Glass!!

So on Friday the 6th the glass went in. Now it really looks like the "Jewel Box" we all imagined. Very exciting. The elevator will take some time to come. No one can really explain why but everyone agrees that elevators always take a long time. You can see that there is a stair case as well as an elevator so it is not just an entrance for "disabled people" but for everyone who chooses for whatever reason to come in this way.

Someone said today that someone else had asked them why we didn't just get a ramp. The answer is that in order to make a ramp this high we'd have to fill our back yard with concrete... it takes many many yards of ramp to reach this height and I have no idea how one would ramp down to the basement... And we deliberately chose not to solve the vexed question of access by adding anything that could be seen from the FRONT of the church since our facade is so much admired, etc.

In the picture above you can see an enormous great electrical box for... some reason... I know the elevator needs a reliable new source of power and I believe that we've done something to make sure the organ blower has the power it needs as well.

Organ Progress

And in case you thought we had forgotten about it:
Juget Sinclair continue working away on the organ. Here are two recent pics, one of the console and the other of ... er... some other organ part. I think it is actually something like a pipe chest, part of the way that the winding (air under pressure) goes into the pipes to make sound. I'm sure John or someone else on the committee will correct me. If they are reading this.
And here are some pics of the "test bore" to see how thick the floor of the choir loft (or ceiling of the narthex closet, depending on your point of view is) and to make sure that there will be nothing in the way of making a larger hole for the wind supply. The blower for the organ will be in the top of the (very tall) narthex closet, leaving the closet still usable for storage, and there will be a conduit of some kind bringing the air to the organ in the gallery.

Looking a lot more like a building...

While I was in Baltimore, reading General Ordination Exams, the steel framing for the structure of the building was delivered by a giant crane and put up. Then this past week the focus of work has been electricity. The side of the church facing the alley now has huge new cabinets of... I'm not sure of what. Something electrical. As I understand it, by the time this is all done, the telephone and electricity wires for all three buildings will be buried, and the church's electrical service will be upgraded. Meanwhile the cabinets for the new vesting room/sacristy space have been delivered. It is all pretty exciting stuff!

Breaking Through

This past week, the builders broke through into the church building on the basement (or if you prefer "undercroft") and nave levels. They filled in the gaps with plywood.

This slide show shows the work from almost the beginning.

Towards the end of the slideshow you can see what they did this week. If you prefer, you can look at the Saint Mark's Construction album on Flickr. In addition to the plywood entrance places, they have dug into the AA room floor and semi-demolished the shelving down there in order to do the necessary plumbing for the new sacristy and disabled access bathroom.

In addition the contractors have been laying underground conduit for the electricity(which has been coming from an overhead line via a pole which has had to be taken down to make room for the new construction.) So pay special attention to the last sixteen slides.

Also, if you are wondering why we need to consider doing some additional work on the AA room, you can look at these pics. The asbestos flooring in the AA room and the "purple room"... soon to be the "entrance" from the elevator at undercroft level has been removed and some asbestos pipe insulation is being removed also.

Construction

So work started in earnest some time in November. The digging machines came and soon found something called "shale" which turns out to be some kind of clay which is so hard it is almost stone and requires the geotech guy to come in and evaluate and the contractor to rent some additional stone breaking type equipment. Apparently there is a lot of shale under the Hampton Village Mall which has caused some problems. The geotech guy looked around our basements and said we didn't have their problems. Still, it did mean on the second day of work we had about $4,000 extra expense. The architect was philosophical. "This is why we budget for contingencies." But as Marylen the deacon said, "Yeah, but you don't usually expect to have contingencies the minute you start the work."

Apart from that all seems to be going well. This process involves some sudden activity, like when the contractor called on the Monday before Thanksgiving to say we needed to clear out the purple room and vesting area (which were pretty much but not totally cleared out) by FRIDAY. I , of course, was on vacation (as I often am during property crises, like the time the fridge died and the time the sprinklers went berserk. Just a coincidence...)

The fabulous parish secretary Carol E. summoned help from various vestry persons and Kelly L. (since Altar Guild is most adversely affected by this project) and everyone moved things and all was well. Apparently in our future there will be some weeks when the AA room will be unavailable so that the contractor can connect the new sacristy and disabled bathroom plumbing to the sewer. And some electrical work will need to be done, I believe, affecting that space. I think we can accomodate the group in the parish hall... And of course under the carpet in all the spaces the contractors are working on there is asbestos tile....

So it goes on. Today they were pouring the foundations and you can begin to see the dimensions of the whole project. There were countless trucks parked on the grass around the construction. Rather impressive for such a physically small project.

Louis Stiller has been our faithful roving photographer and you can see his work (more or less in chronological order) on the St Mark's Flickr site which is here.

Link to the Flickr page or check back often since Louis takes new photos every week to chronicle our progress.

Immediately?

Click on any picture to see it full size.


I told you the name of this blog was ironic. It is a month since I posted about the great flood. Things are moving along nicely in the basement of the Proehl Center, where Service Master's restoration department are replacing the panneling and door surrounds and even the vanity in the bathroom. It should be done this week, although probably not in time to put all the rummage in the basement in order for the vestry to have lunch with the Bishop there... We'll decide about that by the end of today.

Anyway, these are pics of the basement work in progress. Where there was drywall, as in bathroom, they cut wet part out and replaced it. Where there was panelling, they put panelling, painted white so it will be a little brighter down there.

The elevator/jewel box project, you ask?

Well. I know it just looks like Diestelkamp has just parked the trailer and port-a-potty and gone on vacation but apparently they were waiting for various things they need to be designed and fabricated and for more detail on electrical work and HVAC and... well... they plan to start next week. Kim has been following the project closely and working with the architect and the builders behind the scenes. Apparently, once everything is ready, the project won't take long at all...

Meanwhile in Montreal, Juget-Sinclair are almost half way along with the organ. I guess that will go in another post.

FLOOD!!

Never a dull day here at St Mark's!

This morning, the guy who was digging with a backhoe for the lateral sewer line of our across-the-street neighbor dropped a boulder on the water main and it broke, overwhelmed the sewers and water came up through the drains in the church furnace room and Proehl Center basement. It came up to the first step in the PC basement, throughout the basement. It has receded now, leaving mud and, um, sewage. Patricio's helper discovered it in the church, then he got Carol and they checked the other basements.

The Water Dept. came quickly and shut off all the water on the block, I called Church Insurance and by the time I am writing this (3:12) Service Master has already started work on drying and decontaminating the basements, the adjuster has come, the HVAC guy will be coming to be sure it is safe to turn on the heat/air.



I'm pretty impressed, to tell you the truth. Church Insurance will negotiate with the company that was working across the street.

Service Master may also need to cut out the skirting board and possibly part of the paneling and/or sheet rock in PC basement if they are badly enough water damaged to be replaced -- which they probably are. So it is going to be a huge job but every effort is being made to assure that there will be no residual mold/smell.

Many of the items Kathy has collected already for rummage will have to go. Some are still dry and can be saved. I think that the altar guild stuff has been stored high enough up on shelves to be okay.

I don't imagine that any of this will be a problem for Sunday worship unless it is very hot or very cold and there is a problem with the HVAC which can't be fixed tomorrow.