Final installment today in Bill Massaro’s account of the removal of the old water tower at the former Medfield State Hospital site.

Bill did salvage for the town a 5′ X 5′ piece of the water tower, for which I am now entertaining suggestions for its use – maybe the base for a sign for the Water Department???

For my Facebook and LinkedIn followers, please know that I restored both those links yesterday, and I do not know how many days they were down, but all posts you missed are available at the blog https://medfield02052.wordpress.com/

This will be my final daily report…

Day 7 had finished with approximately 2 full tiers of  plate remaining.

As of  6:00 p.m. today–Day 8–  all demo work is complete.

All the steel plates, including the bottom(floor) plates have been cut and stacked.

Four roll-offs were filled and trucked off-site today, and I estimate  that no more than 3-4 additional roll-offs will be needed  to remove the remaining plates.

So  shipment of all the steel to the scrap facility and demobilization of the tower demo crew should  still complete late Thursday or early  Friday.

Bill

Bill Massaro’s ongoing careful accounting of the ever shorter and quickly disappearing Medfield State Hospital water tower.

Day 6 had finished with approximately 2.5 tiers of  plate remaining.

Day 7:  As of  7:00 p.m. today  approximately 2  full  tiers still remain.

Only  1/2  of a tier was removed today.  This was  to facilitate  access to the tank floor and the cut sections that had been dropped there over the past 6 days.  Most of today was then spent dragging out these sections with the bobcat, cutting them into smaller pieces, and stacking them for loading and transport to the scrap facility in Everett.  One full roll- off left the site this afternoon.

Goal is for all of the remaining standing  sections to be down by end of shift tomorrow (Wed -Day 8) .   Removal of the tower’s concrete base is not part of the tower demo firm’s (ALL Industrial) scope of work.   Shipment of the cut plates to the scrap facility should complete Thursday or Friday at the latest.

Bill

More of Bill Massaro’s saga of the old water tower’s demise.

Bill told me last night that, thanks to his diplomatic skills, that the town can have a piece of the old tower cut to order, if we have a use for it.  I thought it would make an interesting base for a sign, for something, somewhere.

Does anyone has any ideas for what the town could do with a really heavy 10-12 feet tall curved piece of steel?

Day 5 finished with approximately 4 tiers of  plate remaining.

As of  7:00 p.m. today  approximately 2.5 full  tiers remain.

High tier cutting requiring the crane is complete.  Remaining tiers will be reached from ground level and work should go faster.

With repair of the bobcat  completed at 12:00,  removal and stacking of the previously cut material was restarted.

Don’t have new completion date, but will try to have one for next report..

Bill

Bill Massaro salvaged a piece of the former Medfield State Hospital water tower for posterity.  We were told that those rivets that held together the old water tower were the reason that it had to be replaced, because they could not withstand any more sandblasting – that and the fact that the tank was 19′ below the level of the Mt. Nebo water tower, which made for problems within the system – both combined to make the new tank the proper, albeit expensive, solution.

My Day 5 Tower Demo report will be out later today.

In the meantime I thought Medfield Historic might like a piece of the old  tower.

I have a video of a vertical slice being cut this afternoon and a video of it coming down.  The foto of the cutting will be in today’s report, but at  17 MB  the video  is too big for your home e-mails.

When I have time I will have to try to pare it down, as well as others I have taken, but for now, see below for foto of the piece of that slice the demo guys cut off for me for the Town.

Bill

More from Bill Massaro’s documenting of the water tower take down.

Day 4 finished with approximately 7.5 tiers of  plate remaining.

As of  6:30 pm today  approximately 4 full  tiers remain.

Demolition did not complete today as originally scheduled.

Although the entire West side of the tank was removed in the morning, mechanical problems with the bobcat halted the  removal and stacking of the cut plates in preparation for a planned off-site removal on Monday.

Dismantling of the tower should now complete Monday.  Removal of the plates off-site is dependent repair/replacement of the rented bobcat.  I will advise in tomorrow’s report.

Bill

More below today from Bill Massaro’s careful monitoring of the demolition of the old water tower at the former Medfield State Hospital site.  From my time at the MSH this morning, it appeared to me that the demolition is being done by cutting the old tower into pieces (see one cut in Bill’s second picture), and when they do let one fall it was really loud.

As expected, with the completion of the support structure removal yesterday, the demo pace really picked up today.

In a conversation with the owner of the demo company  this morning, he projected removal of 6 tiers per day, 6 plates at a time; and after working thru the weekend  he expected to complete Sunday (day 5 of my  foto log).

Day 2 finished with 19 tiers of steel plate remaining.

As you can see below, the  6-plate removal process consists of  vertical slices 3 tiers long  and horizontal cuts  2 plates long at the rivet line.

At  7:00 tonight approximately 11.5  tiers remain, putting today’s removal at 7.5  tiers.  So it seems that the Sunday completion is still on schedule.

Bill

Photos of the demolition of the water tower at the site of the former Medfield State Hospital taken and circulated by Bill Massaro.  Near neighbor Tony Centore remarked on the “loud booms” when the pieces come down.

The old water tower at the former Medfield State Hospital is starting to come down today.  This from Mike this morning.

Ken Feeney just called to tell me they started to take down the old hospital water tower this morning. Mike S.