Posts
Our third day of the concrete work was much nicer than anyone had expected. It rained 7/10ths of an inch overnight which turned our polystyrene-lined frost footings into miniature canals. But, as the day went on, the temperature rose and, except for the mud mostly outside the building's footprint, it was a pleasant working environment.
The crew knocked out some of the polystyrene that protruded above the footing and dug a small trench at each end of the south wall.
The trench on the east side directed the muddy water into the low area between the dirt pile and the original slope of the hill. This ran down and into the drain I had laid last week under the path below. The drain worked great and the ponds were filling up.
You can see why I need to raise the height of the upper pond's overflow pipe. The water level could be much higher without jeopardizing the pond.
The crew set right to work setting forms on both sides of the rebar that had been placed and tied the day before. While they were doing that the rest of the wall sections' reenforcement was cut, bent and tied into the bars embedded in the footings.
The forms were going up quickly, though some corners on the outside had become tighter to work in than the day before. The chunk of soil and rock seen here is the largest to have broken off along the back wall, but there were lots of other smaller pieces and some parts of the walls were dripping with runoff from above.
The forms they used have a brick pattern. We will be covering most if not all of the interior wall, so the brick facade will be unseen when the house is finished, but it will look interesting in the mean time.
By this time the concrete pump arrived. What an enormous machine! By the time they got it into place and ready to go, there was hardly any driveway left. Huge ruts were created and a few more trees bit the dust.
By then the walls had been braced, a working ledge had been installed along the top ...
and the window block-outs were in place, so they were ready to start pumping.
The boom on the pump had four large segments. When it is deployed it looks somewhat like a gigantic grasshopper.
As the pump's outlet moved along the wall, John followed along with a long concrete vibrator that reached to near the bottom of the forms to encourage the concrete to fill all the nooks and corners of the forms.
The forms for the stem wall are shorter, of course, so they go together more quickly, and they require very little rebar compared with the 9-foot walls. Sitting on the footing is a section of plastic pipe that was embedded in the wall for the drain to the septic system. Tubes were also placed for incoming water, electricity and telephone. These were covered with duct tape to be knocked out when the forms come off.
Here's a view from the hillside above. Progress continues on the pumping, even as work is still going on on the frost footing wall around the greenhouse.
The crew was very efficient and little time was wasted. It seemed everyone was adept at every job so there was never any waiting for the "right" person to get something done. If anyone needed help, the next person along could be drafted for any task.
