My Day (Tuesday, May 16, 2023): Further Field Construction Inspection

Hello everyone, it is nice to be able to see you again on the post

Today is a bit hectic day for me since I have to conduct further field inspections of the construction site in North Aceh. The location is Simpang Kramat sub-regency, Mualasah Baro village. My guess is about 7 km from Lhokseumawe City.

Woke up a bit late, and took some time for me to prepare myself to go to the field, just before departing to the field, my phone rang. My colleague called me to inform me that the forensic engineering team is waiting. But, I need to finish things in the office before I could go there to meet them.

By midday at about 11.30, I went to the field by motorbike directly to the inspection location. I arrived at the location at about 12.30 but they were all having lunch. I did not join them for lunch but I chose to have lunch alone not far from their location.

Ayam penyet (Fried chicken with spicy sauce) for lunch is wonderful

I took and enjoyed the lunch peacefully and checked the email through my mobile phone and found out that there are several important emails that need to be replaced. I was only able to replay 3 out of 7 e-mails when I got the call from the forensic team checking my position. I went straight to the inspection location and waited for them at the location of Paya Lipah village.

After waiting for 15 minutes, the team arrived at the location and the excavator also rolled to the location. The team needs to use the excavator to dig the deep hole for checking the depth of the foundation as it is part of the physical inspection of the construction. There were 3 spots that need to be checked today and another two at different locations.

The excavator is digging the hole deep at the bottom of the river

It took almost 3 hours to inspect 3 spots of the construction site just to check the depth of the foundation since the foundation has long been under deep water. The inspection was carried out to measure the volume and the concrete quality.

The first location that was inspected was measured and the depth of the foundation was as required length which means that there was no shortage of the volume of the constructed foundation. Moved to the next place which was about 200 meters from the first one and another hole was made to check the foundation that has been deep in the water. The team needs to dive into the water to find the foundation and make the correct measurement.

The team is working hard to check the inspection spot

The depth of the foundation measured with the total depth of the foundation was 116 cm which was 4 cm less than the required depth. It was short but it will not affect too much to the construction and overall strength.

At about 3:45 pm the inspection was over and it still have time to move to another location which was about 4 km from the first location. I went to the new location at Pulo Iboih with my colleagues by motorbike and arrived there within 15 minutes. Waiting for another team member to arrive, I check the possible location that need to be checked since the water is deep enough to dig and check the foundation. I saw no possibility to check it while the water has such depth and the current was also strong.

Finally, the team arrived, but the excavator still needed some time to be at the location, I used the chance to replay another 4 emails while sitting there to wait. All the email was about preparing the report of several activities that have been implemented a month ago.

Drilling for taking the concrete core of the middle beam to check the construction quality

The team arrived about half an hour later but could not do anything since the excavator had not arrived yet, while waiting for it to be at the location, the team decided to take some concrete samples (core drill) which are needed to test to the strength of and the concrete quality.

We had been waiting for almost 2 hours but the excavator has not arrived yet, it was something we did not expect at the time. Our expectation was the inspection would run smoothly, but it was not.

The sun was fading down the earth and the night was falling down, before the sun completely set then the excavator arrived. The team was too tired to start the work at night and it was also too risky to do such a thing.

In the coffee shop waiting for our order to come

All the team left the location and decided to continue the inspection the next day. But could not back home because I need to discuss a few things with my teammate so went to the Station Cafee Lhokseumawe. We discuss the inspection matter until 10.30 pm. It was very exhausting to find and calculate the construction volume and we all work hard day and night.

It was my day, how was yours?

Best Regards

El-Nailul