|
Value-engineered, two-coat coatings plan helps Seahawks Stadium project make more good news
Doing it Right," exclaims a headline from a recent edition of the Engineering News-Record, a trade magazine that focuses on the design engineering and construction industries. The article is about the construction of Seahawks Stadium in Seattle.
"Seahawks Stadium Right on Schedule," reads another headline from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The article goes on to explain that the project is meeting budget goals as well.
AT A GLANCE
PROJECT
New football stadium,Seattle
PAINTERS
Canron Construction (in-shop priming);
DS Purcell (on-site)
HIGHLIGHTS
Two-coat system saved $1 million
|
No, this is not a setup for one of those "headlines-you'll-never-see" monologues on the late night talk shows. The reality is that most stadium construction stories in today's news deal with funding battles, cost overruns, labor troubles or engineering failures.
But all the news coming out of downtown Seattle these days is good news when it comes to the Seahawks Stadium project. And contributing to the positive buzz about the project is a value-engineered coatings plan that substituted a two-coat system for a three-coat system, saving an estimated $1 million.
HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE
Part of the reason the stadium project has proceeded so smoothly is the fact that several of its major players received some irreplaceable hands-on experience right next door at Safeco Field, the three-year-old home of the Seattle Mariners. Fabricator Canron Construction of Portland, Ore., on-site painting contractor D.S. Purcell of Seattle and coatings supplier Sherwin-Williams all played big roles in the successful construction of that stadium. On this job, they teamed with general contractor Turner Construction, a company that can boast successes at several other stadiums, including Invesco Field in Denver.
And part of the reason the Seahawks Stadium construction project has gone so well is because "we're all good at it," according to Mike Eckstein, the general manager of the Portland Canron facility.
"We have real good groups to work with on this job," notes Canron's Production Manager Darrell Turner, whose company fabricated and prime coated 13,000 tons of steel for the new stadium. "They proved their abilities next door and they continue to prove it on this project."
Adds Eckstein, "We have a very capable and experienced engineering staff, as do some of our partners on this project. What they've been able to do is engineer simplicity into complex structures."
Perhaps no better illustration of Eckstein's point exists than the switch on the coatings specification. When design firm Ellerbee Becket drew up the original spec for this project, the plan called for a three-coat epoxy system that would have required Canron to apply a prime and intermediate epoxy coat at its facility.
SAFETY FACTORS
"There are several inherent problems with us applying an intermediate epoxy coat here," says Eckstein. "We were most resistant to the idea because of safety reasons. There's a lot of foot traffic on this steel once it's erected and OSHA may have had issues with the slip coefficient rating of the epoxy coat. It's slicker than zinc-primed steel.
"Then there's touchup issues. You've really got to handle this stuff with kid gloves or you'll get all kinds of back charges due to touchups in the field."
Adding an in-shop intermediate coat would also require Canron to find space and time to allow the epoxy coat to cure, a process that requires up to six hours.
Dave Purcell monitors progress from the roof of Seahawks Stadium; in the background is Safeco Field, which his company painted in 1999. |
Knowing Canron's concerns and having a familiarity with the team's painting success at Safeco Field, Turner personnel gave the go-ahead to Canron to seek alternatives to the three-coat system. That's when Canron engineers met with Dave Purcell of D.S. Purcell, who was subcontracted to perform most of the on-site structural steel and architectural painting, and Sherwin-Williams personnel to study ways to engineer value into the coating process.
The group didn't have to look far because a two-coat Sherwin-Williams moisture-cure system had proved successful at Safeco Field. Since that project had been designed by a different firm, however, Ellerbee Becket wasn't fully aware of the benefits of the system. The team moved quickly in selling the system to the designer.
"We had basically just come off Safeco Field," says Turner. "We had had a good experience there so we sat down with Dave and Tim (Sievers, Sherwin-Williams industrial and marine sales representative) and came up with two products to recommend."
The spec they recommended was a shot blast to SSPC-SP6, then a shop-applied prime coat of Sherwin-Williams Corothane I GalvaPac Zinc Primer, a product with a Class B slip-coefficient rating. Upon transport to the stadium site and erection in the field, Purcell painters applied a topcoat of Corothane I HS at 2.0-3.0 mils dft. While the back-to-back welding angles of some of the pieces going into Safeco Field required Canron to do some spot topcoating in the shop, far less shop topcoating occurred in the Seahawks Stadium project.
In the end, it was a system that would save nearly $1 million in labor and materials from the original spec, according to Eckstein.
"It took a while to get that passed, but when they saw that we had not had a single rejectable paint incident, either product-related or application-related, at Safeco Field with basically the same system, they approved it," says Turner.
"Besides, if they would have had to apply a third coat in the field, they might still be painting it."
POPULAR CHOICE
The Corothane I system was a popular choice in the field, where Purcell crews could work with a familiar product as well as one that would function well and cure in the damp weather often present in the Pacific Northwest. And it was a popular choice among painters at Canron because of the easy application characteristics, the pre-mixed nature of the product and the quick dry times of the primer.
"We've had a couple minor rejections, but all were human-error-type things, and those are going to happen on a project this big," says Turner.
"In general, we were very pleased about the switch. We knew how well Sherwin-Williams could service our needs, where they stock the paint and how quickly they can get it to us. Shop painters typically wait until they have three gallons left and then tell us they'll be out of paint in half an hour. We've been very happy with the way Sherwin-Williams can respond to our needs and get paint here when we need it."
|
