I missed a very important event at the new Paulette site. I meant to get down there and get a photo of the pouring of the first footer. Fortunately, Brian Oaks (School Board Chairman) made it and has some photos. I'll get those from him and put them online.

However, I did get there Saturday to get photos of the footer that was poured (Figure 1). This footer will be the base for the southern most wall of the new school. As my photos show they are well fortified with steel. This steel runs along the entire length of each footer. Concrete by itself has great compression strength, but little tensile strength. This means that a column can hold a large load pushing down on it. However if you lay that column on its horizontal plane and apply the load to the side it will break. So when a proper footer is poured steel is added. Steel then gives the concrete tensile strength and allows it to hold the weight of a building.

In the early 1800's architects tried to build the first buildings of concrete. But the use of concrete as a building material can be traced back to ancient Rome. Unfortunately concrete was not a very durable building material. Then in the 1840's a man named Joseph Louis Lambot discovered that by adding steel rods to concrete its limitations could be overcome. The steel rods he used evolved into what we call rebar today. The steel instantly converts concrete from a poor building material to one of the most durable in the world!

I think all of us have used concrete in our small projects. You buy a bag, add some water and you have concrete. However, this is far different when building a building the size of our new school. Concrete is a complex formula and its exact mixture is determined by what it will be used to do. So therefore more important than how much concrete is poured is its formulation and the amount and placement of the steel inside. You can see in figure 2 the ample amount of steel in each run of concrete in the Paulette footers.

Now why did I just tell the story of concrete? Was there little else to write about this week? No it is the second most important phase of the building adventure we have embarked on. In the past articles I commented on how important compaction was to have a good soil base. We achieved that due to the compaction methods I discussed in previous articles. Concrete is then added for the building to rest on. Now all soil is not created the same. The Union County School System contracted a company called Geo Services from Knoxville.

I had always considered the concrete to be the most important part of a footer. But an engineer tells me it is the second. I am told that concrete mixed and poured correctly is only as good as the soil underneath. He told me the number one thing any contractor or property owner should do is monitor proper soil conditions. That is where Geo Services came in. They have been contracted to test conditions and alert us of things that could cause an issue years down the road. There is no doubt they have already saved us more money than their cost.

It is important to me and I would expect 90% of out taxpayers that we get a good quality building for our money. We hired a top notch contractor in Rouse, and now an engineering service, in Geo Services to advise us.

So that got me to thinking, just what kind of soil did we have at the site. Many of the older people told me that we had not encountered rocks because we were working in slate. But I did some checking around and that is not entirely true. What we call slate in this part of the country is actually shale. Shale is a form of clay and is superb for compaction. If soil is to be moved and compacted most companies prefer shale.

So what is shale?

Shale and slate are two words often used to describe the same rock. However shale is softer and more closely related to clay. When heated and pressure is applied shale can turn into slate. Slate is the harder offspring of shale and less desirable for site preparation.

So where does shale come from?

Shale is a sedimentary stone deposited long ago. In pools of still or slowly moving water sediment settles at the bottom. Shales are the result of that sediment. If you look closely at the cut into the soil in my photo you can see layers (Figure 4). Each of those layers represent a number of years that soil or silts were deposited. Scientists study shale for fossils of long dead animals and flora. While shale can be rich in fossils it is easily broken. However its malleable conditions make it ideal for fossil formation. Fossils from huge animals all the way down to raindrop impact craters have been found in shale. The flexibility of shale is what makes it one of the most compactable soils on earth.

In the photos you can see a large level spot (Figure 3). This is where the school will be built. What looks like a bank in the photo shows areas that will still be leveled.

In the larger photo at the beginning of this article you can see a pole holding utility wires near the road. That pole rests between where the building will end at it's northern corner and the ball field will begin. In fact the pole is nearly in front of where home plate will be on the baseball/softball field. The playground will be below the southern wall of the school.

When the site was selected for the school I had a hard time envisioning a school fitting on it. But as they get the land down to an even level I begin to realize just how big this land is. Not only will a ball field, school and playground fit on it, but we will still be able to fit in room for growth in the main building, parking lots for school and sports, a walking track etc.

In the coming weeks we will be covering the building more closely, including official layouts, plans etc. And also we will be doing an in depth look at the history of schools in our area. We hope to even include some interviews of people who remember our other schools being built and utilized.

This is the first school being built outside the city limits of Maynardville in 43 years!

Figure 1 - The southern wall footer.
Figure 2 - The internal make up of the footer showing rebar.
Figure 3 - The level area that will hold the main body of the school.
Figure 4 - The cross section of a piece of shale showing sedimentary layers.

Thank you to each and every person who made this possible.