The Colver Power Project - Fabric Building

Fuel Quality Improves with an

Industrial Fabric Structure

Located 100 miles east of Pittsburgh, PA, the Colver Power Project is the largest independent power producer in Pennsylvania. The 102-megawatt project has been supplying electricity to the Pennsylvania Electric Company since 1995.

In 2006, a 160' wide by 260' long tension fabric structure was installed at the Colver Power Plant for the bulk storage and drying

of coal. "The fabric building has worked as expected and has improved fuel quality," says Jeffry Zick, Deputy General Manager, Inter-Power/AhlCon Partners. "The fuel is dryer and it burns more efficiently."

A front end loader is used to turn the coal, a process that used to take up to three days to have the coal dry enough to burn. "We chose a tension fabric structure because we liked the technology," says Zick. Available in widths from 18' to 160' to any length, fabric buildings provide clearspan space and are pre-engineered to meet structural requirements. "This fabric building is a benefit to our business as there is less downtime to improve fuel quality."

A conveyor system located at the end of the fabric structure transports the coal out of the building. Before the fabric covered building was used to dry the fuel, $8-$10 million was spent per year on propane to get the coal to burn as it was quite wet.

"The fabric building has drastically improved fuel quality and the tension fabric structure has paid for itself in six months," says Zick. With an availability greater than 98 percent, the Colver Power Plant is one of the most reliable producing generating plants of its type anywhere in the world.

The interior building span and clearances in the fabric covered building are superior to a conventional building. "The building is well-lit even on cloudy and rainy days," says Zick. "Once the foundation was complete, construction moved very quickly. We were very pleased with the foundation and erection teams." Engineered for temporary or permanent use, tension fabric structures can be expanded or relocated with relative ease and provide maximum free floor space for equipment and operations.

"The tension fabric structure has drastically improved fuel

quality and the fabric building has

paid for itself in six months!"
- Jeffry Zick, Deputy General Manager,

Inter-Power/AhlCon Partners

The 160' wide by 260' long tension fabric

structure is used for the storage and

drying of coal.

"We chose a tension fabric structure

because we liked the technology," says Zick.

"This building is a benefit to our business

as there is less downtime to fuel quality."
 

Once the foundation was complete,

construction moved very quickly.

The tension fabric structure includes

mesh PVC ends providing excellent

ventilation and air circulation.
 

Hampton Lumber Fabric Building

Customer:  Hampton Lumber Co-Gen Plant

Location:    Darrington, WA, USA

Building Size:  120' wide X 150' long

Application:  Bulk Fuel Fabric Storage Building

Milestones Building & Design

Provides Additional Storage Capacity

For Hampton Lumber at Darrington

"Milestones provides a quality product that is not price prohibitive.  For our need, the clear-span capability, the high ceiling height, the expandability, the ease of maintenance, and the reaction of the fabric building components to fire, were all factors we considered when making our purchase.  In the winter environment where we operate, where deep snow creates high roof loads Milestones Building & Design was able to meet the design criteria - and most metal building suppliers could not.  Their fabric building structure was integrated into a foundation system of our design, and this process went smoothly due to the quality, and timelines of the detailed drawing they provided us.  Their on-site erection crew was well organized, and efficient, so the fabric building went up "like magic!.  Milestones Building & Design was the most professional of all the potential building suppliers we contacted.  They went out of their way to provide us with alternate building concepts that would fit our bulk fuel storage need and not break the bank.  Thanks to everyone on the Milestones team for a job well done."

Matt Thompson ,  Construction Coordinator

Hampton Lumber Mills- Darrington Division

Boeing Fabric Building Containment Room

Customer:  Boeing

Location:    Seattle, WA, USA

Building Size:  72' wide x 72' long

Application:  Containment Room for Construction Project

Milestones Provides Fabric Building Solution

for Boeing

Boeing is the world' leading aerospace company and the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined. In terms of sales, Boeing is the largest U.S. exporter. The company, with a 70-year heritage of leadership in commercial aviation, has nearly 12,000 commercial jetliners in service worldwide, which is roughly 75 percent of the world fleet. In the fall of 2005, Boeing needed to install a new piece of equipment inside one of their production buildings. Like many companies, Boeing has a need to control air flow and air quality since dust is a critical factor when working with composite material.

Working with us, Boeing developed an excellent solution, using a 72' wide x 72' long (21.9m x 21.9m) building. "We chose a fabric building because of the clear-span space that is available while optimizing the overall floor space," says Jon Larscheid, P.E., Major Projects & Construction Management, Boeing. The timelines for this project were very tight. Once the building was ordered, it was delivered in 43 days and installed during the one week shutdown over Christmas holidays, to eliminate any lost work hours in production. "The construction was very smooth, methodical and well constructed in a very short time period," says Larscheid. "The fabric building performed extremely well for its intended function."�

The timelines that had to be met were very strict and required that the fabric building to be installed in the week-long shutdown that takes place over Christmas to eliminate any lost manufacturing time. "The construction was very smooth, methodical and well-constructed in a short period of time,"� said Jon Larscheid P.E., Major Projects & Construction Management.  The building went up in a week and had to be taken down later over a single weekend in June.  The install crews were required to use machinery and tools that would not contaminate the work space and had to work long hours in order to meet Boeings timelines. "They went well out of their way to insure our aggressive schedule was maintained.  They were very professional and worked beyond normal work hours to insure the install and removal was complete and to our satisfaction," says Larscheid.  The fabric building performed flawlessly and Boeing is sure that it will utilize fabric buildings in the future.  "The fabric structure portion turned out to be the least of our worries in a very tight, schedule-driven project.  We wish we could rely on all of our products and vendors to work this well." says Larscheid.  This sentiment echoes the voice of all of our customers, and shows why Milestones continues to be an industry leader.

Lambs Seneca Terminal Shipyard Fabric Structure

Tension Fabric Structure

Exceeds Expectations for Storage Solution

Lambs Seneca Terminal (LST) is located in the town of Seneca, IL in the Shipyard Industrial Park. The industrial park is 270 acres in size with 12 different companies that handle and package a variety of goods for Wal-Mart, The Home Depot, and numerous small retail stores. LST loads and unloads more than 150 river barges a year containing a variety of commodities such as fertilizer, lumber, salt, bark, carbon products, steel and most recently waste bakery goods.

"We receive about 20 semi loads of waste bakery goods a day which we warehouse and load onto barges and rail cars and ship south for livestock feed for the poultry and hog industry,"� says George Lambs, Owner, Shipyard Industrial Park. "The waste bakery goods are things that are outdated or maybe just packaged wrong. Rather than going to the landfills, it is used as protein food for the poultry and hog industries. Because it is a consumable by-product we needed to house the product out of the weather," says Lambs. "The tension fabric structure we needed had to be large enough for trucks and a front-end loader to operate. I looked at a fabric covered building that had been built in the area and thought it would fit our needs. We gathered some information and worked with a fabric building salesperson on the design details and placed the order for a 150' wide x 115' long fabric building."

"The sixty foot height and clearspan area

of the fabric building is ideal for operating machinery."�
- George Lambs, Owner, Shipyard Industrial Park

"We were fortunate that the tension fabric structure arrived before the bad weather hit. Once the fabric building installation crew arrived, the fabric building was constructed in just seven days,"� says Lambs. "The sixty foot height and clearspan area of the tension fabric structure is ideal for operating machinery. We use the backhoe to stack the material really high so if we want to store some other commodity in here we can do that. The fabric structure has numerous entrance ways and loading docks to load and unload pallets from trucks as well as material into rail cars. We have a barge loading conveyor on the back side of the building that can load at 1,000 ton per hour when coming from rail cars and free flowing material. We can handle pretty well anything in here."

"I would love to cover the area with more warehouses for handling barges; that's my main objective, to get more customers that we can do barge business for. This is the first tension fabric structure I've purchased, but depending on my needs, I don't think it will be the last; the fabric building has really worked well," says Lambs.