Another week has come and gone. And a lot had to happen this week!
A Quick Re-cap:
- Trenches were filling up with water and therefore had to get gravel
- Crew showed up on Wednesday to start forming the footers
- Had a Helical Screw put into to keep the South West corner of the house from sinking where new second story will be
- Had a hard time laying out the garage wing as it is off at an angle
- Pour day got pushed back one day to Friday
- Rocks got compacted in the forms
- Pump Truck came and pumped.
- Pump Truck got stuck and I rescued it! 🙂
- Footers complete!
Alright we had a big week! Lots that needed to happen this week and luckily it all did indeed happen. It was footers week. I don’t want to admit how stressed out this week made me but it was a bit rough. Footers are the real beginning to any project and it’s really important to get it right. If not, you will be fighting to compensate for the rest of the project.
One thing that I didn’t like was that the footer trenches filled up with water and ruined all the exposed soil making it soft and mushy. So we had to get some gravel delivered so that we could compact that down to the solid soil beneath for a good foundation.
The biggest stressor was laying out the footers for the garage portion. The garage is at a 20 degree angle from the rest of the house to square it up with true south. This is for solar as well as a greenhouse that we want to build. Because of this angle and not having good reference points to measure from and because the trenches are deep, it was really hard to lay out!. I went out and probably made things worse, running back and forth between them and my computer trying to get new measurements to square it all up. In the end I’m not entirely sure we ended up in the “RIGHT” spot, but these footers are decently big and we may be able to compensate some with block placement. I really didn’t like that part.
Anyhow all that extra time we spent laying it out delayed the pour from Thursday to Friday. I didn’t like that either, but it really wasn’t THAT big of a deal. I was overthinking it all. Friday was a great day to pour and it all worked out. I just have my ICF guy coming next week so the footers needed to be done!.
In addition to the footers, we had a helical screw put in on one of the corners of the house. (This is a corner that is not by the new foundation/footers.) That side of the house definitely isn’t totally level and since we are putting a second story on that end we thought we would reinforce it. The foundation guy didn’t think trying to raise it would be the best course of action. So we have it locked in its current location and that will keep it from settling anymore. I am glad that is done.
Beyond footers, we also had all of our steel beams and rebar delivered for the ICF’s next week. The company pre-bent all of my rebar ties for above doors and openings for like $250. That would have been a full day or more for one person to sit on the bender to get them all bent up. That company was an excellent find that did a great job and for a great price. Very happy with them!
Pre-pour and Steel Beam Explanation
And that was our busy week! One item of note was that when the pump truck was leaving, he didn’t want to do a 3 point turn and tried to make the turn all in one go. He ended up dropping his tires off the back of the road and got stuck. They tried to pull him out with the skid steer but it wasn’t enough. So…. for the first time in my life…. I had the right tool! I got to pull him out with my excavator. That made me feel good… you know, to help someone out 🙂 haha ..
Next week is another very CRITICAL week. I’ll be taking work off from Tuesday on to stack ICF blocks all week. We are going to pour the walls on Tuesday the day after president’s day. This Tuesday will mostly be a staging day and getting the blocks on site. Then Wednesday through Saturday we got to get it all stacked and braced. Hopefully it goes well!
Until next week!
Mark
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