Steel overhead and plumbing underneath! A very interesting plumbing job on this one - they lay out all the pipes on top of the ground, cut for length, temporarily put together all the joints, then when they have it all done and it fits together like the plans, they spray paint the ground along the pipes, remove the pipes, dig the trenches along the paint lines, then drop the pipes in the trenches, permanently join them, cover it all up. The owner of the local plumbing company is also a very colorful character and national celebrity - more on him later...
There are good subcontractors and not so good ones. This is a good one - the CAT scales guys. They come in with a tractor trailer flat bed truck loaded with everything they need to do the job - on the flat bed truck: a pickup truck to get around, a trackhoe to dig the hole, concrete forms, steel, all tools and materials to get the job done. They do all the work, order the concrete, finish the job and are out of there in 4 days. No whining to the superintendent, a very happy man with this crew.
Then there are the not-so-good subs… like the steel guys who
do not have their own equipment. Late Saturday afternoon text, "Your forklift is about to run out of
fuel"
Buddy: "Drive it
across the street and fill it up"
No response.
So Saturday dusk after going to Wal-Mart, a quick visit to
the job to find the forklift completely run dry of fuel, go across the street
with a 5 gallon can to get diesel, put it in the forklift, spend 30 minutes
playing mechanic to bleed the air out of the lines and try to get it started
again.
This is the end of the tunnel on the other side of the expressway. In order to hook up to the sewer, they have to bore under I-35 all the way to the other side, a BIG project:
Never a dull moment around here, a lot going on!
