In June of 2016, a new Love’s Travel Stop opened in Boardman, Ore., offering professional truck drivers and other travelers 24-hour access to clean, safe places to buy gas, diesel fuel, travel items, meals, and snacks. An essential part of this particular Travel Stop is the private well that provides water for all of the 11,000-square-foot (1,022-m2) facility’s needs, including food preparation, showers, bathrooms, outside irrigation, and fire hydrants.
Orenco Composites™ manufactured the two-room, fiberglass-reinforced DuraFiber™ building that serves as a water utility building and houses the system’s booster pumps. One room serves as a control room, while the other contains most of the pumps and piping. Each room has its own exterior door. The building features pump controls, interior and exterior lighting, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. It also has a hatch on the roof to allow for pump removal. The walls and roof were integrally molded using a vacuum-infusion process, which adds to the strength of the building. It measures 24 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet high (7.3 m by 3.7 m by 2.4 m).
Fextex Systems, an Orenco representative, provided the 20-gpm (1.3-L/sec) booster pump. The pump system includes a flow meter, a chemical-feed system to chlorinate the water, and a 107,000-gallon (405-m3) storage tank. Fextex also supplied the four Orenco AdvanTex® AX-Max™ units, which provide advanced wastewater treatment for the travel stop.
“Fextex was pleased to supply Orenco wastewater equipment for the Love’s project because of Orenco’s great reputation for quality products and service,” said Bob Nation, president of Fextex Systems. “We were also pleased that Love’s chose Orenco Composites’ DuraFiber utility buildings to house both the water and the wastewater controls. The specifying engineer was particularly impressed that these buildings came complete with so many options, including electrical and control panels, heating, cooling, lighting, and ventilation systems.”
The DuraFiber brand provides high-quality buildings to many different industries, including water and wastewater, telecommunications, power utilities, and transportation. The buildings are corrosion-resistant, UV-resistant, and impact-resistant. And they won’t rot or rust, since no wood or steel is used in their construction.
All DuraFiber buildings are vacuum-infusion molded using high-strength fiberglass fabrics, a high-tech process commonly used to produce yachts and aerospace parts. The standard, 3-inch (76-mm) foam-core fiberglass walls and roof provide structural integrity, while keeping the interior warm with R-18 insulation. The exterior surface is protected with a high-performance epoxy primer and urethane paint, which is superior to standard gel coats.
Orenco Composites buildings are designed to withstand up to 160 mph (258 km/h) winds and support up to a 100-lb/ft2 (4.8-kPa) live load. In addition, they can be manufactured and delivered as a complete, turn-key solution for a variety of job sites. That means a project can be operational just hours after setting the prefab building in place.
Each building comes with a 10-year limited warranty and offers an array of options, including lighting, electrical outlets, HVAC systems, anti-skid floors, double doors, windows, and interior walls. Applications include lift stations, motor control centers, generator housing, chemical storage, and more. WW
About the Author: Darren Simmie is the sales manager for the Orenco CompositesTM division of Orenco Systems® Inc. In this role, he’s responsible for strategic planning and market development for Orenco’s newest composite/fiberglass products, including buildings and rectangular tanks. Simmie has more than 25 years of experience in sales and product management in the water and wastewater industry.
