Trenching the floor

Concrete work started on Tuesday! First the fancy interior doors were removed for safe keeping.

They used a giant saw to wet cut the floor where the plumbing needs to go, and brought in a skid loader to remove the rubble. This part of the process was noisy but not particularly exciting because it just cuts the width of the saw out of the floor. Aside from everything being wet it’s hard to tell anything has changed. There is a weird 2” thick slab of asphalt (of all things) in the middle of the room which is why you see a lip with some water pooling next to it. If you’ve been to the space when the gym was down there you have probably tripped on said lip.

Then they put the jackhammer attachment on the skid loader to break up the concrete over the trenches. All the rubble was hauled away in a dump truck.

They haven’t dug out the trenches yet, they’re waiting until they’re done driving the skid loader back and forth across the room. Thankfully the concrete was actually relatively thin. In the photos you can kind of see the strata of asphalt over concrete over dirt.

Today they went in and broke up the asphalt. Because pouring asphalt over concrete isn’t a good idea it didn’t adhere very well, which is great for us. It popped up fairly easily.

And no, I did not ask to drive the skid loader. Knowing me I’d run into a column and take the building down.

The asphalt came up so cleanly at first I didn’t realize anything had changed. But now where there was a raised area there is now a bit of an indentation.

Framing continues on the third floor, now that more studs are up you really get a feel for the space. The door on the right goes into what will be the conference room.

This is looking at the mechanical room (left) and another office on the right.

And because nothing ever goes smoothly the front door somehow broke during this process. It literally started pulling apart sideways. I have no idea how, but last I heard the plan was to gently smack it back into the correct shape.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go vacuum the 2nd floor studio for the 800th time.