Roger Hickel Contracting Home Depot Project Sets Concrete Pour Record.

• Author: McCorkle, Vern
• Position: Brief Article

Roger Hickel Contracting of Anchorage, general contractor for the new Fairbanks Home Depot store due to open early next year, has successfully completed the largest continuous place and finish concrete pad on record in Alaska, according to construction experts here.

Not only was it the "largest continuous," but it also poured in the fastest time ever recorded: 51,047 square feet in six hours and 32 minutes, employing new technology through use of a laser screeder. When Hickel built the Anchorage Home Depot store, the pad took more than two weeks to pour and finish.

Called in to assist with the concretepad phase of the project was Bryan Adair Concrete Construction Co., a Native American-owned and -operated company based in Broken Arrow, Okla. They supplied two Somero Laser Screed machines, three Whiteman Riding Trowels and two Soffcut Concrete saws. In all, total concrete used on the project amounted to 956 yards. It was delivered by University Ready Mix of Fairbanks averaging 15 truckloads per hour, or roughly one truckload of concrete every four minutes for the duration of the pour. That required 96 truckloads on the floor segment of the project.

Other personnel also were involved in the project, including carpenters, ironworkers and concrete finishers from the Finishers Local 867. Additional assistance came from Advance Concrete Technologies of North Pole. Exclusive Landscaping of Fairbanks and North Pole, the site contractor for the project, developed ramps for rapid access to the site and for staging transported equipment in and around the project.

Hickel says that the special equipment was employed to permit completion of the concrete portion of the building before the Fairbanks snowfall. That came on...