Fun with Factoids

Fun and interesting facts about the construction of the new Helen DeVos Children's Hospital:

• 13,824 tons of material removed during construction
• 95% (13,165 tons) of material was recycled or salvaged
• The excavation hole could hold 83,345 cubic yards of sand, equivalent to 16,833,190 gallons of water
• 54,700 cubic yards of soil was excavated in 2,000 truck loads
• Each floor is larger than a football field
• Maximum speed of the elevators is 7.5 feet per second or 5.1 miles per hour
• 1,013 doors
• Approximately 140,000 square feet (6,800 pieces) of glass on the tower curtain wall alone
• The complete glass curtain wall enclosure system equals more than 760,000 pounds of glass and aluminum
• 110,424 feet of plumbing pipes or roughly 21 miles
• 53,919 feet of heating pipes or roughly 10 miles
• 60,000 feet of ductwork or roughly 11 miles
• The crane is 326 feet tall or approximately 1,068 feet above sea level
• Over the course of the project, the crane operator climbed approximately 115,000 feet up and 115,000 feet down the crane (that is equivalent to a round-trip of more than 43 miles or climbing to the top of the Sears Tower 79 times)
• 1,250 tons of structural steel spread over 11 floors above ground (that is equivalent in weight to approximately 2,637,164,900 paper clips or 208 elephants)
• 149 miles of electrical conduit (if stretched from the new children's hospital, this conduit would almost reach downtown Detroit)
• 458 miles of power wiring (if stretched from the new children's hospital, this wiring would reach past St. Louis)
• 12,500 light bulbs
• 3,865 sprinkler heads
• 1,600,000 square feet of drywall, which would cover almost 37 acres of land if layed flat
• 120,000 pieces of metal (wall) studs, the equivalent of 1,920,000 lineal feet of metal (if butted together, this would stretch 364 miles)