Education

EnviroVantage Participates in UNH Food Fight

Durham, NH – Remember the scene from Animal House where the infamous food fight breaks out?

Well, the food fight at The University of New Hampshire isn’t quite like that, but a press release from UNH Media Services has described the situation like this: “Starting in late August, you won’t need to stalk almost-done diners in order to get a seat during rush hour at HoCo (Holloway Commons). This project will add 350 seats to the dining hall, meaning you’ll be able to linger over your lemon chicken minus impatient glares.”

The $10.5 million expansion of the main dining facility, which included demolition, renovation, and addition, was designed to have a garden terrace theme, bringing the outdoors into the building. The renovation plans added two new seating areas on and over an existing rooftop terrace; the building’s central stairway and elevator shifted, moving all exterior mezzanines into additional indoor seating areas; and a rubberized rooftop was added.

The day after graduation 2015, the largest addition to a dining hall in the history of the UNH began. Headed by general contractor North Branch, first through the door was demolition specialist EnviroVantage (EV), whose owner, Scott Knightly, a graduate of UNH, has partnered with the school on numerous projects and was keenly aware of the expectation of quality of work and the no-nonsense timeline to have this project completed before the students returned at the end of August.

EV project manager Troy Purington did his homework and, in collaboration with North Branch, identified the challenges that were to follow and the solutions.

Getting in and out of a building built on a hill, getting waste and demo materials sorted internally and then out, saving 20-foot windows plus heavy recycling, all while “being quiet” so as not to disturb the active building adjacent to HoCo were all on his starter list.

Purington praised onsite manager North Branch by saying: “North Branch was a wizard in helping to coordinate this. We can get more people, more materials, more equipment, more money, more resources, but we can’t get more time, and North Branch’s’ ability to synchronize all the trades was masterful.”

On August 26, 2015, classes began once again on the beautiful Durham campus, and all the students saw upon their return were more tables in the dining hall and more food areas to choose from.

What they didn’t see was how EnviroVantage set the table for this 100-day project that culminated with a renovated dining hall and a major addition, by performing: 1) demolition in stages and phases, including weekends; 2) utilization of lulls and Scissorlifts; 3) cutting-edge equipment, including the BROKK 100 and the SHERPA 100; 4) removing 255.89 tons of waste; 5) recycling windows, steel, brick, metal, and concrete; 6) zero work days lost; and 7) zero OSHA violations. Less chance for a food fight (no promises)!

-more-

Purington and his team overcome the challenges with the following game plan:

  1. Strategically placed lulls to hoist equipment and waste containers in and out of the building.
  2. Waste chutes off the side of a multi-story balcony allowed workers to quickly and efficiently dispose of the rubble
  3. Construction Buggies to separate waste materials.
  4. A recycle plan that included segregating all waste materials by task, by area, and by quantity to allow for recyclables to be separated out.
  5. Dumpsters lined up at the loading dock, near the service elevator so the Buggies could rapidly unload their contents into specific dumpsters for recycling and general
  6. Specific dumpsters for steel, brick, metal, concrete and general were designated and loaded by category to increase the green capabilities.
  7. Staging and main lifts to remove the 20 foot high glass panes that spanned the side of the building and then the frames cut in to sections so they could be loaded out so they could be recycled as a greenhouse offsite.