Kingston Pump House Steam Museum

The Kingston Pump House Museum is a demonstration of the original waterworks that served the City of Kingston in the 19^th Century.

The Pump House is located in one of Canada’s oldest original water works – where steam-powered pumps provided the first running water to Kingston residents from 1851. Only six similar preserved water pumping stations remain in North America. The assignment involved an addition to house workshops, arrival and orientation space for school groups, new accessible washrooms and office areas, as well as renovations to the existing historic building.

During excavation underground structures were discovered that were not identified in sub-surface investigations at early stages of the project. Removal of the structures and replacement with engineered backfill would have resulted in a large extra. To mitigate this, change our team mobilized on site within a few days and facilitated a meeting with between the civil contractor, the general contractor and the structural engineer to revise the footing system to avoid subsurface obstructions. By quickly addressing the issue we avoided schedule slippage.

Delay was incurred on this project due to the glazier installing curtain wall that did not match the shop drawings and specifications. Our team worked with the product manufacturers to ensure the delivered installation would still meet specified performance standards. In order to mitigate a 90-day extension to the construction schedule we instead negotiated a significant credit and applied aftermarket films to achieve the desired design. The museum was able to open on time and the overall budget was reduced.