7.27.2014

Jim and I walked to church early this morning.  As soon as we got there, the skies opened up and there was a big thunderstorm.  It was still raining when we had to walk home, but thankfully it had calmed down so we only got half-drenched!  So we had more of a relaxing Sunday morning and caught up on some reading and paperwork after breakfast while things dried out.

Jim and Bryan headed to the land around lunchtime and started working on laying things out again.  Jim got to use his other level which gives a more precise reading.

Lots of measuring with tape and laser and chalking lines went on.

In the end, everything turned out perfectly.  The walls will fit on the footers just the way it was drawn on paper - which doesn't happen very often!

Jim and Bryan started prepping an area for the ICFs to be staged when they come tomorrow.  Unfortunately, the forecast is for more rain which isn't good.  The ICFs are coming on two trucks - a tractor-trailer and a flat-bed truck.  That's a lot of giant lego blocks!  We worry about them being able to come up the hill to unload, so we'll have to wait and see how that goes.

7.26.2014

Jim and Bryan put in another hard day of work today...taking off the footer forms and laying the drain pipe.

Here's Bryan working on the forms...look out good that first step came out!

Jim taking apart the complicated step pieces...this step came out great too.

All the forms are off!

Working on the drain pipe...

The drain going around the corners.

The front outside is all done.

 

Working on the step drains - always more of a challenge.



At one point, Jim was digging gravel out of the inside front footer as Bryan was throwing gravel onto the completed outside front footer (there was a Laurel & Hardy joke thrown in there somewhere too).

Working on the inside front forms...

All done...the step pieces are capped off once they flatten out because Jim will wait on the drain pipe at ground level - it will just be in the way at this point.

 

Looks really good from up top too!

 

We didn't do the top step section when we did the drains last week, so Jim and Bryan finished those off too, again capping at the top once they hit ground level.

At the end of the day, they started transferring the footprint of the structure to the footers in anticipation of our insulated concrete forms coming on Monday!

 

 

7.25.2014 - Second Footer Pour!

Thankfully, the weather gods were in our favor for concrete.  Gone are the 90 degree temps - yesterday and today were high 70s/low 80s.  Much better!

This morning, Jim and Bryan headed out to the land for the finishing touches on the footers.  Jim put up all the support blocking and Bryan worked on filling in the gravel using the Bobcat.

Here's Jim making his final inspection - he goes over everything and makes sure all the ties are secure and everything is in place.

The happy crew before the concrete truck arrived!

Since we had such a good experience with the driver last time, we specifically requested him this time and were happy to see him show up again!  Maybe having those donuts helped!

They started filling in the step area - which was unreachable with the truck.  So that meant using wheelbarrows which is a lot of work.  Brad, the driver, was great about slowly filling up the wheelbarrows though, which helped.

Bryan dumping a wheelbarrow full of concrete in the step area.

There wasn't much room to work in these footers either, which made things more difficult.  Because the concrete was dumped in the corner, it all had to be pulled back to fill in the area.

Once the lower step was in good shape, they moved to the upper part of the footer and the first step.

In between, we all took turns vibrating the concrete to make sure there were no voids.

Once the step areas were done, the concrete truck was able to shoot the concrete into the footers which helped.  However, these are really wide footers - combined with the tight space, it was still a lot of work.

Closing in on the end!

Then it's back to the beginning to get everything leveled off.

Poor Jim practically had to do the splits to finish the front footers!

Here's the tired crew after - just a little worse for the wear!

The footers turned out great! 

Clean up time!

Cooling down with a little mist from the hose!

Wow - our footers are all done!  It really is amazing to me that just last Friday we were looking at this view and admiring the first footer pour.  It was a week of a lot of hard work.

 

7.24.2014

Wow...this was another crazy busy day.  Jim's brother-in-law, Bryan, is graciously bringing up some of our stuff that's been in storage in Ohio and staying with us for a week or so to join in our fun!  Here's a picture he texted before he left...said he looked like the Clampett's!

Jim called the building inspector this morning to set up an inspection for tomorrow morning.  He said he wasn't going to be working tomorrow and wanted to come today at 1:00.  Jim told him we wouldn't be completely ready by then, but he said he saw our work last time and he was sure it would be fine.

So that was good, but that meant we had a lot we wanted to get done by the time he came to inspect.  Plus Jim spent time on the phone ordering concrete to be delivered tomorrow afternoon - so we really have to be ready! 

Besides that, Jim had worked up his first quote for the cold-formed steel he will need for the first floor.  The guy got back to him right away and Jim ordered that this morning too!  So next week we have the insulated concrete forms coming on Monday and the cold-formed steel on Tuesday.  Things are moving really fast now!

Thankfully, the temps today were in the 70s so it was much better working conditions.  However, when you are working with steel and doing so much physical work, it still felt hot.

Today was all about steel.  Jim cut all the pieces of 1/2" rebar...



and I bent all of them for the stirrups.

Jim had to bend the 5/8" steel for all of the rest of the steel in the forms.

 

And there is a lot of steel in the forms!  So there was a lot of placing steel in the right places and doing a lot of tying! 

Then Jim had to bend all of the steel for the footing dowels and tie those all into place.

The steel work for the steps is always so complex.

Everything is taking shape.

And the birds eye view is looking pretty incredible!  It's hard for me to fathom that just a week ago we were planning for the first pour - we certainly got a lot done this week!

We knocked off a little early and got things cleaned up for the night so that when Bryan got here, we took him on a little site tour and then went to Dango's for dinner.

We have a little more form work to be done tomorrow morning - gravel and bracing basically - but then we'll be ready for concrete!

 

 

7.23.2014

It was another hot day but at least today there were a few clouds and a slight breeze every once in awhile so that it didn't feel quite so life draining.

It was back to work on the footers...both sides are done now.  I told Jim that it looks like a sidewalk as opposed to a footer!

The step areas are always fun.

To make this step just a little more challenging, right where Jim wanted to build the step form there was a huge rock that wasn't going anywhere.  There was no way to get the excavator over to the corner to help out, so Plan B had to come into play.

Plan B involved making the step wider and just use the rock as part of the form. 

Of course, this involved a lot more work.  Because now the rest of the step area had to be straightened out - so more digging, of course!



But soon Jim had that all done and started building the stops for the steps.



 

One step done and one almost finished!

In between helping Jim whenever I could on the footers, I started shoveling gravel behind some of the footers.

At the end of the day, we felt good with all we got accomplished.    All of the footers are built and just need fine-tuning with supports and gravel.  Which means that steel is on the agenda for tomorrow. 

Rain was forecast for a good part of the day and it finally caught up to us about 4:30.  Jim stayed and worked in the drizzly rain to get the water connections out of the back of the truck and onto the back of the temporary power pole.  We have water now without using the truck - success!