Utility Precast---Lubbock Firepit Project

LUBBOCK FIRE PIT PROJECT

Comments from the
City of Lubbock Engineering Department

Utility Precast Helps the Lubbock Fire Department Hold Their Water.

click thumbnails to enlarge images

Lubbock, Texas, is rightfully proud of its first class fire fighting training facility. While dedicated to training new recruits and enhancing the skills of veterans in the training facility, the city of Lubbock was also sensitive to utilizing the area’s water resources efficiently. The solution was to capture the runoff from the training exercises and use it again. Challenge: what do you do with all the runoff?
The City of Lubbock needs a large water storage facility. This brings on several challenges.

Construction of a large underground storage facility could be very noisy and disruptive. The training academy is right next door and this could not be disturbed. In this day and age, it was even possible that a failing student could sue the city for disturbing his opportunity to learn.

A long drawn out construction phase was also out of the question. The area was just to essential and busy to be disturbed for any length of time.

Conventional pour in place construction methods were then not really feasible.

What was the solution?

Well the solution was to convert the pour in place specification into the installation of a precast concrete pieces.

Utility Precast bid on the revised specification and won the bid. The final result was a complete success.

We will point out several notable achievements

Notice the very tight excavation. The excavating contractor saved time by moving fewer materials. The excavation did not require the extra space for construction of pour in place forms.

Instead of an open pit exposed for weeks and potentially months, the entire on-site construction process occurred over 2 days

Let take a quick tour of the process and the time involved if this had been a pour in place project.

Pour in Place construction, in ideal circumstances, would have taken 2 to 3 weeks with good weather. During the actual time of construction in Lubbock, the weather was unusually rainy and could have potentially held up the project for 2 or 3 months.

Lets delve into more details of the pour in place process.

Excavation of the hole would have taken 2 or 3 days. Shoring would have cost about $1500.00. Tying the rebar for the first stage pour would have taken a day. Forming the first stage pour would have taken 2 days. Curing the concrete to strength would have required 3 days. Breaking down the forms for the first stage and setting up the second and 3^rd stage pours would have been a repeat of the first stage process and taken most of 2 more weeks.

4 different trades would have been involved and 3 different city inspection processes would have been required.

Compare that potential experience to the actual pre-cast concrete installation

The excavation contractor came the day before the pre-cast assembly arrived by low-boy and created the appropriate hole in the ground. The pre-cast pieces were installed and back filled in 4 hours. Installation was complete in parts of two days.

In conclusion, Utility Precast was able to help the city of Lubbock, Texas save money, drastically reduce the time of on-site construction and the period of time of exposure to noise, disruption and risk of accidents. We do not know how many students flunked their exams during this period, but we do know that they did not have the excuse that a long construction process diminished their opportunity to learn.

If you have any questions about the applicability of pre-cast construction to help you....

Reduce costs
Improve construction process flexibility
Reduce construction risks
Reduce time requirements
Shrink management needs
Help create a more precise and verifiable construction specification...

Please contact us. We would be glad to help.

We leave the final comments about this project to the City of Lubbock Engineering Department.

“The precast method of construction was utilized since it offered what is considered to be a satisfactory test pit, it shortened the schedule significantly and simplified erection/installation from what would have been required to construct the test pit using a cast in place concrete structure. The excavation was much less than would have been required if fifteen foot high wall forms would have been erected and adequately shored and braced to allow on site concrete placing of the eight inch reinforced wall sections.

The method used allowed the pit to be excavated one day and the unit installed the next day. This eliminated any negative events from occurring when the excavation was open and allowed the excavation walls to remain vertical without risk of cave-in.

The entire length of the schedule for installation of the pit was probably not shortened that much overall but the length of time for field excavation and erection was shortened. The time that would have been spent, if field erection would have been utilized, was instead used for unit concrete casting in a precast yard and then transporting components to Lubbock for installation. The reduction of open excavation period of time and elimination of potential field complications were very positive results of the method employed.”

Harlan