Milestone

Framing on classroom side of Milestone Achievement Center. All steel stud 20 gauge.

Milestone is a private school for seriously emotionally and mentally challenged children. Any child the local public schools can't handle will be sent here. We have been doing work for the them for a couple of years now. It seems that the need for this type of physicality is growing because they bought the building a few months ago. We are working with Wiligrod and MacAvoy architects. We gutted the whole second floor except for the drop ceiling and lighting. This makes it a little more challenging for us but saves the customer a ton of money.

According to code if you are remodeling more than 50% of the space you are required to install all new t8 florescent fixtures. After doing some calculations I figured the cost of the old lights and then removal the old t12 lights would be around $5,000.00. This does not take into account land fill, wasted resources and the environmental impact.

New t8 would cost about $10,000.00 This includes all new wiring. So to save 2 KWH per light fixture at .10 a KWH would save about $350.00 a year in electricity.

SO you spend about $16,000.00 to save $350.00 a year. I'm all for going green but only when you look at the total picture.

This is a picture of the administration side.

Andrew the electrician doing his thing. Andrew works for Mark Freese Electrician Inc. These guys are great guys to work with.

This is Max one of my employees. He is very interested in making construction a career. I am sure one day he will have his own company. He is a real take charge kind of guy. Tries to boss me around sometimes.
This is Kevin, another employee. He is one of the best workers that has ever worked for me. Nothing is a problem with Kevin. He is a real pleasure. He is also learning the trade. Kevin is a plumber by trade but right now he is trying something new. We are glad he is.

Tree moving day. We moved all the nice trees that were in the center of the lot where we are placing the house. Our plan is to shield the house from the 12th tee so we won't get hit with golf balls and have to say hi to all the golfers. They are to the west of the house so we won't loose any sun. Sean you must recognize some of the guys. That's Paul getting into the Bobcat. Jeramey ran the backhoe. The lot is now ready so we can start the basement and foundation. They are calling for rain the next few days so we will see what happens. Also the township codes officer Julie Shields has some concerns about the set backs so I will be meeting with the township engineer on Friday.

Trees all moved. This is where the house is going to go.

Lot 88 Land clearing and well

This is what the lot looked like when we purchased it. Below is how it looks after we removed all the debris and leveled the lot.

We drilled the well and hit a reserve of water that supplies 50 gallons a minute. We used Eichelbergers, Inc to drill the well. Drilling a well is always a risky proposition. You get an estimate from the well driller based on his past experience in the general area but there are no guarantees of hitting water. You can drill several hundred feet and not hit a reserve of water. I am glad to say we drilled 280 feet and hit a generous supply of water. 50 gallons a minute. The first 80 feet we drilled an 8" diameter hole then 220 feet at 6". After drilling the hole we inserted a 6 5/8" steel wall casing 81 feet down from the top. Finally we put a cap on the well head.