The community spent the morning bringing cement and gravel to the work site to prepare for concrete mixing upon arrival of the sand. The EWB team took an inventory of the remaining rebar, to ensure that there was enough to complete the construction of the pump tank. We found that we had just enough number 12 rebar for the roof, so they were saved. There were no remaining number 6′s, but there were plenty of number 8 and number 10 rebar, so these would be used for the walls instead of the 6′s originally called for in the design. There are also a few number 5 rebar remaining.
After discussing the rebar situation with the village men that were in charge of the construction, including Maestro Juan Augosto Tigasi Lutuala, a well respected community member with higher level construction experience, we encountered some difficulty. The original design had called for using number 6 rebar at 40 cm spacing in the walls to provide the design with enough strength. Due to materials problems with the rebar, our EWB engineers, Steven Trate and Bob Stachel, favored changing this design to number 10 rebar at 40 cm spacing, which would increase the strength of the design (although this was not necessary) and make the best use of the materials that we still had without increasing the price of the design. With the help of PCV George Beane, we discussed this design change with the Maestro and other respected men, including Cesar Lutuala Lutuala, Jorge Lutuala Sacatoro, Alberto Manzano Manzano, Fransisco Lutuala, and Augustin Patricio Ugsha Ugsha, who raised a number of concerns. The group did not feel comfortable with 40 cm spacing, feeling that it was too far apart to provide the necessary strength for the walls, although Steven and Bob provided them with calculations justifying the strength and stressed the fact that our design team had checked multiple times to ensure the strength of the design. To preserve relations and reduce friction with the community, our EWB team made the decision to follow the desire of the community, even though the strength of this design would be grossly beyond the needs of the project. We determined that enough number 10 rebar was on the site where the design change could feasibly be implemented and because the design strength would increase, not decrease, from the changes, the overall change resulted in no additional cost and maintained positive relationship with the community.
The remainder of the afternoon work went smoothly. The sand truck arrived with the delivery of the needed sand. The rebar for the footer was assembled and tied as necessary. The footer was then poured and allowed to cure overnight. The rebar for the walls was cut and tied in place and hoops of rebar were also prepared and tied into the wall. By the end of the afternoon, the tank was prepared for the floor to be poured the next day. In addition, health and social impact surveys were conducted with a number of community members.
