Underground caverns cause trouble in Auburn construction 7/3/2007 5:50 PM By: Bill Carey Auburn City Hall, New York. The building is cooled and heated using a geothermal system that taps into underground water, which maintains a constant temperature year round. Seeing the success of that project, city leaders also looked at other sites that could benefit from work and soon they focused on the building housing police and fire departments, a building in need of a new system. “It's supposed to provide us with year round heat and cooling. It will temperature control the entire building,” said Gary Giannotta, Auburn Police Chief. All had gone well at city hall, so, as they began the project here at the Auburn Police and Fire Department building, they expected few problems. All of that changes once they began to dig. The drills would dig down 400 feet. All was going well until the drills hit 220 feet and then just dropped. They began digging again to 280 feet and the same thing happened. And these weren't tiny voids. ‘They don't know exactly what it is. They did drop a camera down there but couldn't tell the extent of the cavern. The cavern is so big,” Giannotta said. And that was a problem. “You have to grout the holes from bottom up, when we drill our holes. They have to be grouted up to the top. You can't leave exposed holes anymore. It's not allowed,” said Steven Couse of Earth Energy Connections. So they began pouring a concrete like substance. And pouring and pouring. Filling in a drill hole would normally take about three cubic yards. There were some of these wells that used as much as 16 cubic yards. The extra cost? About $30,000. And the underground surprises didn't end there. When crews began digging trenches to connect the wells to piping into the building, they hit a large concrete slab filled with steel reinforcing bars. “We did a couple of jobs in Utica about a month ago and we ran into old foundations there as well, where these old buildings were years ago and there's no way of telling they're there until you start digging your trenches,” Couse said. Another delay. More costs. But crews now say they're making good progress and hope to finish within a few weeks. As for the origin of those caverns, the accepted theory is that they were created by underground water slowly eroding soft rock and carving out the large chambers. _http://news10now.com/content/all_news/central_new_york/?ArID=111324&SecID=86_ (http://news10now.com/content/all_news/central_new_york/?ArID=111324&SecID=86)
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