Project management
After the Gabriel Contractors crew had placed and compacted crusher-run base material, a rotted water main broke 9 feet beneath the surface, resulting in a surprise complication for completing the parking lot pavement repair.
Water is the Enemy When a water main break interrupts a parking lot project, Gabriel Contractors jumps into action to stay on schedule Project managers know to expect the unexpected, but some surprises on the paving job put scheduling in jeopardy. For Gabriel Contractors of Amsterdam, New York, Inc., the unexpected came in the form of a water main break 9 feet beneath an otherwise normal parking lot reconstruction project. Shortly before the crew was to begin paving a 13,900-square-foot parking lot for AGT Services Inc. of Amsterdam, owned by Mike Bresney, some rotted steel straps far below the surface gave way. With 5 inches plus of standing water swamping their newly placed and graded crusher-run sub-base, the Gabriel Contractors team had a mess to fix that wasn’t part of the original bid. Enter the problem-solving team of Laborer/Operator TJ (Theodore) Schrom, Laborer/Operator Aaron Robinson and Vice Pres-
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ident Kristi Vertucci to keep scheduling on track while delivering quality for the client. The water line was buried exactly 9 feet under the existing, deteriorated parking lot pavement, Vertucci explained. “Here in Upstate New York, the requirement is only 4 to 6 feet minimum to be buried,” she said. “So it’s crazy that it was positioned much further down, yet still broke. It was basically two steel straps around saddle clamps of 10-inch main rotted off; the rot over the years just got worse. And the fact that we were compacting/vibrating the base did not help what was already a disaster waiting to happen. “The rupture was directly underneath where we were already working,” Vertucci continued. “We had prepped the site with crusher-run sub-base, graded and re-graded, and were in the middle of compacting
the last two passes closest to the grass side of the property.”
GET THE JOB MOVING AGAIN
Having a major setback in the middle of a project means delays, which Gabriel Contractors couldn’t afford at the end of October. With the paving season nearing its end and backto-back projects lined up, the team needed to resolve the problem and get the parking lot job completed quickly. That meant there was no time to assign responsibility. “Because the water main was located on the business owner’s private commercial property, the City of Amsterdam was not expected to make the repair, nor was held liable,” Vertucci said. “Instead, responsibility fell on the owner’s shoulders. Even though that was the case, we didn’t wait for permission to proceed with emergency repairs.
