Thanksgiving and the day after - winterizing

Making sure no more rain-induced falls of clay from the cut, including putting in the permanent perimeter drains for the foundations.Ezy-flow perforated pipe and surrounding styrofoam "tile".The geo-textile draped into the cut; it will eventually just keep the drain from silting up. The gap will by filled with crushed rock.E carrying the 30 m [100 ft] by 6 m [20 ft] poly.Draped to keep the rain and water off and out.A month earlier; a bit of a change.A bit of trenching to help.Finishing touchesOn to the next job

Day 30 - WALLS !

Can you spot the differences ? in these first 4 pictures
Instructions.The rebar ties in to the metal grids inside the polystyrene forms.
Moderately benign weather, but only about 6 deg C [45 F], some rain today, but at least not incessant.Good end to the work day... ...but not done yet; the pickup in the background [above] got well and truly bogged after it slipped down the hill to E's left, trying to reverse past the trailer. It slid, tail first, from just behind the dirt pile to lower than where it is parked below [In drier times the little dirt road could be driven on].

We had to, eventually, skull drag it out with our old pickup and a chain. It was too too slippery to get up that little hill without assistance after all the rain.

Days 26 thru 28 more progress

Friday day 26: E arrives on another cold foggy day
The cool conveyor truckThe remote let him guide the conveyor, and drive the truck around !!!The plate compactor
Our surf buddy John Orbeton helping move the rock around.
John; January 2006; he made the drop !!!Our usual finishing time... after dark; E tidying upWoops; a pile in the wrong placeNeed to go from here to there.Done; shovels and wheelbarrow.

FOUNDATIONS - day 23

In the beginning...
Detail of E's work on the rebar, what she was doing with head down and tail up for the last few daysWaiting for concrete, with the 37 meter pumpGiving the driveway all it can hold, about 28 tonnes (60000 lbs)
Action !The very first concreteA was actually working sometimes...Near disaster as the grade stakes holding the formwork started snapping and we thought we were about to dump a few yards of wet concrete where it shouldn't've been.Of course, when the second cement truck arrives, so did everything else that wanted to drive up the street.
Cement trucks passing in the... well, in the dayAbout half wayThe 1st truck parked on the new turnaround section of drivewayAll poured ! And the formwork held up, fortune favours fools and drunks maybeThe 2nd truck parked on the new turnaround section of drivewayAnd this one weighed 29 tonnesThe end of the day, the pump drives away... and 27 cubic yards of concrete... and a few thousand dollars later, we have foundations.

Contrast Days 20 and 21

Quick day 22 update - rebar and footing formwork approved, pouring concrete tomorrow.

Saturday November 15 '08 Day 20. Finally a sunny day. Still sticky underfoot though.
My "Bridge to Nowhere" - No Federal funds were harmed in the construction of this bridge.Why? Because I had about 4 piles of wet clay that had fallen off the cut wall and into the space next to the formwork, and into the formwork, to remove by spade and shovel or hand - not my idea of fun
The contrast - Sunday - misty all day, this is about as bright as it got at around 3 pm. I might be shovelling, but E has the arduous task of getting hundreds of pieces of rebar tied. The diagonals she is work on now (#6 rebar in the shear wall) were really really difficult to weave into the rest.Nonetheless - nearly ready for the footing pour scheduled for Tuesday - still have to get the county approval. Fingers crossed for today.As you might be able to tell, I have been repacking the pick. Well this is what happens when it gets packed in the dark. The are about 6 or 7 pairs of gloves - leather, fabric, rubber, wetsuit - in various states of muddiness or dampness or just plain soaked hiding in there somewhere as well.

DAy 18 - rain rain gone away - for a while at least

Using food gums as soil stabilizers - as per California Stormwater BMP Handbook Jan 2003. I sprayed them in after applying the powder.
See the back corner, one of about 4 cave-ins I need to shovel out of there - not at all easy work - each load has to be bucketed out or tossed over the 1.2 m [4 ft] rebar verticals.It is really clean work...The sun sets on another day of - slow but steady - progress.

Rain makes mud - days 10 though 15

Rain makes mud. The boots tell much of the story. Lots of mud = very heavy boots & slipping over & soil and clay caving-in from the cut and falling into the formwork = lots of additional hard work. Today the rain looks to have given us a break finally (steady rain was forecast but the high pressure pushed it north earlier than expected).
Hopefully my purchase of a pair of Muck Boots for each of us, and a new set of Viking rain gear for me, will keep the rain a way for a while; but the muck and mud will persist.
Friday's muddy bootsThe reason for the muddy boots, and it did not rain this dayFriday progress on the rebar - it takes so much for this ICF construction technique.Measuring up the formwork for the back wall of the houseThe work trucksFriday still - The first big cave-in behind E. The problem is twofold, it gets under the fabric part of the formwork and needs to be scraped out, and it needs to be taken out for the placement of the footing drain later. It is wet, heavy, and space to move is very limited - not a whole heap of fun !Saturday- progress on the rebar in the back wall - tarps to try to stop the critical spots getting more saturated.Saturday's mudThe hose is to siphon, not to fill it up.Satuday boots - another pair.The fiddly work of hanging the verticals so the rebar mat is 75 mm [3 inches] above gradeSaturday afternoon - pretending to clear up after a day of solid rain.Not such a bad worksite if you look above the mud.The fruits of our cutting and bending labors on the #4 and #5 rebar - every single one in the shot was cut and some bent.
Monday - The #6 rebar - we needed to get this cut and bent by machine - at "farwest steel" in Eugene - the less said about that transaction the better...Monday boots - yet another pair
My "Keen" brand elastic sided work boots - not so keen any more.Progress to the front wall - slow going for E - very complex with 45 degree angles and steps in the footings - lots of frustration for the progress.Hidden progress - tying bracing bars ever second cross-piece [hook] - hands and knees in the mud workA picture of dogged persistence !Tired and dirty...

Weekend antics; rain and more rain - Days 4 through 9

Most of the rebar arrives.The instruments of torture - manual rebar cutters and benders, just like giant bolt-cutters !Torture - cutting the 5/8 inch [16 mm] rebar - this was before I learned, far too late, that E and I could do it together much faster.

This sequence shows some of the various positions required to cut the @#$% stuff. Bending it wasn't much easier. Fitting it into the jaws was backbreaking, as was the staging, measuring, and marking that E was doing. Made worse by the intermittent heavy showers, it is SO fun to do this when you're dripping wet [drookit]. We worked like this for most of the 2 days of the weekend. Looks like I am getting thin enough on top to start shaving my head and stop pretending that I have hair :-)Thank goodness we got the red cutter from our neighbor Lars as it was far more efficient than the yellow one that we rented.


So E started placing and tying the rebar on Monday - here is the Tuesday morning progress; mud and all.It was already a mud puddle and we have been getting rain squalls like the one coming up the valley in the next shot all day. Not as bad as Monday though. E worked out all day and it never stopped being a heavy soaking rain for one minute ALL DAY.

Some out of sequence shotz from pre-ground breaking

E working on the paper model
Surveying the drainfieldMe getting in some baking practice
E telling the contractor the business.
E telling me the business !!!