The state of Rhode Island aimed to expand and renovate the facilities at the Veterans Home along Metacom Ave. There are currently more than 37,000 veterans from WWII, the Korean War and Vietnam living in Rhode Island.
The first order of business for Wolfe was to cut, saw and hammer through the ledge rock that the tower was built on so the carry line could be right at floor level in the tower. This process took several weeks to get the two W14x370 inner main beams and the two W14x342 inner cross beams installed and clamped to the two W14x283 outer main beams and the two W14x257 outer cross beams. Once four beams were installed and grouted up tight to the stone wall, eight W10x54 beams were used to needle in between the crossers and mains and four W6 beams to carry the interior water tank. All of the beams were shimmed and grouted tight to the underside of the stone walls to create a solid area for the weight of the walls to transfer down to the beams.
With all the steel installed, 50t crib jacks were set up in the eight crib piles and hooked up to a 12 port Buckingham jack machine. The tower was then lifted up several feet to make room for a machine to get under it and hammer out the remaining ledge rock down to the surrounding grade level. As the last of the rock was pushed out from under the tower, four Buckingham power dollies and four Buckingham coaster dollies were rolled into place and clamped up to the outer main beams and cross beams.
As the tower came over the new Mat Slab foundation, the smart steer system made the final alignment of the tower a non-issue. Once in place, the dollies were replaced with crib piles and the tower was lowered down to its permanent elevation and then blocked off for the masons to do their work.
After the foundation had been partially built up, the company returned to the site to remove the needle beams.
