Site Visit #2: Site Work
In addition to typical site work like excavating, grading, paving and landscaping this site required the installation of two retention ponds and stone to be laid in order for construction to proceed through the wet winter months. All of this was required in order to meet code. This project was completed in Akron, Ohio as a low-income housing project. The general contractor was a co-owner and subbed out all of the work.
Because this location was in what is considered a “tree city”, every tree that was cut down to make room for construction has to be replaced with new trees on the site at the end of the project.
In regard to excavation, a large amount of fill dirt was scraped off the site it was originally estimated as a balanced site, but it has now been determined that extra fill will need to be brought in at the end of the job. They had their dirt separated into piles by type. The blacker of the piles was topsoil that was scraped off the site and will be used for landscaping in the final stages of the project.
One interesting thing about this job was that they utilized GPS to control excavation and site work. A central unit, mounted at the corner of the site, supplied live feed info to the excavator and told it exactly where and how far down to dig- down to within a 10th of an inch!
When I arrived, stone was being compacted all-round the site, the stone was gravel mixed with a powderier lime so that it would compact more easily and form a solid surface. two machines were required for this job, one for spreading and one for rolling. It seemed to me that they had a somewhat significant amount of excess material.