The Concrete Industry Management (CIM) program - a business intensive curriculum that awards students with a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Concrete Industry Management - recently assisted a local domestic violence shelter near the California State University (CSU), Chico campus building two houses in nine days. The CSU students gave up their vacation time to help Catalyst Domestic Violence Services - a nonprofit organization committed to serving the needs of all domestic violence victims and their children.
The mission of Catalyst is to prevent and reduce the incidence of domestic violence in Butte County by intervening in the cycle of violence through crisis intervention services and community education. Catalyst provides temporary living facilities for victims of domestic violence. Chico State took on the name Blitz Build for this project, because of the short time they had to complete the construction. After initial site preparation and concrete work early in December, construction of the houses began on Jan. 16 and was completed on Jan. 24. The two 840-square-foot transitional housing units are located adjacent to the new Catalyst Housing Facility on Ivy Street. The future residents of these homes will have the opportunity to rebuild their lives during an 18-month period. Hundreds of people will inhabit these houses and reap the benefits.
The CIM students worked along with the Construction Management students at CSU and assisted with the concrete portion of the project which included foundations, slabs-on-grade, sidewalks and driveways. "Many of our students worked on the entire project," said Tanya Wattenburg Komas, CIM Program Director. "A tremendous amount of planning was undertaken by students, advisors, and community volunteers, and the outcome was fantastic. The concrete work showcases an aesthetically pleasing acid stain appearance, while providing an environmentally friendly application." Chico State CIM patrons donated nearly all of the materials and equipment for the concrete.
A focus of the design and construction of the houses was on gaining LEED certification. To that end, the decision was made to decoratively finish the concrete slabs rather than cover them with floor coverings such as tile or carpet. This meant that special considerations had to be taken into account during the entire construction process to ensure that the slabs were protected from stains and scratches. As it was, pouring the slabs was delayed nearly a month due to unforeseen permitting issues. When concrete work did commence, temperatures had dropped below freezing so that measures to protect the curing concrete from freezing had to be undertaken, including blankets and thick layers of straw.
Although difficult to deal with, the situation did provide students from all involved departments on the Chico campus with a great learning opportunity. With a greatly condensed schedule due to the delay, CIM students, with the help of industry experts, were able to complete initial grinding of the slab prior to the start of construction but the planned staining and sealing was not possible due to rain. Without a sealer to protect the slab, construction proceeded with the concrete floors protected simply by special environmentally friendly protection blankets.
After seven days of construction, the houses were substantially complete. CIM students arrived at 10 p.m. as the second construction crew of the day was leaving. They worked through the night to finish the floors, including applying two coats of a new lithium-based, pigmented densifyer in modeled brown and black, three burnishing passes using succeedingly finer pads, and two coats of a lithium-based sealer, each followed by burnishing to achieve the final modeled, dense, polished surface. The student construction crews arrived the next morning and over the next two days installed baseboards and finished the last details. On Saturday morning, furniture arrived and the keys to the houses were ceremonially handed over to Catalyst leaders that afternoon at a celebration barbeque.
Despite the touch-and-go schedule and torrential rain for most of the time, the houses were completed one day ahead of schedule and were awarded LEED Gold Certification. Christina Pantera, a senior at CSU and a leader on the site during the building process commented, "There are things I think you can learn in the classroom, but really this project has gotten tons of people together and it's neat to see it all come together."
This project will continue next winter break and the CIM students are proposing to include more concrete and concrete products in the two structures that are being planned for the next phase.
