Concrete- first pour on the walls -photos

So, I was able to snap off a couple of photos with my phone so I can get them posted.  Doug and Marty were working with the concrete crew- Rob and Floyd and Jay, Glenn was pumping concrete.  I was in my clothes of the office so I just moved the hose and electrical cord around.  The crew had to vibrate the concrete to get it down to the bottom of the rastra block.

Here are the photos:

So what is in this picture?  The rastra is 3 courses high. That is the grey block.  The ledger board is in place.  That can be seen on the inside.  It wraps all around the inside of the house.  The floor joists will be suspended from the ledger. On the outside the strapping board can be seen. The ledger board is held against the wall with anchor bolts embedded into the  concrete. So, until the concrete is pour everything is hanging in air. The ledger board has been strapped with banding tape and the board seen on the outside keep the banding tape from pulling through the rastra.  The rebar coming out of the block will continue up through the next course. Looking closely at knee level there is green line. This marks out a window.  The crew is outside of Helen's room at this location.

After this pour we will continue up with our walls.  We are thinking of doing the remaining walls in 2 pours of 4' each.  The Rob our concrete guy thought that would work better than doing it all in one pour.  There is so much rebar in the wall that the concrete has a hard time moving down to the bottom of the cells.

Very exciting day  

Concrete in walls- first pour

Hi-  Today is going to be really exciting.  I know that this post is out of order construction wise- But it is happening today and I wanted to let you all know.

Doug and I have been working  for the past few ( 3-4) months to get our house to this point.  In July we started going up with the Rastra block.  At the course where they floor will be suspended there is a lot of stuff going on.  Supporting structure with re-bar and a concrete beam.  We have all that work completed. The ledger board is in place with the bolts. Channels for electrical are cut out. We have had our inspection.

We are ready for the first pour into our walls.  We will be pouring concrete today into the walls that are 45 " high.  This will the first of two pours.

We are really excited the concrete truck is showing up at 8:00 am.
 

Ruth

Septic_ Test Pits

September 2011 we started to apply for our permits; working first on the Septic permit.  Getting the life time sanitary permit was easy and straight forward.  But we did need to dig two holes in the field.  The Application said give the inspector 3- 5 weeks .  She said that he would be out that day or the next.  We asked her to put a note on our file to call first . We went home and Doug dug one hole that night.  We used that hole to make a movie of our soil at 5 feet for Geo Gerry.  We posted it on U- Tube.  We now have 11 hits.  The first hole was dry and hard for Doug to dig.  It took about 3 hours to complete.  For the second hole I put the sprinkler on overnight.  Doug was able to dig the second hole in about an hour.  That happened over  a Monday and Tuesday.  I had taken Monday off work. 

when we took in the application the girl asked where the holes were. We said that we had not dug the holes yet because of the 3 week time lag.

Doug and I are finding out that it works better for us to go in together to get the permits.  This way we both hear what is being said and we can each ask the questions that we have.

By Thursday of that week the inspector from the county came out and did our evaluation. 

By mid week the following week we had our site evaluation permit.  $726,

Hi this is the first entry for the house that Doug and Ruth are building. They have been on the journey for about 8 years.  This blog will document the journey from conception to completion. 

The short story of the house is that it is very energy efficient. The house is built out an insulated concrete form.  It will have a ground source heat pump, with hy-dronic heat.  The is located on the family farm that has been in Doug's family since 1919.

Ruth has been keeping a journal and they have been taking photos during the process.  That will be shared with you as they go along the journey.