SALT LAKE CITY (KSL.com) — Dakotah Hansen is among the crewmembers tasked with digging giant horizontal holes beneath the Salt Lake Temple.
Hansen, a tunneling miner for HDD Willco, a West Jordan development firm that makes a speciality of putting in underground utilities with out utilizing trenches, spends most of his time in digital darkness, chipping away on the deep soil with an air hammer. He’s making approach for a 4-foot broad metal pipe that can fill the house he’s clearing out. He then tosses the dust and rocks right into a automobile behind him that removes the supplies from the positioning.
“We have now to go (down) there and dig all of it out,” he stated, in a video posted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Friday concerning the ongoing temple renovation challenge. “Usually, we attempt to go 6 ft a day.”
His work is part of what’s generally known as the jack and bore technique, which is getting used this summer time to put almost 100 of those pipes beneath the muse of the historic Salt Lake Temple — to maintain the constructing secure in an earthquake. Church officers, of their Friday replace, stated this can be a “key element” within the prolonged means of seismically upgrading the 187-million-pound constructing that opened in 1893.
Brandon Rowley, the superintendent over seismic upgrades for Jacobsen Building, defined that pushing the pipes into place beneath the muse is the “jack” portion of the strategy’s title. “Bore” refers back to the course of that clears out the house for the pipes.
It’s a course of that’s usually used when trenches aren’t possible, reminiscent of laying pipes beneath roads or railways, according to the engineering and construction firm, Dewberry.
A boring machine is usually used on this technique; nevertheless, Rowley stated, this challenge makes use of handbook labor due to the “accuracy that we’d like” below the temple. Crewmembers like Hansen hand measure the place to dig earlier than drilling away and eradicating dust and rock.
“They’ve bought to go in just about excellent each time,” Hansen stated, concerning the pipes.
As soon as in place, a cement and sand-based grout is used to fill within the areas between the pipes to make sure there isn’t a spot between the muse and new piping beneath it. A rebar cage can also be hauled in and inserted inside each pipe to make the pipe stronger.
Brad Bohne, common superintendent with Jacobsen Building, provides that as a result of the temple’s weight is unequally distributed, engineers took loads of time customizing each underground pipe to make sure it’s sustaining the correct quantity of stress to stability the load equally.
Church officers clarify that the placement of the pipes must be exact as a result of they’re the underground element of an “intricate system” of cables, rods, trusses and switch beams that journey from beneath the muse all the best way as much as the temple’s roof and spires. One of many subsequent steps is to run a set of cables by way of the temple partitions that can join the highest of the constructing to the brand new pipe casings underground.
This technique will enable the constructing to maneuver as “one stable construction” when there’s an earthquake, officers stated.
As soon as the jack and bore course of is full, Bohne stated a “large, heavy” concrete footing shall be put in beneath the pipes. Near 100 base isolators shall be put in between the pipes and footing. Each one among these isolators can help 800 million kilos of weight, serving as bearings throughout an earthquake.
There’s additionally a beam that shall be put in to maintain and jack and bore pipes collectively for extra help.
“All of that works as a complete system to create a brand new basis for the temple,” he stated. “It’s a fully important a part of that system.”
Different development updates
In the meantime, different parts of the large Temple Sq. renovation challenge are additionally taking place whereas the constructing will get a brand new basis.
- Renovations to the Important Road Plaza started in April, with the enormous reflection pool, gardens and different ornamental landscaping being eliminated to restore and waterproof the decking that covers the parking storage beneath Temple Sq.. New stonework and pavers are changing the outdated landscaping and pathways within the plaza between State Road and the temple.
- A brand new “contemplative” backyard house can also be being put in northwest of the temple. That is additionally the realm the place new toilet services shall be included.
- New planter bins are being constructed as part of a crosswalk between Temple Sq. and the Church Historical past Museum, situated on West Temple.
Your entire challenge, which started in late 2019, was initially anticipated to be full by 2024 however is now estimated to be accomplished someday in 2025.
