documents and conducting pre- and post-project underwater inspections of the dam complex to overseeing the construction process, the Ayres team performed excellent work consistently, Petersen said.
“ Always, with a project of this size, there are some tense moments with contractors. There were a lot of minor constructability issues on site,” he said. But he credits Haug and his team with handling those issues while keeping the project on budget and on time.
“ Budget was a huge focus for the County. Ayres made sure it was a big focus for themselves as well,” Petersen said.
The dam renovation project cost about $ 7 million, at least $ 1 million less than the original engineer’ s estimate.
Money also was saved because Ayres’ excellent reputation with FERC allowed for quick approval of its design documents.
“ The good thing about Ayres is they had the kind of expertise on staff that FERC was confident in,” Petersen said.“ Everyone’ s real happy with how the project turned out.”
Additional opportunities presented
So happy, in fact, that the County hired Ayres to plan and oversee the next major project at the Byllesby Dam site – renovating or replacing the dam’ s original powerhouse.
“ When you get a good company and a good project manager, you tend to go with them and continue to go with them,” Petersen said.
Raivo Balciunas, an Ayres architect who will design the powerhouse renovations, said this project poses significant challenges – the first being the sheer age and condition of the structure.“ It’ s in pretty bad shape in some places,” he said.
County officials prefer refurbishing the existing building to tearing it down and building a new structure.
“ That would be the most costeffective approach,” Petersen said.“ But,” he conceded,“ you’ re talking about a building that’ s more than 100 years old. It needs a lot of sprucing up.”
A historic preservation aspect adds to the challenge, Balciunas explained. In essence, the County would like the inside of the building to be
updated with the latest electricalgenerating equipment and other modern amenities, including office and conference spaces, while the exterior of the powerhouse is simultaneously restored to its original appearance, including many large windows that over the years were covered over.“ The County is interested in getting it back to its former glory,” Balciunas said.
A major problem in refurbishing the powerhouse is that the construction methods used in building the structure often deviated from what is laid out in the original architectural drawings, Haug said. None of those deviations ever were recorded.
HD scanning aids process
To know exactly what they’ re dealing with, the Ayres team is using high-density( HD) laser scanning technology in a process known as building information modeling, or BIM.
A survey crew conducted HD laser scans of the entire Byllesby Dam site
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