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Flat Floors For Wheaton
Field house of new $10M sports center of Norton, MA college has special floor laid on very flat surface established by laser-guided mini-grader.
Sports-minded students at Wheaton College in Norton, MA, are playing on a very flat surface made possible in part by an extremely accurate, miniature grader supplied by a Granite State contractor. Precision Grading Co. of Danville, NH, used its patented Laser-Grader to level the 54,000 square-foot floor of the college's new field house, a key element of a 100,000 square-foot recreational facility being built by general contractor Stone Construction of Norwood, MA.
Wheaton, a 150 year-old women's college that turned coed a few years ago, is expanding its recreational facilities to accommodate the change. Designed by architects Sasaki associates of Watertown, Ma, the new $10 million recreation center consists of the field house, a natatorium housing a near Olympic-sized pool, a gymnasium, and a central core of offices, locker rooms and storage rooms. Project Management Associates of Hopkinton, MA, is representing the college during the construction of the new complex.
The largest component is a pre-engineered steel Pasco Building erected by subcontractor New England Construction of Rumford, RI. Inside this arched 50 foot tall structure are five doubles tennis courts, a six-lane running track and full-sized basketball courts - all laid out with official NCAA markings on a Mondo floor. This half-inch-thick rubberized floor, manufactured by Mondo Rubber International Inc. of Laval, Quebec, is supported by a bed of 2.5 inches of asphalt concrete, a leveling course of recycled asphalt product (RAP) and structural aggregate fill.
Subcontractor Precision Grading established the level surface for all of the ensuing work when it smoothed out the RAP supplied by Simeone Corp. of Stoughton, MA. Precision Grading's diminutive grader, measuring only 11 feet long by four feet wide and weighing about as much as a compact car, leveled the RAP to within a strict tolerance over a layer of structural aggregate fill placed by another subcontractor, Lopes Construction Inc. of Taunton, Ma
According to the job specifications, variations in smoothness of the final surface of the 300 foot by 180 foot floor had to be less than or equal to 1/8th of an inch when tested with a ten-foot straightedge in both directions. This corresponds roughly to an F-Number of 50, Very Flat Floor, used to measure the flatness of concrete floors.
Manufactured by Precision Manufacturing Inc. an affiliate company, the mini-grader reacts automatically to the flashing beacon emitted by a Spectra-Physics EL-1 laser, raising and lowering its moldboard to produce the precise flatness required for the job. Designed and patented by Leo Paradis, the grader is equipped with two laser beacon receivers and a control box mounted in front of the operator. Unusually sensitive hydraulics combined with the Spectra-Physics Laser-Plane System produce quick, minute adjustments in the elevation of the six-foot moldboard - as many as eight times per second - to achieve an accuracy not possible with a manually controlled blade.
Once the RAP was leveled to the extremely close tolerance, Simeone placed a 15 inch course of bituminous concrete, and followed this about a month later with a dense, one inch wearing course, maintaining the accurate grade established by Precision Grading. Finally, subcontractor Floors, Inc. of Wakefield, MA installed the Mondo floor system, laying 12 foot wide rolls of the specialty covering over the entire surface and permanently sealing the seams. Floors Inc. laid down two types of Mondo covering - Sportflex for the tennis and basketball courts, and spike-resistant Super X for the track.
The new field house was expected to be open for all activates by the end of January, and will be employed for recreational uses as well as intramural and intercollegiate events.
Precision Grading Company
16 Peggy's Cove Rd
Alton Bay, NH 03810
Phone: 603-875-1588
Cell: 603-553-6808
E-mail leo@lasergrader.com
Precision
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