Foundation Walls Finished

Sorry for the long delay - lots has happened!

Once the form walls were up, it didn't take much time for the concrete to come - three trucks in all. it was super fun to watch it all come together. Also, concrete dries REALLY fast.

All in all, this part took about a week and a half. Now we finish plumbing, footing drains and sealing the foundation before back-filling. Then framing!

The pumper truck extended higher than the tree to the right. It was very, very high.

Aaron was out to watch and found the corner stone from the old house to play on.

The very first concrete wall of the new house!

Following close behind was the shake-down man (don't know if that's the real term, but it sounds cool). He made sure all the concrete settled nicely.

Peter, of course, was also on hand to watch all the "concrete mixer" trucks.

Here's the shear wall of the new house. This helps it not fall apart. How, not sure. But I was told it's important.

The back wall was one of the largest walls the crew had poured before. Right after is was in they started inserting the screws you see. Those will help hold the framing. The metal strips will eventually be secured to the house for earthquake safety.

Here's the stone from the old house foundation set in concrete. It'll get cleaned up a little bit once the walls are completely dry.

After a couple days, they came back and started taking down the form walls.

Concrete sets in about 8 hours and is strong enough to support loads in about 2-3 days. BUT, I learned it won't be done curing all the way for about one year!

Project Atlantis looms again. We've got quite the network of pipes planned for under our house.

The front of the house is really starting to take shape.

After the forms were cleaned out, gravel could be spread to level the ground in preparation for plumbing work and the slab.

Here the plumbers start laying out the basic paths for the sewer pipes that will run under the house.

Our sewer main is "higher up" (closer to street level) than normal, which means there's not a lot of elevation change from the house to the sewer. This means the required slope for the sewer lines under the house wasn't quite enough in places. But thanks to savvy plumbers, we got it all worked out.

With the elevation issues fixed, they were able to finish up the lines under the slab and avoid having to add a sump pump. Sumps can fail, gravity usually doesn't. As my friend told me, "Don't forget....stuff flows downhill". Thankfully, we have just enough "downhill" now.

History in the Walls

Now that the footings are done, the crew set about building the foundation walls.

Lots of cutting and aligning have been happening over the past few days to create the walls of the basement. It's incredible how much concrete will actually go into this - another two trucks they estimate.

In about 5 days they'll start pouring the concrete into the walls, and that's when the fun starts: enter the pumper truck!

We had a fun request for the concrete guys that they were more than happy to oblige: we asked them to encase one of the old granite stones from the old foundation into the new. It'll be a great homage to the old place, and a cool story to tell whenever anyone comes in the garage.

The outer form of the house is really taking shape. You can see how tall the back wall has to.

This is the east wall, and it's big. about 9' tall in all. It's all that stands between us watching TV and all the soil in the back yard.

The top left of the house is the entrance to the garage.

You can see along the left side how much space there is from the wall to the ultra blocks. Eventually, the ultra blocks will be removed and this space will all have to be back-filled.

We recently learned that the crews have nicknamed our project "Atlantis" - apparently the water rises pretty quick here.

Here's the inside of a concrete wall form, with all the rebar and snap ties. Fun!

Along the right side of this wall will be a path that leads to the entrance of the MIL unit.

In the center there is a granite stone from the old house foundation. The crews were nice enough to suspend it in there for us so it can be a part of the new wall. When the pour is done, you'll be able to see the stone from inside the garage.