Haste Doesn't Make Waste

The combination of low temperatures and the holidays has put quite a dent in our schedule.

While we weather the storm, we took some time to build a mass model of two respective buildings @ 1/4" scale:

Front Elevation

Rear Yard Elevation

Oblique

Knock on Wood

Ok so the title is a bit cliche, but at least I didn't use: Against the grain, Home is where the heart is...

It's been over two weeks since our last post. And during that time, we changed our ground face block color (GF block will be used on North Wall and East Wall aka the back yard) and our mason.

Here's what we've managed to produce this past week:

The mason delivered his scaffolding,

Our 3x10 joists were delivered and cut to size (Fire cut end shown),

We spaced the every 12" o.c and painstakingly placed our bridging in between our joists (We used joist hangers to support every perpendicular bridging member)

And layed out our first layer of plywood. I say first layer because we have another layer of warmboard (1-1/8" plywood) that goes on top. Visit warmboard.com to view this layer.

Foundation Complete

The form work was entirely stripped on Friday (Nov 6th), and...



the waterproofing was applied to the outer part of the foundation wall, and...



we backfilled the site.

44 Cubic Yards

That was the amount of concrete delivered to us on Friday and that is about 132,000 lbs of aggregate, water and cement (Not to mention Fly Ash). Relative to our building mass, it's the equivalent of a 38' long wall x 13' tall x 12" thick, plus a party wall that is 8'-9" tall x 33' in length and 20" thick.



A day prior to the concretes delivery, the foundation sub and his crew were sandwiching this double rebar grid with their concrete forms.

On Friday, the pump trucks were used to transfer the concrete from the concrete trucks into the forms.

Our testing consultants @ International Geotechnical Laboratories were back performing their tests to insure the concretes quality.

Unfinished Business

Since our last post, we had a few off days (Three to be exact - weather and holiday related), but we removed the remaining dirt (4 trucks @ 35 cuyds) and backfilled the neighbors yard and our rear yards (4 trucks @ 30 cuyds). This is a view of a portion of the back yard.



The last of the footing was poured today. The rebar had been perfectly arranged and we had our subs bring in the pump truck to help transport the concrete from point A (Concrete truck) to point B (Within the footings formwork).



As the concrete trucks (2 @ 12 cuyds each) were pulling to the curb, our foundation contractor and his crew were making sure that they had their tools beside them.



Five guys were on the curb (Including our lab technicians taking their samples) and six below. Three guys hold on to the pump hose while three level the concrete within the formwork.

Turning the Corner

On Friday, we poured 45 cubic yards of concrete and this afternoon (72 hours later) we intiated theremoval of the forms.

We decided to remove the exterior forms so we can waterproof the foundation, drop some gravel at the base of the footing and begin backfilling. The two large openings in this image will be filled with steel frame glass doors (10' in width) for access to the back yard.

Clean pour without honeycombing

The Gloves Come Off

Not exactly the gloves, but the forms (From the initial foundation pour) came off this week and viola. The white band on the bottom is 2 layers of 2" deep (4" combined) foam x 10" high. We'll strip that off once the entire pour is complete and place our joists to form our first floor platform.

We didn't stop there, we went ahead and poured more of the footing (North side of 101 BP)...

while more form work was erected to pour the rear foundation of both 101 and 103 BP.

And yes, we started forming the north foundation wall of 101 BP. Two layers of No. 5 rebar (Vert and Hor) @ 12" grid. Tomorrow (Friday October 11th) we will be pouring about 24 cubic yards and John is anxious, nervous and excited because he is thinking about getting the walls up before the weather takes a turn for the worse. No one wants to work outside as the weather cools, especially when you're dealing with water based material and freezing temperatures.