Deaf Church Construction Update

August 23rd

 In the week I have been here, the rain has held off during the days. The carpenters have made a lot of progress on the roof. Here are pictures from Saturday August 23 and Saturday August 30th. The final picture is inside the church showing the bracing that is holding the trusses up as they are constructed. If you click on the picture they get bigger.

August 23

The rafters were built one at a time and in place. They started by nailing two long boards together to make the rafter. These are supported from the floor by temporary supports (last picture). Then more long boards are made and a large triangle with a center brace is made. When the all of the big triangles are finished they added more vertical bracing. Then the horizontal boards on the outside were added. The roofing will be nailed to these horizontal boards. Yesterday and today they finished the block work at the front and started the fascia boards. It looks like they will be able to finish the roofing next week. Then we will see how much money is left for doors and windows.

The block work is pretty good. The width of the front and back of the building are close to the same. Length of the two sides are a little different.

August 30

They made a small error when digging the foundation. The building is 17 meters long instead of the 15 meters in the architects design. This has allowed them to build four raised seating areas rather than the three in the design. In spite of extra 13% of building the construction is staying under the estimate.

August 30

After the roof, the next phase is to construct doors and windows. During construction they decided to make the windows larger. The eight 1200 mm by 1200 mm windows became 1200 by 1500 and the two windows at the front are up to 1200 by 2000. Almost 4 square meters of windows have been added. They will use locally made aluminum casement windows. The window maker will make windows to fit each opening. All the openings are square by sight. I measured a few and they only vary by a centimeter or two. There are several window making shops within a kilometer of the church. I am sure John has his favorite he works with. The windows and doors phase is the least expensive of all the phases. It and the final phase are the most likely to run over-budget.

The final phase, Finishing, is the most costly and the least will defined. This will include adding the Altar (was originally in the first phase,Substructure. Was moved because the design was disagree upon), electrical, plumbing, plastering the walls inside and outside, painting, installing fans and lighting. There is not an electrical or lighting design. These were put in as lump sum costs estimates. I am not sure how the building committee plans on handling the electrical and altar design. The plumbing only included the cost to install a sink and a toilet with a lump sum for connection. I do not know if it will be enough to build a soak away and to connect to the Cathedral water system.

The Copenhagen Deaf Church held a fundraiser this week. They had a bake sale, flea market, fashion show and other things. It looked like great fun and I would love to have some of the food at the bake sale. I hope to work with the Building Committee on some of the details of the electrical and altar designs in the next two weeks I am here. My work with the Demsa Health Centre is mostly complete and my water program work schedule is not heavy. We will continue to put together the parts we need to get the compressor functional and hope to test it on a couple local broken boreholes before I leave.