FINAL REPORT NARATIVE
This course, Building Construction 2014, was designed to help us, as students, “Develop a detailed understanding of construction materials and methods as they relate to quantity take-off, cost management, scheduling and resource management in support of a local construction projects”. Luckily, Virginia Tech is constantly growing in an attempt to stay competitive with all other colleges across the nation, and this growth comes from the construction of new, state of the art buildings all over campus. Not only are the new buildings going to better everyone’s learning experience, but for those of us in the school of building construction, they allow for a type of learning that cant really be found anywhere else. Paired with assignment #1, this class not only gave in-depth information about the subject, but also gave first hand experience in the field.
One great example of how these site visits helped me, is when we were learning about caissons in class; for some reason I was having a hard time understanding the process in which they went into the ground. When our class visited the Center for the Arts building site and I was able to see exactly what went into making a caisson, it reinforced what I already knew about them and helped to explain the parts I was unsure about. Another great example of how the site visits helped me is after learning about soil/cut and fill, I was able to visit the Sigma Phi Epsilon house on Oak Lane as they were beginning their grading process. There I was able talk to watch step by step as the house built its way out of the ground. From basic excavation and seeing the proper way to deal with cutting unforeseen electrical wires, to the proper way of dealing with soft spots under a foundation, the knowledge gained was something that can’t really be taught in a classroom.
Another great aspect of having to do these site visits is the fact that they encouraged me to go inspect the construction of my new fraternity house. Sigma Phi Epsilon is having a 22,000 sq.ft. house built for its brothers to be ready by next school year and although I am excited about the final project I don’t think that I would have visited the job site near as many times as I have if it weren’t for this assignment. I now know so much more about the house than most any other brother and even though this project is done I plan on continuing my visits after Christmas break to see what is actually going into this house. Also, as a brother in Sig Ep, I have a great contact in the assistant superintendent of the project, a soon to be Sig Ep alum. Every site visit I made to the house, as long as he wasn’t in the middle of something he would always take the time and explain to me what had happened earlier in the day and what exactly they were working on when I showed up. Then he would tell me the plan for the rest of the week and whether or not they were on track with their schedule.
From what I have seen with my site visits I feel that the hardest part in building is getting the project out of the ground. There are so many unknown variables that go into getting a building on a proper foundation that they cant all be addressed until they actually come up in the field. The Center for the Arts building was delayed for months because there was an underground river flowing where they were drilling caissons. The Sig Ep house couldn’t poor their footings because of rain and then once they did poor the footings there were three soft spots that had to be fixed before construction was allowed to proceed. Once the building is on a foundation everything except the weather is a lot easier to predict, but when your working underground there is a lot more that can go wrong.
Throughout this project I feel like I learned a lot, however if there was one aspect I could have done better with, I feel that I could have explored pricing jobs better. When I see a construction site now, I am thinking about what kind of foundation it is on, whether its made of wood or steel, the duration of the project, if there was anything I would do differently or better; what I need to start thinking more about is how much does this project cost. I think the reason I don’t think more about pricing is because I don’t have a good grasp on pricing yet so if I were to guess a price it would just be some random number. That is definitely something I can and will focus on next semester though.
Overall this has been a great class and I feel that I have learned a lot from it. I look forward to getting even more in depth with it next semester.
