Floors – Pour 2

First, here’s a quick picture of the concrete poured on Saturday.

The crew was onsite bright and early to start today’s pour. With rain forecasted for the evening/night the crew only poured until noon. But they still managed to finish about 12,000 square feet.

Floors – Pour 1

The prep work for the slab continued all last week. In addition, the block crew was onsite to fill the first two courses of block with grout. They also added rebar to the existing rebar to extend the height.

The most exciting part of the week came on Saturday when the first section of the floor was poured.

A pump truck was brought in to get the concrete into the rooms. Here’s a picture of the concrete truck loading concrete into the pump truck.

Here’s the pump truck with it’s arm extended.

Here’s the crew pouring the floor for the first room.

A screed was used to smooth the concrete’s surface.

Here’s the room freshly poured. A bull float was used to put quick finish.

After waiting for the concrete to cure for a bit, diesel ride on power trowels were hoisted on to the cement.

There were two different ride on power trowels. One for a rough finish.

The second produced a much smoother finish.

Below is the first finished maintenance room.

12,500 feet was poured on Saturday. About 30,000 to go over the next 3 days. Stay tuned for more on the floors.

Before the Floors…

Before the concrete floors can be poured, the concrete crew needed to prep the interior of the building. During the second half of last week the crew started this prep work.

Step 1: move dirt into the interior of the building.

Step 2: use dirt from step 1 to fill in any area not level with the stone.

Meanwhile, the plumbers started work in the front office area.

Step 3: use a special truck to shoot stone into the interior of the building.

Step 4: level the area.

Step 5: repeat.

Finished Up

The foundation was finished on Monday evening. Then on Tuesday, the block crew finished the first two courses of brick for the entire building.

Here’s a picture of the completed work.

More Footers and More Block

Over the course of the past week, the footer on the north interior wall and the exterior west wall were completed. Then the first two courses of block went up.

The east wall has one addition: the dock. The dock required a deeper hole.

Extra reinforcement is also needed.

Here’s the completed dock area footer.

Due to the complexity of the southeast corner, only half of the east wall was completed.

Thursday, the concrete crew got to work on the south wall. The crew works on tying in the extra reinforcement to the south footer.

Since rain was in the forecast on Thursday afternoon and Friday, the block crew got to work on the southeast corner Thursday. Here’s the dock area Thursday afternoon.

While I was out at the site taking pictures Thursday afternoon, it poured. Fortunately, the rain let up enough for the concrete crew to get part of the footer poured late Thursday afternoon.

Friday was another rainy day.

Reinforcement

The Data Cave facility is going to be one strong building.

One of the many things we have done (or plan to do) is to dig deep footers and use a massive amount of rebar.

Below is a picture of where two interior footers meet. Notice the amount of rebar in this small space.

And here’s the finished product.

A Short Week

Due to the holiday and some inclement weather, the crews only worked just over three full days.

Tuesday morning began with a majority of the interior footers constructed.

A few members of the block crew arrived on Tuesday to layout block.

In the meantime, the concrete crew continued on with the footers. Pictured below is the interior east wall.

Here is another picture of the interior east wall. This shot was taken during the concrete pour. The individual in the foreground is placing the rebar for this footer.

Later in the week, the block crew started the first two courses of brick.

Before the block crew got too far along, we ran additional conduit inside the building. This conduit will allow us to connect the two separate fiber connections together.

Unfortunately rain kept the crews from working most of the day Friday. Here’s a picture of the entire site from late Thursday, as you can see, quite a bit was completed.

Data Suite: Outlined

I visit the construction site at least twice a day. Now that the footers are underway, you can really get a feel for the layout of the building. It’s one thing to see an 84,000 square foot building on paper and another to see the orange paint on the ground marking the corners.

Since the crew has completed the majority of the interior footers, the size of each individual data suite has come to life. The size of the footers gives a false sense of the actual room size so I’ve added a blue outline to better show each data suite. Each of these 28 data suites is 1323 square feet and will accommodate up to 80 racks.

Footers

With all of the conduit in place, the next item on the schedule was the footers.

In order for the building to withstand up to 200 mph winds, the footers are wider, deeper, and have lots of rebar. The interior south wall footer was the first to be poured and was four feet deep by four feet wide.

Here is the completed interior south wall.

The crew moved on to the interior hallway. They began by digging a long trench.

Then they poured the concrete.

Rebar gets set into the concrete. Less reinforcement is needed in this interior hallway; therefore, the footer is only 2 feet wide by 2 feet deep and the rebar is into the concrete after it’s been poured.

And finally, a completed interior hallway.

During the second half of the week, the crew started the footers for the data suites. This footer is the same depth and size as the south interior wall.

Just for good measure, here’s the view from the southeast corner of the building.

Up next: more footers.