Crane in position for the dismantling of the roof structure..
Welcome to my third newsletter about the dismantling of the gas holder.
Documenting the process of the demolition of this beast is an eye opener as I watch small and large segments of the roof being cut away and dropped into the pit of the structure.
From the outside it doesn’t look like too much has happened but I can assure you it has, the contractor John F Hunt has been working carefully to dismantle the roof in the first instance, leaving the sides free for dismantling.
So far almost 500 cubic metres of metal have been removed from the gas holder and taken away in skips for recycling and that’s just from the roof!
As the studio is so near to the site we can occasionally feel the ground rumble as we hear pieces of metal falling, other than that it’s easy to forget that such a vast demolition is taking place just a stones throw away!
There are various viewpoints I choose to photograph from to show the progress and the difference for comparison further down the line, I have access to photograph on site too as some of the photographs below show.
The mobile crane has now been exchanged for a cherry-picker which gives extra stability at height, allowing the team to work under greater wind speeds.
As part of the installation of the new utilities into the development for gas, water, electricity and data, St William will soon be undertaking two trial holes in the pavement outside the project on Station Road East. The purpose of this is to establish the location of the services within the pavement to determine the requirements for any service diversions or reinforcement to the pavement build up.
Other useful information to know is that site investigation has been undertaken at various points around the former Johnsdale car park, and there is more to be done around the gas holder in the coming weeks.
This work involves hand digging small trial holes for soil sampling, then cable percussive and rotary drilling to establish the depth and description of the geological make-up of the ground.
The gas holder is going to look very different this time next month as the sides come down reducing the height bit by bit.
I’ll be out and about during the course of next month photographing the different stages, it should be virtually down by the end of April, let’s hope the weather is fine and dry so as not to slow down the process.
I went on site this morning, Friday 15th March and wanted to share the latest update photographs as below! The sound of the metal as it is dumped in the container is deceptive, it sounds like it is falling into a huge deep pit as the sound resonates.
That’s it for this month!
To read my first blog please click here and to read the second one please click here.
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Bye for now.
Stella
To read other previous blogs these can be found on the ‘Featured’ blogs below by using the arrows on the right to scroll through the past 30 blogs.
