Slot Them In!

Excess earth on the bottom of the -3 meter were cleared away to prepare the shoring for panel installation.
Upon reaching -3 meter level, the concrete panels for shoring began to be installed. Each panels were slotted in one on top another as the bottom slid down.
A nice verticle embankment after the panels were neatly installed. Next will be the Dewatering!

Door Of Opportunity

Intermission

I was down with the Flu. A combination of a) abnormally late nights out in cold January desert, b) a string of unsuspected extra holidays, c) sudden freedom on wheels, and of course d) that long mission trip to Fujairah where the carpet bugs hit.
For two days my long hardened (yeah!) body was battered to the bed with only a couple litre of mineral water bottles and suspiciously ineffective band of medicines. Someone might have come by and done several amputations to my limbs without me realizing it. Only by the third day, I finally managed to drag myself to sit up and look around the cell like bedroom, kicked the empty mineral water bottles out of the way and walk out to the kitchen room.
On the fourth day I watched DVD - Family Man : starred by Nicholas Cage and Tea Leoni. I managed to hold on until the last few scene when the character Jack shouted across the crowded terminal departure gate in his last attempt to convince Kate to stay (for a cup of coffee? Not!) - "we are married, we lived in Jersey, we have two kids. Annie is precocious because she speaks her mind....." I could hold it anymore!
Must be the Flu!

Here Comes The Panels

As the H-beams been driven and the surrounding areas been excavated, another phase of the Shoring works started to take place.
Concrete Panels of 1200(w)x1000(h) began to be delivered.Smaller JCB was used to trim further the spaces between the H-beams. In an almost vertical manner, excess sand material were cleared to make way for the installation of the concrete panels.

Playing in the sand

As the Crawler moved sideways driving down the H-beams for the shoring, Excavation works commenced from the center portion. The Activities now resembles a real construction site, after many months of idling.

Big Trucks came and gone within a matter of minutes. Just imagine small kids playing in the sandbox by the seaside and scooping large quantity of sand away to dig holes or build sand castles. How easy it was. The same here.

In no time, the site has changed its elevation to -3.00 meter.

Happy New Year

To all of you that read this blog either by accident or you really like my blog entry or ? Happy New Year 2006! A good friend of mine treated me to a nice New Year bash and to catch up on old times. Actually a good way to spent the evening by reminsicing the past years and resolving the future.

Pile Driver

The Crawler began shoring pile operation by driving 12meter H-beams into the ground along the perimeter of the site. Here was the first test driving of H-beam done in the middle of the site to establish the correct speed and soil bearing conditions.

It took half a day to complete this first stretch. But then please don't look at the trees! We had to 'trim' the trunks and parts that 'interfered' with the vertical locus of the green pile machine hanging from the crawler rig.

1.2 meter approximate distance between H-beams to receive 1.2meter(w) x 1.0meter(h) concrete panels before the excavation operation.

The Crawler

The Big Crawler machine finally arrived to mark the commencement of Shoring and Excavation works. 60% of the site has been approved for earth moving operation by the local authority.

It was also the day when we began receiving visits from local authority officers from various departments. The purpose of this visits it seemed was to get us familiarised with the many forms and document to be filled prior to performing any type of works on site. The proactive nature of these officers differs greatly to those we experience back home. Back then, the only time we will see those so called local authority was when its CFO time.
Back to the Crawler, it was assembled on site within a day and ready for oepration the next day. It will start piling in shoring H-beams approximately 1 meter apart along the perimeter of the plot.

Cables, Cables Everywhere

For start, we had to dig and exposed all cables that could be found around the substation area. Digging in the site was not so much a hassle because it were on the open sandy soil. The oil-filled 33kV cables were again big enough to be located.

Its those smaller cables on the pavement and asphalt area that gave nightmarish moments. They were layers upon layers of cables and pipes and fibreoptics. The deeper the digging, more and more cables were found.

Who would expect that such criss crossing of services existed in the middle of nowhere?

The Works Commenced

This is our first structure wholly managed and built by ourselves - A Temporary Substation!!! 5 days of 24hours cycle supervision in the hot June. Our first contact of how the actual construction procedures and detailings were carried out. This Substation were constructed to allow for the Main Substation located in our site to be decommission so that the actual excavation could be carried out.

View of The Substation that make the whole mess of getting the Approval from the Authority. This structure is located right in the middle of the site with its accompanying incoming and outgoing cables dissecting the area. Since the whole site needed to be excavated, this structure need to be removed and in order to do that the incoming and outgoing cables will have to be relocated and transferred to the the Temporary Substation we built.