Project 2:

When Telus calls to move the ductline out of their main office downtown, contractors start to get squirmy. I was a little apprehensive when they explained that they wanted to build a new 24-way concrete encased ductline down 104 Ave, 105 St and 106 Ave. Based on the drawings, the excavation depth had to be better than 2.4m deep. This requires a wide cut and shoring throughout the 700m long job. On it’s own, that’s not a remarkable feat. Try it in -25 degree weather in the shadow of the WCB, OHS, City of Edmonton and client offices and it gets a little more exciting. Once we let the foremen loose on it, they pulled in apart and started in small pieces that we could manage. The holes were deep and the shoring extensive. We went under every utility on the route and had to make concessions to maintain all the business traffic and access for the ambulances and EMS vehicles as we worked across the front of their main dispatch building. Though it took almost 3 months to crawl through the route we planted a mountain of conduit, 4 rather large concrete boxes, and pulled 10 km of cable just to make room for a 4 car train.