Our Construction Site

November 2006

December first has arrived and a real lot of progress has been made during this last month. It seemed like forever but now we can all see the building beginning to rise above the fence around the project. At the beginning of November we were finishing the concrete floor in the basement area of the new church. Now I will walk you through what has taken place since the last I wrote this report to you. I would like to finally take this time to introduce you to the writer and some of the players in this construction venture. I am Bob Mainusch, member of ECC and of the construction committee. The contractor on the job is Kamal Fouad, General Manager of Al Mahaba Cont. Other active members of the committee are David Winning and John Lan. Each week since the construction began each of these persons meet to go over progress and solve upcoming problems. Even at this point in the construction phase there is a constant review taking place to be sure that everything that was designed into the building will end up being there and working properly. There is no time for rest.

Now for this month’s update. Once the floor was placed and hardened the workers began to build the formwork for the walls. This included all the steel reinforcement bars (rebar) that actually give the strength to the building. Inside the walls are many, many conduits each tied into place within the steel framework. Thousands of steel rebar are placed within the walls and floors. While the walls and floors of the main building are being formed the new main entrance construction was rising even faster out of the ground. The first thing that was truly visible across the wall was that new entry and stairwell area. This area will soon become the new entry into the church and to the upper floor and at that time the existing stairs inside will be demolished so the new main entrance can be completed.

The reinforcement bar all has to be cut to size then bent into its proper shape tied together so it will not move when the concrete is placed inside the forms. The forms are made up of plywood which is carefully held in place and at a very specific space. In the picture the outside of this wall has the plywood already in place and the workers are fastening the steel rebar together to form the inner structure of the wall. Several different sizes or conduit which looks like pipe is then placed inside the forms and tied to the steel. These conduits will later on have electric wires or telephone cables or TV cable or even water pipes run through them depending on the need for that area. All these conduits have to be carefully planned out before the second side of plywood can be fastened to the completed form and the placement of the concrete. Many, many man-hours are spent cutting, placing, tying and wrapping all these different parts together. Then it is checked and rechecked and only after totally being inspected is the concrete poured into the forms. After a couple days for the concrete to harden the plywood forms are then removed and preparation is then made for the next step.

The contractor, Kamal, spends most of his days and into the evening supervising the work that is taking place. In the picture to the right you can see all the steel rebar that has been formed and also the scaffolding that was placed on the new basement floor that was needed to support all the long precast concrete floor pieces that made up the new main sanctuary floor. Those concrete slabs are what is called “hollow core” flooring and each slab was 17 meters long and weighed approximately 22 tonnes.

The next picture shows one of these slabs being lowered to the scaffolding. When all these slabs were in place on top of the scaffolding then the contractor had to be sure that the height for each slab was exactly where it needed to be. When that was done, more rebar was placed on the slabs and the floor of the main sanctuary along with all the conduits for utilities. Again many hours spent assembling and checking to be sure all was properly in place. Next was to place the concrete. This was a single pour that formed not only the floor but also created the exact concrete support for the concrete slabs. This assures that everything is locked together into one solid structure. As the contractor told me, now the real hard part is done. As I had explained earlier the basement and all the work that took place there is so important to have done perfectly. From here on construction should continue at a fairly fast rate.

November ended with the first real look at just how large the new main sanctuary will be. Looking into this last picture you can see the sub floor and the base for the new pulpit with its built in Baptistery. The concrete is kept wet to keep the concrete floor from cracking. This is where I wish everyone could see this personally as I have, unfortunately for safety reasons this is not possible. All I can tell you is that it is now an awesome feeling to see all this coming into being.