Setting the first of the floor forms.

After another long hiatus working on keeping a couple of our other balls in the air, we finally got a bit more work done on the house. Not much, but progress. Monday, the boys and I finished clearing out the concrete forms, stakes and rebar left over from the footing pour and stacking them out of the way. At least I hope they are out of the way because I hate moving stuff twice! I also started cutting a road to haul in the drain rock to go around the footing. While working on that, we had 30 yds. of drain rock delivered. If I can get Thurs. and Fri. off this week, I’m going to try and get the rock all put in place. Good intentions and all…

It has been a while since I have updated the blog and a lot has happened.

The footing layout took quite some time due to the complexity of the footprint and some days I wondered if we were making real progress or not. One day the resident safety officer arrived (Judson) who promptly placed placards all over the job site with instructions for various items like “Yield to traffic on bridge”, “Junk yard ahead” (for where they have accumulated all of my scrap material), “Do not step on string” and my favorite which explained why progress was sometimes slower than desired, “Lose ground”. J The picture explains it all be we still get a good chuckle out of this one.

It was a nice change to get to work on rebar. Everyone joined in on the fun with the boys starting off distributing the corner pieces around to where they needed to go, Aric cutting straight rebar to length while I laid out the rebar and did the initial measuring, marking and tying with Sally following to do the final tying and setting. The plans called for 4 runs of #4 (1/2”) rebar with a cross piece every 16” for approximately 2,000 ties for just the footer.

Liesl and Leif helped with keeping us supplied with rebar ties and rebar chairs to keep the rebar in the right location above the ground.

This went a lot quicker than I expected but was quite a back-breaker. Overall it took about 12 hours to install and tie all the rebar in the footing since all of the small pieces were pre-cut and I only had to custom bend 12 pieces to handle the 3 step downs. (Picture by Judson)

Next was the vertical pieces of 12x36 #6 (3/4”) that had to be tied and held in place every 12” for another ~1500 ties. When I was bringing all the steel down to the jobsite from the staging area, I had brought down all of the #4 bars that were cut in one load in the truck and carried the uncut 20’ #4 with the excavator. When we got to the vertical L’s I figured I do the same so I took the truck and excavator up to the staging area and loaded the three bundles into the back of the truck with the excavator. It looked a “little” heavy back there but I wasn’t going far, so no big deal. As I came down the hill to the lower level, I think the truck was actually level it was riding so low in the back. I did the math later and figured at 6 lbs a piece times 457 pieces we were over 2,700 lbs in the back of a ½ ton truck. Oops. Judson and Judah worked really hard and laid out all of the pieces every 12” around the entire footing (6 lbs per bar with them carrying 2-4 each trip. When we did the math, we figured they each did over 1,200 lbs of steel work just for those in one day!

Nice work guys and way to build muscle! With the tying going so quickly, I decided to schedule an inspection for Wednesday figuring we would finish up on Tuesday. Tuesday went well and we wrapped up, however when I went down on Wednesday morning to do a final review I realized I had missed a 5’x5’ pad with a 4’ wall on it that needed to be poured at the same time otherwise the pour order would be messed up. I worked to get that in before the inspector arrived and wrapped that up around 1:00. A little after 3:00 the inspector showed and we chatted a bit about the design, etc. before he went to take a look at the footings. As he first looked at the footings he said to me, “You didn’t have a professional do this, did you?” Uh oh, what did I miss or do? Tentatively, I replied, “No… I did it. Why?”. “It’s too neat. They just slap it together and don’t care.” Was his reply. Phew! He looked at a bit more of the work as we discussed the things he was reviewing and he signed off with no issues! With the inspection done, it was time for a break to work around the farm, get some R&R by going to the Western Washington Fair and waiting for the first pour on Monday which I thought would be a nice cap to the end of my 6 week sabbatical.

Monday, (the last day of my Sabbatical) we finally poured concrete! I had been sweating it all week as I checked and re-checked my calculations (435 lineal feet of 30”x12” footing X 2.5 cubic feet per lineal foot / 27 cubic feet per cubic yard) for how much to order in. I ran my figures by a couple of more knowledgeable people who agreed it sounded “right” but you never know. Sometimes you’re over, sometimes you’re under. Needless to say, it didn’t boost my confidence too much especially when I was figuring on 40.5 yards plus another 3.5 yards for safety. If we ran short, getting more was going to be problematic as you don’t just bring in a 9 yard truck for a yard of concrete. I had decided to try a concrete line pump for this pour to see how it would work and to save a bit of money since I think all of the rest of the 6-7 pours will require a boom pump to be effective. The pump arrived 45 minutes early and the concrete 20 minutes late. Not a great start but better than the other way around. Fortunately my help had all arrived and was raring to go. I can’t thank enough all those that came out to help: Bill Abram, Philip Roth, Jeremy McMahan, Aric Adams, Chris Rogers, Peter Roth, and Jerry McMahan.

Of course concrete is a spectator sport, so here’s some of our fan club cheering us on!

Concrete started flowing around 11:00 and as the first truck ran dry we weren’t filling the forms up very quickly as we were pouring the bottom edges of the deepest forms to let them set up so they wouldn’t spill out as bad. I had ordered the concrete for 4” slump but the pumper was watering it down a bit, so we were losing more out the bottom gaps than I was hoping. Guys started jumping in to build up the dirt around the gaps on the outside of the form to help keep the concrete where it belonged since they couldn’t trowel anything off yet. This may have saved the day, but more on that later. The second truck showed up and we started filling up the forms. By the end of truck two it didn’t look like much progress was being made toward filling up the forms but we were working on the deepest sections of the forms so looks were deceiving. While truck 2 was half empty trucks 3 and 4 showed up back to back. When I talked to the pumper he had requested the trucks be staggered at 15 minute intervals so I was figuring with 5 trucks we should be poured in an hour and 15 minutes so I made sure I had plenty of help to trowel out.

After we started troweling the first section of footing it was pretty clear that he wasn’t pumping nearly that fast and one crew of three guys plus Judson or Judah doing the pre-trowel right behind the pumper could keep up, so instead of 2 crews working real hard we had two crews alternating and working at a reasonable and measured pace (well for concrete anyway)! J With 3 trucks sitting around and we weren’t anywhere close to keeping up I started worrying that there wouldn’t be time to adjust the 5^th trucks load if we needed to stretch it a bit. Too late. By the time the second truck finished, the fifth was already on the road, so we were committed to 44 yards. L Truck three went in without incident and I started eyeballing the remaining work to see how we were shaping up for concrete. Maybe. Just maybe. I told the driver to get out his concrete stretcher and the pumper to quit splashing. We were now into the section of forms that were pretty tight and very close to being spot on, so I counted vertical rebar to estimate what remained. The last truck theoretically was carrying 8 yards and I needed just over 8 to finish by my quick calculation. Ugh. I started praying that the load was “long” and we would have plenty. I couldn’t trowel at this point but just keep calculating and watching to see if the next few minutes would classify me as a genius or an idiot. Concrete was oozing out between the forms since this load was extra wet and every drip felt like Chinese water torture.

I knew the pump lines held a couple of wheelbarrows full of concrete so as long as we only needed a wheelbarrow of concrete when the truck ran dry we would be okay since we would lose ~2 wheelbarrows of concrete due to pump waste and cleaning the lines. The moment of truth arrived and with one wheelbarrow of concrete left in the footing to put in and concrete still coming out of the truck I proclaimed success!

After action report showed less than a wheelbarrow still in the truck so we ended up with ~ 2 wheelbarrows of extra concrete and couldn’t have cut it any closer for ordering. Also, if we had lost much more out of the bottom of the forms that the guys stopped up or hadn’t caught the blowout on the garage wall we would have been running for a portable mixer to finish the job. Huge relief. So for Monday I made the Genius instead of the Idiot category, but I still have 6 more pours to do with 6 more changes for success or failure. I think I’ll order a little “longer” next time. J

Well I’m on the road till the end of next week so the project is mostly on hold until then. Next steps will be to strip the wood portion of the forms, backfill the outside of the forms with drain rock, dig and place the under floor drain lines, backfill for the basement floor and then begin building the walls. Keep posted to see how that goes.

We finally quit digging down long enough to build up! We started setting the Form-a-Drain forms on the North side of the house and were able to complete about 100’ of it. It took some time to figure out the secret for how to quickly make the pieces the right length but after about 75’ I figured out to always cut them 3.5” shorter than the length I wanted and it comes out perfectly (This isn’t because I can’t cut right but the corner connectors need 3/5” from the end of the run to the outside of the next board). Here’s Aric pounding in some stakes on one of our first sections of drain.

 Here is a quick overview shot of what we accomplished on Wednesday.

It’s been very nice weather for being outside and working. It’s a bit sweaty! ;)

Meanwhile the kids were enjoying the gangways across the footing trenches. Needless to say, they fell in a few times. J

After the little escapade with the loader last week things were looking up on Friday. We were able to clear the dirt out of the foundation area we had piled up and re-graded the floor into a semblance of level. My brother came by after work to see what he could do to help and as I was showing and telling him about the track from Thursday he noticed a leak on the loader. No big deal I thought, it always leaks. Then he pointed to the puddle and this time it was REALLY leaking! After a bit of investigation it looks like the front motor mount backed out causing the motor to really vibrate the main hydraulic pump on the front causing the main bearing seal to start to fail. Only way to fix it looks like pulling the front of the loader off. Ugh. I think I can get by with pouring more hydraulic fluid in every day for awhile and hope for some downtime to fix it later. I’ll cross my fingers.

Saturday I took the day off from the house to work on finishing up a handicap access ramp at church and then went shopping in the evening with Sally to get items for the house construction, upcoming birthdays, etc. and Sunday afternoon I got a brief nap before company came for our weekly small group from church.

Monday started off slow with a bit of a timeout to adjust my CAD plan to show dimensions off of my baselines to make laying out the footings easier. Once that was done, I picked up Aric and we went down to the farm and put together a couple of trailers for work around the farm. That took us to noon, so I was starting to feel like my day was shot. Once we got to the site we spent the afternoon setting up a good set of reference lines across the site and marking all of the remaining footing lines.

Meanwhile, Aric was busy cleaning up the edges of the hole with the excavator and was blindly burying the dump truck and backhoe.

Tomorrow we should finish digging the footings. If Aric is running the excavator, watch out for your toys! J

Well the inevitable happened today and things did not go according to plan. Originally I had planned to finish digging the footings today and begin setting up forms on Friday. After a good start of finishing the North, East and West footings, I decided to switch over to the loader to move the pile of dirt out of the middle so I could lay out the interior footings and dig them next.

Well I had been delaying using the loader until David came over to help figure out how to adjust the tracks because they were a “little” loose but I decided to just take it easy and turn slow. I guess habits are hard to break because on the second load I turned hard and slipped the track right off! Argh! Well I tried a few things to try to force it back on but was pushing it farther off instead. Needing more help I called Jeremy to come give me a hand.

After trying various options like using the excavator to try to help push it back on while slowly turning it we finally decided to take the plunge and separate the track. Someone had helpfully welded the king pin in so I had to grind that off before we could push it out. We tried beating it out with a sledge hammer but weren’t making any progress so we made a few calls to see if we could get a press and were told that those pins were put in using a 100 Ton press! Not to be deterred, we got our own 100 Ton press and managed to get it out!

We finally got it all put back on and tightened up around 6:30 and called it a day. Maybe tomorrow we can finish digging the footings.

On a brighter note, the first load of steel is coming tomorrow. Sounds painful.

Let me begin by apologizing to those of you who faithfully re-read the post below! L Your perseverance has finally paid off and you will no longer be suffering from déjà-vu all over again.

First, a brief update on the house. Dig, dig, dig. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Second, a slightly longer update on the house. Since the last update we have been slowly cutting the hill down to size in order to fit the circular driveway in front of the house on the same level. Once that cut was complete, we began excavating for the walk out basement. After literally months, we are finally at finish grade for the basement and began excavating the footings today. Here is a brief timeline showing progress:

April 19, 2008: Here’s the original hill looking toward the North (this will be the walk out basement side).

Here’s a view of where the driveway will go:

July 1, 2008: We finished cutting the top of the hill and began the first stepped cut for the basement. Most of the dirt from the first cut will be piled on top to be used as backfill once the basement walls are completed.

July 15, 2008: First basement cut is complete and second has begun (each step is ~4’ wide by 4’ deep to prevent cave in).

August 4, 2008: We’ve had lots of help. Here’s Chris digging the final step down for the basement (he sure looks like your typical piano teacher!).

August 5, 2008: We’ve finally finished cutting the basement and getting ready to cut the footings.

One item I don’t have any pictures of is all of the equipment breakdowns. L I think Sally is on a first name basis with the guys at Williams Oil in Tacoma as she gets hydraulic lines rebuilt for both the dozer and the excavator. One of the really dusty days a couple of weeks ago saw me covered in hydraulic fluid due to a fitting on the excavator splitting and spraying me from head to toe and then a small fracture in one of the main hydraulic cylinders on the dozer sent a fine mist over me for 20 minutes until I could pinpoint the problem. Naturally, the dirt clung to me really good and Sally thought I looked like Pig Pen all grown up. :O

Here’s a sure sign of progress…I have my tool belt on!

Since we are getting close to building up instead of digging down, we’ve started to get materials delivered. Last Thursday the footing form/drains arrived. We’re using 8” Certainteed Form-a-Drain for all the footings which function as both the footing form and the permanent foundation drain. For the deeper footings, we are scabbing on 2x4s that we will reuse for the window and door bucks when forming the ICF walls. Monday saw the delivery of the basement wall forms from Polysteel. We are using the 8” PS3000 for the basement and the 6” PS3000 for the main floor. Basically these will be assembled like Legos with rebar and then concrete poured into them to create a high efficiency, dense, strong and quiet wall for the entire house. Everybody chipped in to help unload the 53’ truck that was completely packed with forms.

I had to take a few hours last week to make a construction entrance that would allow full size semis to make the turn into the driveway. Even so, there was just enough room.

Judah and Liesl move bundles to the rear of the truck.

Sally and Michael help unload and stack.

Here’s the best pic I could find of Aric and Jon unloading. :$

Well we should be seeing progress of a different sort soon, so I will endeavor to update more frequently.

Today we technically “broke ground”! While I wouldn’t call this our “official” ground breaking, we couldn’t resist testing out the “new” excavator. :)

Of course, Michael isn’t the only one wanting to take it for a spin. Sally takes a turn to show how it is done!

Well after nearly 4 years, we are finally moving on our building permit! We successfully submitted our permit on Wednesday, January 9th!!!! We are making steady progress and checking the status online almost everyday. So far we have either passed or been determined not to need review for the stickiest areas of drainage and impervious surfaces! Good news indeed!

As of today we are at week 1 of an estimated 5-8 week review process and 6 of the 13 steps for the permit are completed! Wahoo!