Water tower takes shape on Roachton Road
Perrysburg boosting flow pressure
12/25/2012Where’s Waldo? He’s right behind the city of Perrysburg’s public utilities building on Roachton Road.
That’s what some workers have dubbed the red-and-white-striped tower crane that is building a water tower.
“It must have been the street division. They have a different sense of humor over there,” said Mark Dunsmoor, water superintendent, of the reference to the popular children’s books in which the title character Waldo — sporting a red-and-white striped sweater — is hidden in a busy scene for readers to find.
The book is fiction and meant for fun, but the crane is part of a very serious job.
The crane holds the boom and rigging that are lifting steel forms for concrete rings, Mr. Dunsmoor said.
The forms are held in place until the concrete sets, then are removed and repositioned higher to set more concrete. The process will be repeated until a 100-foot tower is built.
The tower crane then will be dismantled. A rigging system will hoist an enormous steel bowl — first built on the ground — into position atop the concrete tower, a project that is scheduled for late spring, the water superintendent said.
Pumps and electronic equipment to run them will be assembled inside the tower, Mr. Dunsmoor said.
After the exterior is painted, the tower is expected to be complete by October.
The last water tower was built in 1992 along I-75. That one, Mr. Dunsmoor said, is “the one with all the pictures on it.”
The project involving the water tower on Roachton Road and a replacement tower on Fort Meigs Road will cost more than $4 million, he said.
The replacement tower will be higher to increase pressure from 46 pounds per square inch to 60 pounds per square inch and improve “fire flow,” the volume of water that comes out when firefighters tap into the water system in the area, Mr. Dunsmoor said.
— Rebecca Conklin Kleiboemer