Scope and Areas of Work
The Congregational Church of Goffstown hired Turnstone Corporation to as
the Construction Manager on their behalf for the renovations to Stark
Hall. Stark Hall is an old structure located next door to the church
that serves many purposes for the Congregation. The historic Stark Hall
is a wood framed structure on a field stone foundation. This building is
located adjacent to the river and had been affected by the floods of
the previous years. Originally, the project was to renovate the interior
of the Hall and some other minor structural work in the basement and
with the foundation. Upon further investigation by the structural
engineer, there were significant structural deficiencies discovered.
Turnstone Corporation worked with the owner, architect and engineer to
resolve these issues. Budgets had to be completely reworked. Turnstone
was instrumental in making sure that the owner was able to continue with
the project within the funding available and in the end, was able to
expand the scope of work after all of the structural repairs were
complete due to the careful monitoring of work and the knowledge of
Turnstone Team Members, which contributed to cost savings.
The basement portion of the work was the most labor intensive. There was
only about four feet from the dirt floor to the floor joists of the
first floor. All of the excavation work had to be done by hand.
Turnstone’s field personnel excavated down to the bottom of the stone
wall and built forms for the new concrete footings. Steel dowels were
drilled and epoxied into the face of the stones to connect the new
concrete foundation wall to the existing stone foundation. The concrete
for the footing and wall was pumped threw an existing window opening on
the first floor and then through various holes in the floor. New
structural columns were also installed on new concrete footings in the
center of the basement floor.
The second phase of the project consisted of completely reworking all of
the existing structural supports of the second floor. The large wood
beams that span the width of the first floor were removed and replaced
with new steel beams and columns. The second floor was temporarily
supported while this work was being completed and an occupied dance
studio remained open throughout the entire project. To get the steel
beams into the building and in place posed a problem. The size and
weight of the beams made it impossible to just carry them in the front
door. Turnstone worked with the structure engineer and the steel
subcontractor to develop a way to send the beams in threw an existing
window opening to a lift that was then rolled into place. Acoustical
insulation was added to the ceiling along with special noise reducing
high hat channel and drywall to reduce the sound being transmitted from
the second floor to the first floor. The roof rafters were also starting
to sag. Turnstone worked with the structural engineer on determining
what the best method would be to re-support the roof. It was determined
that the best way would be to add new 2×8 wood rafters nailed to each
side of every existing rafter. This required Turnstone to use rafters in
single pieces that span the entire length of the existing rafters. The
twenty foot long boards had to be lifted up three stories and brought in
through the attic window.
After all of the structural renovations were completed Turnstone began
renovation various other portions of the interior space. The vct tile on
the main floor of the hall was removed. New underlayment and tile was
then installed. New partitions were built to provide additional storage
space for various activities that are held in the hall. Two bathrooms
were completely renovated. The large kitchen area received new flooring
along with various code required updates to the kitchen equipment. A new
exterior double door was added to comply with egress requirements. On
the exterior side of the new double door a small covered porch was
constructed that lead to the new handicap ramp.