2004-5 Pipe

2005 01 04 Pipe Install

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Today a few pipe sections were installed, but best of all, those pipe sections went through the now buried dam. That part of this project is now in the past. The forms were also taken off the headwall wings and that structure was finished.

Here's what the opening in the dam looks like when cleaned up.

The concrete at the bottom of the dam looked like it might be a problem, but it turned out that the pipe would clear that with about two inches to spare. Good thing. Nobody was in the mood for more fooling around with this. The contractor uses very accurate laser sighting gadgets to determine elevations and grades, so they were confident of this fit, and they were right.

Here are a couple of shots of pipe being laid through and past the cut in the dam.

Seeing this progress after being stalled for a week getting through that dam was quite nice. Things should move relatively quickly now.

You can see the old pipe in a couple of the above shots. All they have to do is whack it once with the bucket on the excavator and it's smashed into little bits and they can bury it. Good.

The other major accomplishment today was getting the forms off the headwall structure at the tail end of the pipe. This was then finished off and cleaned up and looks good. I knew already that a storm like Gaston would fill this pipe, but I did not know until today that the water velocity at the tail of this pipe in such a storm would be 20 feet per second. That's fast, and a tube of water 5 feet in diameter moving that fast would have a lot of energy.

These guys that built the headwall were really good, and really fast. They has the forms taken down, the concrete all cleaned and surfaced, and they were cleaned up and gone in about 6 hours.

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