COVER STORY
Offering complete design solutions for your commercial, industrial,
agricultural & residential projects.
204.728.7364
1331 Princess Avenue, Brandon, Manitoba
www.bmce.ca
Electrical, Mechanical
& Services Contractors
Commercial | Industrial | Institutional
Commercial | Industrial | Institutional
With our diversification of multiple
trades,
it enables us to provide our clients with:
With our diversification of multiple trades,
it enables us to provide our clients with:
it enables us to provide our clients with:
A One-Stop Shop Advantage
Teamwork Approach
Value-Added Engineering
Recommendations on alternative means and methods
Savings due to single source management of multiple
trades creating improved project scheduling.
A One-Stop Shop Advantage
Teamwork Approach
Value-Added Engineering
Recommendations on alternative means and
Savings due to single source management of multiple
traces creating improved project scheduling.
Electrical
Process Piping
Millwrighting
Plumbing
A One-Stop Shop Advantage
Teamwork Approach
Value-Added Engineering
Recommendations on alternative means and
Savings due to single source management of multiple
traces creating improved project scheduling.
Electrical
Process Piping
Millwrighting
Plumbing
methods
Heating
Welding
Gas Fitting
Refrigeration
methods
Air Conditioning
Controls
Instrumentation
Design Build
Heating
Welding
Gas Fitting
Refrigeration
Air Conditioning
Controls
Instrumentation
Design Build
• Electrical
• Process Piping
• Millwrighting
• Plumbing
• Heating
• Welding
• Gas Fitting
• Refrigeration
• Air Conditioning
• Controls
• Instrumentation
• Design Build
204.633.8071 | www.abcosupply.com 1346 Spruce St. | Winnipeg, MB
204.633.8071 | www.abcosupply.com 1346 Spruce St. | Winnipeg, MB
204.633.8071 | www.abcosupply.com 1346 Spruce St. | Winnipeg, MB
a maintenance shop, a lab for in-house
testing and quality control of their products
and, most importantly, the central
control room for the plant. Added to that
tall order is the requirement for blastrated
construction – built to withstand
an explosion were something to happen
inside the plant.
“Building something that’s blast or
explosion resistant comes with its own
challenges. It’s the only facility of its kind
in this area, so us, subtrades and everyone
we had involved had very little experience
in blast design and blast-rated construction,”
said Smith.
What they learned is blast-rated construction
comes down to building things
heavier. For windows and doors, they
needed to outsource to some very specialty
vendors, including an engineering
firm based in San Antonio, Texas.
“The building is a steel structure and
the actual walls are a mixture of masonry
and steel studs, so for the steel stud walls
we had to go to very heavy gauge steel.
We’re usually framing exterior walls with
20-gauge steel studs, but in some cases,
with this project, we’re framing with
14-gauge, which is a lot heavier, harder
to get and much more expensive,” said
Smith. For example, the control room is
surrounded by masonry walls that are full
to the top with concrete; so all the construction
methods are very heavy with
stronger concrete and stronger steel than
on ordinary projects.
Construction was made even more
challenging as the engineering consultants
were not local to Manitoba. Instead
the nearest point of contact was in
Calgary, which meant Horizon couldn’t
bring them in with a day’s notice to do
an inspection. However, all the unique
challenges specific to the project pale
in comparison to the health and safety
considerations brought on by the global
COVID-19 pandemic, which of course,
nobody foresaw.
“The biggest challenge is physical
distancing, making sure all of our trades
have adequate working space and that
they’re able to distance amongst themselves,”
said Smith.
“For a short time we were running a
split shift, so we’d have some trades working
the early shift and some trades working
the late shift. But, we found that managing
safety in general was a challenge doing
that, so we’ve really just been limiting the
Koch Fertilizer's new headquarters is on schedule to open in November
30 | Issue 1 2020 www.carm.ca
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