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Surface Specialist Pumps The View II at Temple University
Temple University continues to expand their campus by adding new student housing at the corner of 11th St. and Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Owned by the Goldenberg Group and designed by Niles Bolton Associates from Atlanta, GA, the building will be a mixed-use dormitory and retail facility. Intech Construction was contracted to build the structure having a large "U" shape that faces South and totals over 330,000 GSF. The building is constructed using pre-cast plank to create the floor slabs. The plank sections do not lay flat enough for the proper construction of the interior finishes with camber of up to 3 inches. Intech contracted Surface Specialist, LLC to provide a flat surface on each floor for the installation of Luxury Vinyl Tile and Carpet flooring finishes. Intech Construction has had a very long and successful business relationship with Surface Specialist says its Principle and Owner, Tim Fahey. The Estimator and Project Manager of Surface Specialist, Andy Bailey has been overseeing the production as they tackle one floor at a time starting on the 3rd floor East wing and moving up to a new floor every week. A typical floor on the East wing is approximately 14,000 SF, but the 4th, 5th, and 6th, floors also include the bridge that is the bottom of the "U" shape and add an extra 6,600 SF to the pours on each of those floors.
To facilitate the pumping of such volume of material Surface Specialist utilizes a state of the art pumping system to pump the USG Levelrock product. The special blend-on-site pump truck involves a 1st truck that contains the concentrate cement in three large hoppers and delivers exact amounts of Levelrock concentrate to a mixing container. A second truck called a sand slinger delivers the mix sand to a separate hopper that delivers the precise amount of sand to the mixing container where the dry mix of Levelrock concentrate and sand are blended and dropped into a second container where the water is added, mixed and then pumped through a 3 inch hose up to the floor. Inside the building, the Surface Specialist crew of 4 to 5 men work steadily to pour the product, smooth the material and 2 to 3 men to handle the hose, pulling it in and out of the units on the floor and down the hallways. The advantages of this pumping system is:
- No airborne silica dust enters the building in 100% compliance with the new OSHA regulations
- No small bags have to be loaded into the building prior to pumping. The trucks arrive with the cement concentrate in three separate hoppers (No supersacks or crane arms to use) and the sand in a second truck with a sand delivery belt to deliver to the sand hopper.
- No small bag mixing inside the building typically resulting in trash removal and disposal and wet, dusty/muddy areas where the small bag mixing station was set on each floor
In order to correct the concrete plank substrate to a smooth flat surface, each floor must be surveyed ahead of time, marked and pinned in millimeters using level pegs that are cut to the appropriate height, and stuck on the floor to indicate high and low areas. Pouring to the tops of the pins placed throughout each floor ensure a flat substrate to the standard upon which the interior fit-out and flooring finishes can be properly installed.
The install process becomes more challenging as the crew moves up to higher and higher floors upon which our underlayment material is placed. Our scope eventually tops out on the eighteenth floor! Our advanced pumping system is designed to deliver such heights with no problem. "We are about half way through the entire project", commented Andy Bailey, "and everyone is happy with the progress".