Marblemount Community Hall Spring Cleaning Work Party 4.5.14

Saturday the 5th of April we had a work party for the Marblemount Community Hall. This was for spring cleaning and work on a few ongoing projects. The weather was kind of nasty, cold, with off and on steady showers but we had a pretty good turn out, probably a dozen or more people. A lot of the people there were the regulars but there were several new faces as well. These people all gave up a big chunk of their Saturday and many worked outside in not the greatest weather to help maintain the Community Hall. I hope all the work will be appreciated. 

The grass hadn’t grown much yet but the lawn was mowed and the parking area edged. The message board was cleaned up and the playground gravel was weeded. In addition, the storage shed in back was cleaned out and organized. A number of bleach bottles had broken, making a mess there and everything was stacked to the point where nothing was accessible. The hall windows were cleaned. Finally, concrete patches were poured on the front steps so the handrail could be reattached.

There is not a lot more to say here. The following photos tell the story better.    

The start of the day. 

Lawn mowing. 

Weed eating. 

Cleaning up grass clippings and cleaning side of hall. 

Edging parking lot asphalt. This is important if you don't want your parking lot eventually taken over by grass. The grass traps soil and adds to the area available for it to grow. Edging removes the trapped soil (mostly sand and road grit) and grass growing on the asphalt. 

Sprucing up around the hall reader board. 

Cleaning the reader board. 

Weeding the playground gravel. 

Cleaning the windows in the hall. 

Starting to clean out the storage shed in back of the hall. 

Storage shed cleaning and sidewalk cleaning in progress. 

The hand rail for one side of the front steps was torn off a few years ago. We made a patch in order to remount the hand rail. The first step was to clean the existing concrete so the concrete of the patch would bond to it better. 

An electric powered wire wheel was used to clean the existing concrete. 

Next holes were drilled in the existing concrete in order to anchor reinforcing wire for the patch. 

Adding reinforcing wire. 

Reinforcing wire completed. The concrete of the patch will bond with the wire making the patch stronger.  Both repair areas had reinforcing wire added to them. 

The concrete of the patch probably wouldn't get down into the holes for the reinforcing wire so we anchored it with a product called Rockite which appears to be a special compound of mortar and other substances. They make really good epoxies for anchoring things in concrete these days too. The Rockite was good because it was simple, you mix it with water and, since we didn't need a whole lot of anchoring compound, we could make a small batch and not waste most of a tube of expensive epoxy.   

Fitting the forms for the patches. We put the tarp up to protect ourselves from the rain as well as protect the concrete patches from the rain. Rain will prevent the concrete from setting up. 

Drilling holes to anchor forms to the existing concrete. 

Screwing the two halves of the form together. 

The finished form. 

Mixing concrete for the patch. We used Quickrete which is pre mixed concrete. Again, fairly simple, just add water. The tricky part is to get just the right amount of water. 

Pouring the concrete into the patch forms. 

Working the concrete into the form. The sides of the form are tapped to try to make sure no voids are left in the concrete. 

Finished patches. We placed an old tarp over the patches to protect them from the rain so they would set up. 

Close up of patch. When the patches set up, the handrail will be set in place and holes will be drilled in the patches for new anchor bolts. The anchor bolts will be secured with Rockite or epoxy.