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Until recent weeks, Greater Des Moines contractors have played a prolonged game of who can stump the rain.

Mud and boot-grabbing muck that prevailed from spring to midsummer were tough enough to deal with, but they followed a long, bitter winter.

Combined, those conditions forced project managers to look into the future to predict how the weather would affect a job. Sometimes, workers just waited out the rain.

Weitz Iowa went on the offensive early, using a ground-thaw heater to pull moisture out of the soil so it could begin paving this spring at Drake University’s West Village apartment complex.

In Fort Dodge, Vanderpool Construction Inc. was trying to remove sod and complete grading at the high school’s Dodger Stadium so it could be used for graduation on the last weekend in May. However, because of rain delays, the final grading could not be completed for new artificial turf to be installed in time for the ceremony. To remedy this, Midwest Fieldturf Co. of Denison, the general contractor on the project, took worn artificial turf from another football field and used it as a temporary carpet so that graduating seniors didn’t sink to their knees in mud. But after all that effort, a rainstorm forced graduation indoors.

This construction season, Central Iowa contractors made allowances for the mud, struggled to stay on schedule and took innovative approaches in the face of snow and cold temperatures in winter and near-record rainfall through midsummer.

In the first seven months of the year, the state recorded 30.18 inches of rain, second only to 32.98 inches in 1993 and nearly 10 inches above normal, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s Climate Bureau.

August has been relatively dry and something of a construction worker’s delight.

Steve Frame, vice president of Elder Corp., said that until recently, his excavation crews would average two or three days of work a week.

“We’re still running into wet conditions,” Frame said. The company ranks among the largest excavators in the state.

Steve Roush, a supervisor for Vanderpool Construction, said that in a normal year, he would now be placing bids on work scheduled for fall.

“I stopped bidding work two weeks ago,” so the company could catch up on current commitments, he said.

“If we get one day of rain, we lose two or three days of work,” Roush said.

In some wet situations, Elder and other excavators use low-ground-pressure bulldozers that are custom built with extra-wide tracks and longer-than-normal track rails that spread the weight of heavy equipment over a larger surface area.

“I remember one old tractor that could go out and work in mud that you couldn’t walk in,” said Brian Morris, sales coordinator for Ziegler Inc. in Altoona.

However, those tend to be single-purpose machines that can cost more than $320,000 and can suffer damage if operated on dry ground.

“Everything that’s good now might not be good later,” Morris said.

Ryan Companies U.S. Inc., which was working on two projects over the winter in Greater Des Moines and launched three this spring, has felt the impact, said Brad Schoenfelder, vice president of development in Des Moines.

“It has affected our operations, but not to the detriment of any projects,” he said.

Ryan is a Minnesota-based company, and as such, it has plenty of experience dealing with cold-weather construction, he said.

Schoenfelder said construction companies need to be “adaptive and creative” when working in adverse weather.

The company lays down a four-inch layer of two sizes of limestone rock when it knows heavy equipment, such as cranes, will be on site. The surface provides sound footing that later is used as a base for concrete, he said.

On the $21 million Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. parking ramp under construction at 13th and Mulberry streets, Ryan used a higher strength concrete than required in specifications in order to shorten cure times.

In addition, the company burned about $100,000 worth of propane to maintain enough heat to both pour and cure the concrete.

Because of the bitter cold, the company could open up just enough area to complete a day’s worth of concrete work, including covering and thawing the existing grade and removing blankets in order to bring the grade to the proper elevation – in some cases removing and replacing subgrade because of muddy conditions. Then workers would pour a slab, cover and heat it until properly cured.

Between November 2007 and May, Ryan lost 44 workdays, or nearly seven days per month. In a normal winter, the company might lose three workdays per month, Schoenfelder said.

In wet conditions, such as those encountered on the Iowa Clinic project in West Des Moines, Ryan uses mold-resistant materials.

“This winter, being different from others, really ties to the component of being adaptive,” Schoenfelder said.

The issues come down to time, budget, safety and quality, he said.

And sometimes, a project just has to take a break for a few days.

“Is it the best use of (a client’s) money to spend it on overtime or to bring in additional crews, or is it a better use of their resources to extend completion schedules?” Schoenfelder said.

In addition, it is crucial to meet with subcontractors to find solutions to weather problems. Though working lots of overtime might seem an obvious answer, it might not be the best one.

“The creative stance is about sitting down with your excavator and maybe your steel erector so that ultimately you say, ‘This is the goal we’re working toward; what can we do to gain time?'” Schoenfelder said.

Weitz came up with answers of its own when it encountered rough weather on the Drake University project, said spokeswoman Kim Waltman.

Because the snow pack and ice were too thick to remove from the site, Weitz hauled in 556 tons of sand and gravel from October 2007 to March so workers had firm footing and equipment had traction, said Dan Baxter, project manager for the Drake construction.

Some of that gravel was reused as base for concrete paving, Waltman said.

Anticipation of a wet spring prompted the company to begin paving at one building last fall to make sure the project was finished on time.

As if to remind contractors that they can’t stop the rain, a two-week dry spell came to an end Aug. 21.

“This is the worst year I’ve ever had,” Roush said. “It’s worse than ’93. At least in ’93, it rained hard, but then it stopped.”