Cold Construction

From the post before last, I received a question about the problems of building in Alaska or other cold climates.  I did a Walgreens project in Wasilla several years ago. And the requirements for it were definitely different from what I was used to.

Due to the extreme cold, insulation needs to be very thick.  In this wall section, you can see the thickness of the roof insulation.  I believe it was an average of R-28.  The Exterior wall construction is 8” concrete masonry with 6” metal framing and R-19 batt insulation.  Plus we had foundation wall insulation, placed on the outside, under the exterior sidewalk..

A good vapor barrier is also necessary.  This vapor barrier is placed on the inside of the wall framing, just under the interior gypsum board.  The roof barrier is placed on top of the roof deck, just under the rigid insulation.  All seams were completely taped closed.

Rather than have normal roof drains or scuppers at the wall, the roof drains were placed in the center of the roof so the drain pipes will flow inside the heated space, preventing icing.

The store also had an additional room added on the exterior which housed a boiler.  This boiler heated water that ran thru pipes that were placed under the front sidewalk, front parking spaces and the drive-thru driveway the keep the snow clear.

When this project was under construction, I remember talking to the contractor and he told me that they were having a good year because they had a entire week where the daytime high temperature was above 70 degrees before the summer ended.

Walgreens

The other day, my wife asked me how many Walgreens drug buildings I have done. 
After thinking for a minute, I had to say that I honestly did not remember.  I have been doing them since 1995.  I went back and counted and including the one that is now in design, I have done 31.  This is a collage of some of my past Walgreens projects. 

Anchorage Alaska Project is about halfway complete.

For the past several years I have had the opportunity of doing some projects in Alaska.  The largest one is a site in Anchorage located at the North-West corner of Glenn Highway and North Muldoon Road.  This picture is looking west.  The large building on far left, in the background, is a Target.  The one on the far right is a Lowes home center.  The large building in the left foreground is a Regal Cinema.  The other buildings are multi-tenant shop buildings and some Junior Anchors.

This picture is looking north.  A short time ago, my client sent me these photos of the site taken from the air.

The original plan was to complete the project in three phases and these pictures show these phases being completed.