The Construction Thread

someone didn't read the address correctly and a shitload of road-building material was delivered to someone else's property.

oops.
 
You have the pex tools. Why did you decide to copper it, instead of buying the Pex fittings, and just pex it in instead?

That's a surprise for me too. They make a ips to pex connector, use the darn things.
His soldering does look good though. Those valves have plenty of options for support.
Now that I've used pex a couple of times, I want to use it everywhere.
 
Need a job?

City faces building bottleneck
By Greg Skinner | JUNEAU EMPIRE

City construction projects worth $60 million are heading into a bottleneck that some expect will clog by or before July 2009, when 17 city building and renovation projects are expected to be going on simultaneously.

City Engineering Director Roger Healy advised the Assembly Public Works and Facilities Committee on Monday that the number of city construction projects is likely to surpass the ability of local designers and contractors to build them.

"You will be delaying at some point," Healy said.

Unless plans change, four major projects, worth a total of $42 million, will go out for bids nearly simultaneously next fall. City employees said the projects could consume the last of Juneau's already thin work force.

In a memo to the Assembly Public Works and Facilities Committee, Healy provided a framework for the Assembly to consider the possibility of delaying some projects and spacing the work out.

Topping Healy's list of projects for possible delay are Juneau International Airport terminal renovations and the new Consolidated Public Works Facility. Each project holds a 15-month construction schedule, and the pair is expected to cost $18 million.

The concern of too much work at once has been on Healy's mind for a year, Assembly member Merrill Sanford said. Construction projects got bunched up by delays in the Juneau-Douglas High School remodel and the four-year delay in building Thunder Mountain High School, he said.

Sanford agreed a problem is forthcoming.

"It just keeps pilling up, and we're going to get into trouble," he said.

Healy told members of the Assembly that intentional delays from a couple of months to a year could keep the city from seeking out-of-state companies to join the building frenzy.

For years, building supplies have carried annual inflation rates of 20 percent or more. Any delay will most certainly raise project costs, Healy said.

"We all know the implications of delaying," Healy said.

Marketing the work, which includes the third phase of Bartlett Regional Hospital's expansion and the Dimond Park swimming pool, to firms facing recession in the Northwest could alleviate congestion. But, Healy said, the idea had local image problems.

"Either way has financial implications," Healy said.

Assembly member Jonathan Anderson said he could consider a delay option if it keeps most of the $60 million in work for local contractors and tradesmen, even if delays cost more in the long run.

"The Assembly does look to the manger's and engineer's offices to give advice," Anderson said.

City Manager Rod Swope said he doesn't favor delaying projects; instead he favors letting the market sort things out by keeping to the schedule.

Healy said Swope's route of letting the chips fall where they may will see some projects fail.

"I'm not advocating delays at this point," Swope said. "I'd have to be convinced that there's an advantage."

Swope and Healy began organizing a meeting Tuesday with the heads at the hospital, pool, airport, public facilities and the school district in an effort to look for suggestions that avoid delays, such as project phasing. Sanford asked that local construction firms be included in the discussions.

Recommendations are expected to be forwarded to the Assembly in early May.
 
Yeah, there's all kind of work up there if you don't mind living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.
 
Yeah, there's all kind of work up there if you don't mind living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.

Actually, the out-of-town companies rent regular homes or house the employees in pretty nice hotels. Here, anyways.
 
That's a surprise for me too. They make a ips to pex connector, use the darn things.
His soldering does look good though. Those valves have plenty of options for support.
Now that I've used pex a couple of times, I want to use it everywhere.

Yeah it does look good. But the pex stuff, would be saving time, and let's face it.

It rocks something fierce.
 
Passing through DC on the amtrak this day I counted 12 rigs without even turning my head, right as the train crossed the bridge into the city.
 
Oh, I was thinking more of the new pipeline and the coal tar sands plants and all that stuff.

Plenty of work up this way. I don't see any major pipeline construction work coming up soon. In Canada, yeah, but not here. Same with the tar sands. Still, there's lotsa work.
 
Plenty of work up this way. I don't see any major pipeline construction work coming up soon. In Canada, yeah, but not here. Same with the tar sands. Still, there's lotsa work.

I just saw something about a Prudoe Bay-Chicago pipeline.

Maybe that's just a second avenue subway-style pipe dream.
 
I just saw something about a Prudoe Bay-Chicago pipeline.

Maybe that's just a second avenue subway-style pipe dream.

That's the proposed gas line, but even if field work (for studies and engineering) was started this year, construction wouldn't start for 5-ish years. Lotsa people want work, so they want the gas line. But, the gas is currently being used to get the oil out of the ground up north. If you send gas away, you won't be able to recover as much oil. My feeling is that the fields should be managed for maximum production, not for a quick buck, today.
 
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