As QA acting on behalf of the client I was required to step in; the simple fix being to stick the blocks in the sun for a while to heat gradually and use warm water in the cement mix to maintain the correct temperature (per the plan). I engaged with the QC manager to ensure that as the cold weather becomes more frequent there will be a QC rep on site at time of the key risk, in this case first thing in the morning when the very first blocks are being laid.
False Reporting
I conducted the latest pencil walk last week in conjunction with some of the other area representatives (M&E, architectural). There have been some discrepancies in the PC reporting, including the reporting of percentage completion of a scheduled activity which doesn’t tally with the expected remaining duration. It seems that it is easier to project the cost of an activity rather than its expected duration. At present activity percent complete is reported and agreed, and the remaining duration and accrued cost of the activity is calculated. For payment this is fine, because the payment estimates are fairly accurate but for remaining durations it is not working. This is leading to a false representation of the project completion, which is what the client, hence USACE is interested in. In some cases (my CMU for example) the original duration was estimated at 15 days, based on a 5 day calendar. It has been going on for almost 2 months now. It is around 65% complete, which means that the computer thinks it has around 5 days left to complete before the successor activity can proceed… In actual fact the successor activity can’t proceed for, in my opinion, another 15 days. This will eat into the activity float. Not a problem for my CMU, which has oodles of it, however if an activity with less, or no float has this issues then the critical path might be affected. The PC now has to walk through and agree actual remaining durations with USACE on future pencil walks to ensure the accuracy of reporting. This will help more accurately reflect the contract completion date. Below is an example of the issue – the overhead HVAC has an original duration of 40 days, is 25% complete yet has an anticipated actual remaining duration of 60 days.
Example from pencil walk
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