Examples: concrete, asphalt, grading.
In: Other
They don’t. A large enough project might take a couple of years because they don’t do that kind of work outside.
They just put in a new overpass on my route to work. They started at the beginning of April and they finished it in early November.
On my alternate route to work, due to the road closure for the overpass construction, I was driving past a construction site for a new apartment complex. They did as much of the exterior construction, including pouring sidewalks, as they could before it got cold and will be spending the winter doing interior work.
They don’t do that sort of stuff in winter, and pack it all into the non cold times of the year
You wait until summer or build out an insulated space/tent with insulated tarps to work in that you keep heated.
On large projects the ground work gets done in the summer. Smaller concrete parts and above ground construction can be done in cold weather.
I live in Montana as a Civil Engineer so we have winter and “construction season”. There’s lots of allowances in our specifications for certain temps, cold weather protection for concrete, etc. but there’s also hard cut offs. For example we can’t put down any paint on our runways unless the ambient temperature is 40 degrees and rising. Asphalt needs to be put down above a certain temperature and when you get later into the year it becomes somewhat more difficult to maintain temperature in the asphalt. Usually we go till about October then we’re done until around April.
But for instance if we get the foundations and stem walls poured in before the ground freezes, we can do the framing and such when it gets colder. Basically OP the schedule is just adjusted to account for the weather, we get as much done as we can within the window we think we’ll have, and stuff that can be done that isn’t weather dependent (in my case a lot of the electrical for airports) gets pushed back. I’ve been inspecting electrical work in 2 feet of snow, it was fun in a “this sucks” kind of way, fell in a lot of holes that were buried.
To add on to the other comments.
You spend money to make warm weather conditions to place those items.
Or
You accept that anything you install in cold weather is temporary and is going to be torn up and replaced in the summer. I’ve done ACP road paving in winter with the wrong mix (as the asphalt plant was shut down), placing in 0 C weather as we needed to open that bridge that we then replaced in the summer.
Over here they just don’t. Asphalt isn’t put down after October-ish. The workers don’t have to worry, though, there’s plenty of work to be found in the snow plowing business for the next few months.
The old joke is that there are two seasons in the cold places, winter and roadwork.
There’s also frost heave and frost quakes.
When the ground freezes deep enough fast enough the water expands and the chunks fracture and heave upwards to reduce the pressure. This is why roads and paved areas need so much repair work in cold climates. It’s being fragmented from below for half the year. Proper drainage and roadbed layering help but water is everywhere.
Asphalt plants here in Anchorage shut down 5 months a year or so. Just gotta wait, the asphalt process doesn’t work in the cold.
No grading either, everything is frozen. And buried under snow.
You don’t lol.
There are special additives and things where if you HAVE to do construction in freezing temperatures, it’s possible. This goes all the way up to building a giant tent over your site and heating it.
But I live in the North East USA, not even particularly harsh winters, and we have all kinds of projects that just, don’t happen in the winter. They wait for spring to start
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