LATEST SITE NEWS (23^th April 2012) from Project Manager, Robert Siddens:

The excavation to the basement is approaching completion. Once it is complete we will have removed about 8,000m³ of soil which is equivalent to about five Olympic-size swimming pools. The soil is being used to cap an old waste landfill site in Chertsey. The drainage to the new building has started and the foundations are continuing.

The tower crane, which is 38m tall (in order to clear the tallest tree) and 40m in length, is based directly in the centre of the site and will not over-sail any adjacent property. We have chosen a crane that is operated from the ground which has the benefit of avoiding any privacy issues.

The installation of the deep piled foundations is now complete and the tall piling rigs have left the site. The tops of the concrete piles are being incorporated into the foundations. These are called pile caps; they are 1 metre deep foundations made of concrete and steel reinforcement which sit on top of the concrete pile columns to take the load of the building columns.

The walls of the basement have already been built using a system called contiguous piling. Essentially this means putting in over 300 piles next to each other forming the perimeter of the basement. Firstly we have to build a capping beam on this line of piles, similar to the pile caps, then we can excavate out the earth from the area which is to be the basement. This is approximately 2500m³ of London Clay to be dug out and transported to an old landfill site where it will be used for capping of the landfill for landscape reclamation.

To avoid carrying mud onto the road we have installed a bespoke wheel wash system which cleans the wheels of each lorry as it leaves the site. The beauty of the system we are using is that it recycles and filters the water it uses and only occasionally needs topping up. The topping up will be carried out using harvested rainwater from the roof of the house we are using as our temporary site office, therefore not using any extra water during this hose pipe ban period.

Rob Siddens can be contacted on 07813 056494.

OUTLINE CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME:

  January and February 2012:
    •    Contractor takes over the site
    •    Site preparation - hoardings, etc
    •    Tree protection
    •    Demolition of three houses.

  Spring 2012:
    •    Preparation work and piling operations
    •    Excavations and creation of basement
    •    Ground floor slab ready to start superstructure work.

  Summer and Autumn 2012:
    •    Crane erected
    •    Superstructure and frame built.

  Autumn and Winter 2012:
    •    Cladding and external finish work.

  2013:
    •    Internal fitting out
    •    Landscaping
    •    Completion and building handed over to the Charity during Summer of 2013.

  For more information see Morgan Sindall's newsletter (February 2012).

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