Yesterday I assisted with a deconstruction project.
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Structurally compromised chapel in Lonoy, Philippines.
© 2014 Andrea Rip |
Our task was to safely take down the walls of a small chapel in Lonoy. All of the walls were compromised so that it was unusable and dangerous to use. The little church had four very proud cornerstones that did not want to be felled. We spent most of our morning removing most of the iron gates to be salvaged for the reconstruction. Then we further compromised the building by sledge hammering the support columns, clipping rebar inside those columns and throwing a rope around the wall so that we could have a jeepney pull the entire structure down at one time.
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After more than an hour of tugging, we finally toppled the chapel.
© 2014 Andrea Rip |
We tried about five different ways and continued to sledge out the walls we could access safely - all the time mindful that the entire structure could come down at once. Sean sledged, Matt used a hack saw to cut more rebar. Finally, some of the Filipino men in our massive audience came over and gave our ropes a good tug that collapsed the entire structure at once.
In the afternoon we returned to tidy up the debris and cut up the metal ceiling beams. We finished about ½ of the task and will need to return on Monday to finish the clean up.
After a week of sledge hammering and shoveling concrete my muscles are ready for this wonderful Sunday off.
Watch the video HERE.
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