Our Projects at LoV

It's been a week since we left Lilly of the Valley. We're in Cape Town area and have covered a lot of ground getting here. We'll post about our travels but first we wanted to post about our LoV projects.

Grace's Project

Grace's main project at LoV was helping to establish an Occupational Health and Safety Program.  She worked very closely with Sihle Dlamini, the Community Clinic Manager and Nurse, who has been tasked with establishing and running the Safety Program at LoV.

Grace, Togo and Sihle

After a crash course in SA Health and Safety legislation, Sihle and Grace wrote a basic policy manual, established some initial safety procedures and outlined a basic safety training program. They conducted a safety assessment of the hydroponic farming operation together with the safety committee. This was the  first safety assessment so one of the main goals was to use it to train the safety committee. The safety committee did very well in performing the assessment and asked very insightful questions. Sihle prepared a report for the area supervisor identifying the findings and they have already begun correcting the issues identified.  One of the additional benefits was that the safety committee members went back to their areas and started talking to their colleagues about safety hazards and making changes to improve safety! When Sihle and I did a walked-through of the Maintenance area a week after the first assessment, we had to work really hard to find some safety issues - well done Nathi! 

Safety Committee doing Safety Assessment 

Hydroponic Tomato Farming Operation

Outside of Tomato Farming Tunnels

I was really excited about doing this project because it shows the value that LoV puts on their employees and their charges (the kids). The chances of an inspector ever showing up at LoV are very slim and the Health and Safety regulations are much more lenient in SA but the LoV management take their responsibility seriously and so they are proactively initiating this program. I must also admit that it was fun for me delving back into my Praxair experience with 'the six hazards that kill', 'personal protective equipment', 'material data sheets', 'near misses' …. John Wright where are you when I need you!

Mark's Projects

Mark did a variety of installations and repairs around LoV. He worked closely with Eugene who is the Maintenance Supervisor. Mark's biggest project was to cover a man-made water reservoir which is 30 ft in diameter and about 10 ft deep. The cover is for safety reasons and also to block sunlight which allows algae to grow in the water.

I had a lot of help from my new friend, Nkosinathi. Think of this design as looking like a circus “Big Top” tent.  I set a 13 ft long PVC pipe section into a milk crate of concrete. I put 2” long vertical slots in the top of the pipe. The slots held 8 lengths of 10 gauge solid wire which spans the diameter of the tank. The ends of the wire are held in place by a Hilti anchor at each end. Around the perimeter of the tank we put a length of chicken wire. This helped prevent sags in the shade cloth and helped a a level of security should a child try to climb on top of the cover. The cover is a plastic woven cloth that blocks 85% of the sun light. It came in an 8 ft wide bolt, so we had to cut lengths and stitch them together side-by-side with zip ties. Once the strips were stitched together we pulled the shade cloth over the vertical post. A couple of lengths of wire around the perimeter holds the cloth in place.

Reservoir and pump house before the work began

Reservoir drained and mucking out dead algae. Notice the center post to the right.

Shade cloth going on.

Pump house vent installation

My friend Nkosinathi and me in front of our hard work.

In addition to the reservoir job, I had a couple of smaller jobs. One was to install a roof vent in a shipping container. The container is used as a pump house. The vent cools the pump house down significantly. The pump house will house pumps and equipment to filter and fertilize the water supply for the hydroponic tomato farm on-site. I also repaired a large steel gate. When I saw the gate, I though a Rino had attacked it. But it was only the tractor that ran into it. It was an all day job to bend the square tube frame back into shape and weld on straps to the broken joints.

Repaired gate - wish I had a "before" photo

I was pleased to be able to do something practical and to use my existing skills. The biggest challenge was getting the equipment and supplies for the project. I drove for 45 minutes to the nearest building supplies store only to find that they didn't have what I needed. So I had to improvise. One of my projects was to weld pipe for making wash line posts. The supply house didn't have any galvanized pipe. They ordered six, 6 meter lengths of 40mm pipe and promised it 'tomorrow'. I'm still not quite sure what 'tomorrow' means… after 2 weeks it still hadn't arrived. Then there's the challenge that everything is in centimeters and meters. Oh and since a lot of equipment is imported, the welder labels & instructions are in German... Needless to say, it was somewhat challenging. But all said, I keep thinking you guys from the boat yard would thrive on the challenges. I could still be there working. There are so many more projects to work on.  One project I wished I'd had time to get to was servicing the tractor. It needed an oil, oil filter and fuel filter change. But the tractor hardly ever sits still.

Another thing is the heat! We don't have a thermometer here but the temperature must be in the 90's from 10am-4pm which is when everyone is out working. I've managed to get sunburnt every other day in spite of Grace covering me with SPF 45! And there has been more than one day come mid-afternoon the heat really got to me. I couldn't talk straight much less think straight. Eugene tells me it can get over 40 degree celsius around here.