Foundation Footings Finished

With the footings done, we'll be able to dive into pouring the foundation walls this week.

With all the rain, the sump pumps are still working to keep the site dry. And given how much water is building up - and how quickly - the contractor wants to go the extra mile in sealing the foundation a couple different ways. Agreed!

The crew worked hard (in the rain) to get the footings poured. I've been asked how they can do that in the rain: since concrete is quite a bit heavier than water, it just pushed the water out of the way as it got poured. And apparently concrete can harden in cold, rainy conditions. Physics is so cool.
 

Peter was on hand as Assistant to the Regional Site Manager. If it has trucks, Peter likes it.

 

Concrete pumps are great! The dark black pipe is bringing in our liquid foundation. In all, two loads of concrete were needed for the footings.

The crew started in the NE corner of the house and worked their way toward the garage.

Almost done! You can really see how wide the footings are.

Done! The vertical rebar for the walls is all you can see now.

Warning: take extreme caution when standing on a ledge overlooking vertical rebar.

The rear footing, I'm told, is very big. This was required, in an abundance of caution, by the engineer since the rear wall is going to retain so much soil. If there's an earthquake, everyone's invited to our place to hide in the back room by this wall. It's not going anywhere - ever.

The left side of this photo is the side of the house with the MIL. The right side is our space, with the family room, laundry and bonus space. The concrete near the buckets is the base of the stairwell. The buckets are where the laundry room will be - and laundry chute!

Taking Shape

Making progress on the forms. It's starting to take shape! Concrete next week!

The house is about 3 feet wider, and 2 feet longer than the old house, but maintains the same basic shape.

Water in the deeper trenches is seeping in from all around the site. Our neighbor commented on our security system, and we told them we preferred medieval technology. Simple, but effective.

Water is flowing in at a steady rate, so they had to add a second sump pump (upper right).

Rebar Has Arrived

Today marks the first day of form construction and laying out the rebar. As you can see below, they first have to pump out the remaining water in the footing trench.

Over the next 3-4 days the forms will be built and then we can start pouring concrete!

Excavation Complete

With the excavation complete, the crew started digging the footing trenches. Over the next few days, the concrete work on the foundation will begin. Yay, underground concrete!

Rain didn't help excavation. You can see things got a little messy. The small canister in the middle-right is the pump they used to keep the water from building up. The water then went to a filtering bladder that let the "clean water" seep out into the drain.

The last of the mud is loaded into the truck. It doesn't look like much, but that was a truck load.

When excavation was done, they spread large gravel (there's a word for it, but I don't remember) all around the site. Then they cut the first trenches for the footings.

Here's a full panorama of the site after all the excavation.

With a nice clean site, I was able to walk around and pick up the last of the trash left over from the demolition. There were still shards of glass around the perimeter of the property....kinda of cool how far they blasted.

And for a fun comparison:  Before....

After...

 

And in case the city asks, here's our perfectly clean sidewalk!

Almost Ready for Foundation

Excavation has been slow-going over the past week with all the rain. But we're making progress.

A few extra ultra-blocks were needed for the retaining wall, and some more gravel and filtration work was needed to keep the mud down. Thankfully, the excavation near trees and fences has gone really well, with nothing moving or breaking.

Soon, the footing trenches will get dug, and then the footing walls can be built. And THAT will be the first real piece of the new house.

The crew eventually made it to the SE corner and started the turn along the south property line. The yellow device in the lower right is the laser emitter. It shoots lasers.......LASERS!

Naturally, we wanted to protect those tall green trees you see in this photo. They're being held back by stakes and straps to help them not fall into the pit. Thankfully, none moved at all, and only a couple roots had to be cut.

When no one was looking I jumped down into the pit. Sorry, even at 36 it's still fun to play in a big dirt hole.

And here is the clay bottom. This trench was slow going because the clay layers are so hard. In the video below you can see just how hard the excavator has to work to remove the clay. Good news: our house isn't going anywhere in an earthquake.

 

The man in orange is named Romulus (seriously). He's one of the engineers. And if there's one thing we learned from StarTrek is that the Romulans are really good engineers. And now one is helping to build our house.

With the rain coming, and a clay floor, the crew had to be sure to cover the dirt mound and pump water out in the rain storm.

Speaking of rain, here's an example of how clay infiltrates. Answer: not at all.

As you can see, most of the area of the house has been excavated. Next up: footing trenches!

Back to Work!

With Christmas break over, the crew was back at it, digging the rest of the retaining wall areas and placing ultra blocks. With all the rain (and snow!), the dirt was now thick mud. I thought it was awesome, but the workers weren't as happy about it as I was.

Today, they were able to get a few feet further on the north property line, and will start digging on the south line here soon. Once that portion is done, the foundation folks can come in and create the forms. That's probably a week out.

We hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas!

NE corner of the house. With a nice solid layer of clay, the water really starts to build up.

Updated panoramic of the whole job site. Things are getting pretty muddy!

The block wall along the north property line gets really close to the neighbors fence. In fact, it's just a few inches from the fence. The guys have done a great job NOT breaking the fence (built by the neighbors father almost 100 years ago).

Here's a better shot. You can see just how close they have to get to the fence.

The area within which the foundation will be poured is really starting to take shape. The wall you see on the right will essentially be replicated on the left, as work progresses.

Back-fill time! As the sections of wall are completed, the space behind the blocks gets filled with gravel and packed.

The first work day of 2018 has ended! Tomorrow should start the final stages of the block wall work.

Ultra Block Walls

With excavation underway, it was time to position the concrete blocks that will shore the soil along the property lines. These ultra-blocks (such a cool name) weigh 2,200lbs each.

About half of them will be left in the ground after the foundation is poured and back-filled. Why? Cheaper than removing them. One truck can only carry about 4-5 at a time and we need about 50.

Staging the ultra blocks while they dig out the back wall. And correct, they're basically just large legos.

The blocks here represent the NE corner of the house. Many roots died to make this wall.

It was pretty incredible to watch them dig this part. The soil becomes very hard clay that far down. That's great for our foundation, but tough to dig in, even for the equipment. It was slow going.

The workers were using lasers and receivers (is that the right word?) continuously to tell the operator how far down to dig. They'd walk over with a little pole which would beep whenever they raised it to the level of the laser being shot across the property. Lasers are pretty cool.

The white pipe you see in the lower right leads to the 30' long buried infiltration trench we now have in our back yard. Don't get me started.

The ultra blocks will line most of the north property line, all of the east wall, and most of the southern property line.

I'm sorry, but it's starting to look like a medieval fortress wall. Awesome.

Gotta have that crushed rock underneath the ultra-blocks! And anyone who has played with legos knows this strategy for building walls. #masterbuilder

End of the day now. Time to go home and get ready for Christmas. Work will start again January 2nd. Merry Christmas!

The Oldest Photo of Sunnyside

When we started the project, we asked the city if they had any old photos of the house. They responded with this great shot from 1937!

If you view the web version of the blog, you can see we've put along the right side a timeline of the house over the years. Enjoy!

Sunnyside 1937! The old wood siding and clam shell shingles can be clearly seen. Also clear is the old covered entrance. We're bringing that back in the new house design. Hard to believe that stone wall survived to 2017!

Excavation Begins

With demo done, we now get to dig a big hole!

Grant and his crew were at it today, marking the boundary lines and starting to remove soil from the site. Ultimately, we'll be almost doubling the size of the basement, and moving the house out a couple feet into the backyard, as well as a few feet north.

Pouring gravel over the entry way to keep the mud down. This is where the crews drop off the containers to be filled with soil.

Diggin' a big hole. The soil is at least a few feet to high here and will eventually come down to grade with the sidewalk.

From this point east (left) is essentially where the old kitchen table was.

You know you're done digging when you've made a big pile of dirt. Tomorrow, more digging, with the installation of the ultra blocks (retaining walls) to commence on Wednesday. That should be fun!