Steak, anyone?

Taking a break from the Saint Mary’s project…for some reason, I was reminded of the small project we did at Harrah’s Steak House. The Steak House was one of Reno’s premier restaurants and located in the basement of the old Virginia Street casino. We got a call one morning telling us that a crew was needed, immediately, at the restaurant. It turned out that a grease fire had burned out the old ductwork above the ceiling. A sheet metal contractor had been working 24 hours a day to rebuild the grease duct that ran from the basement kitchens to the first floor and exiting high above the alleyway. It was going to be our job to enclose the new duct with metal framing and a thick layer of gypsum plaster over lath. And maintain a 2” air clearance around the ductwork at all times. None of our framing could touch it. To top it off, all of the work was to be done above the existing ceiling and it had to be done in a hurry. All casino work is done in a hurry.

So up we went. Two of us above the ceiling, lying on pipes and framing, while a third was cutting the material that we called for. And since we had to weld a lot of the framing in place, we had to keep a fire extinguisher with us which just added to the crowding we were experiencing. All of this was done while were wearing ‘leathers’ to try and keep the burns to a minimum. It would sometimes take us almost 30 minutes to crawl from our entry point to where we were working. Once in awhile, we would try a shortcut, only to find the way blocked by equipment or piping and then we would have to retrace our steps (crawling) to start all over again. After about a week, we had progressed about 30 feet and we could see our destination off in the gloom; a vertical shaft that rose about 20 feet into total darkness on the first floor.