The sand-blasting operation on the Birchs Road Standpipe is about to begin.
With the scaffolding in place on the 12-story water tower, North Bay city councillor Chris Mayne says the tower will be covered with material from top to bottom so it’s enclosed and none of the sand or paint blasted from the exterior escapes.
Mayne says the contractor has been on site for about six weeks erecting the scaffolding and that operation took a month at a cost of $500,000.
“It’s very visible from Birchs Road,” Mayne said.
“It’s quite impressive to see the Standpipe surrounded by scaffolding.”
Mayne says during the sandblasting, both the sand and broken up paint will fall to the ground within the wrapping.
“From there it will be vacuumed and sampled for lead content,” Mayne said.
“The paint will likely be sent to Sarnia to be decontaminated.”
Mayne says the exterior sandblasting will be about a four-week project after which it can be repainted.
The city has chosen forest green as the colour for the tower with the city’s logo in white.
The colour scheme will be similar to the Cedar Heights Standpipe.
Mayne says the interior is also being sandblasted but the hardware is a bit different from the scaffolding on the outside.
Mayne says what people will recognize as a window washer’s cage is being set up in the interior on a track and it will move up and down the tower removing the surface covering.
“After this is done there will be a visual inspection followed by samples of X-ray welding just to make sure that the structure is as sound as we think it is,” Mayne said.
“Once the interior is sandblasted and inspected it gets a fresh coating which is done by a robot. Because it’s a steel wall, the robot is magnetically attached to it and moves itself around.”
Mayne estimates the painting process will all be completed by around the beginning of October.
The entire cost of the rehabilitation project is $2.3 million.
Mayne says this is far cheaper than replacing the water tower which would easily cost at least $8 million.
Once the work is all complete, the city should get another 25 years of use from the tower.
The water was removed from the water tower some time ago and it will be refilled in the fall.
The standpipe is 50 feet in diameter and Mayne says it holds 3,000 cubic metres of water.
Refilling it won’t be an overnight job and it will take some time.
In fact Mayne says the tank will be refilled at a rate of about 10 feet a day.
Mayne says for now residents won’t feel any loss in water pressure with the Birchs Road Standpipe out of commission because there is water from the Ellendale Reservoir.
But he says as the summer drags on and people use more water for things like watering their lawns that will put more pressure on the Ellendale Reservoir.
Mayne says the reservoir continues to replenish itself as quickly as it can but there’s still a strain on running a city of 50,000 people with one small reservoir.
