Cellar Footings

With the dirt and ICFs cleared from the Cellar level, I was able to lay out this wing of the house more accurately. Because of the complexity of the floorplan and the multiple floor elevations (my own fault, I know!), it took some time to get the angles right, but after double and triple checking my math, I could confidently stake out the corners of the cellar, and how it related to the rest of the house. Over the week, the laborers and I leveled the pad and dug most of the footings.


I also marked out the exact placement of the foyer, and more importantly, the 6 posts that would support the central tower all the way to the roof. (see orange circles below). This as time consuming, and involved lots of triangulation to make sure everything would line up, but I feel pretty good about it all!


Next week we will finish cutting the "key" of the cellar footing, and hopefully get it all inspected!

Livingroom Footing = MORE DIRT!

We continued to carve out the footings for the living room, but spent much of the week moving dirt around!


Mike the grader came back and took a few loads of dirt, but the most helpful thing was that he negotiated his excavator up the narrow hill to the cellar level and moved the majority of the dirt pile down to the driveway!



This made it a lot easier for him to load the trucks, and also allowed us to start laying out the cellar level footings!


Once we got the majority of the dirt out of the way, we moved the ICFs up to the next level, so the cellar footing could be laid out and excavated. That will be next week's task!

Livingroom Footings

The first task this week was to make more room to work! We moved all of the AmDeck and as much ICF as possible to the garage roof and stacked it pretty high!



I also took the forms off of the slurry backfill.


Most of the week was spent digging the livingroom footings. They are on two levels, the lower level behind the garage actually supports a wall that comes up in the middle of the livingroom floor, then the upper footing is at the same level as the floor. It's fun to be able to stand on the level and imagine the floor projecting out over the garage.


There is one part of the excavation that didn't go quite far back enough so a few days were devoted to removing this section of hill and carting it away. The dirt pile started growing and by the end of the week, the entire cellar level was covered with 6 feet of dirt!


It also started spilling down in front of the garage!


Next week I finish the living-room footings and get rid of some of that dirt!

Slurry Backfill

I passed my inspections on Wednesday, so after doing a little final prep work on Thursday, I was ready to do the first Slurry Backfill on Friday.


Slurry is a very sandy mix of concrete, it is stable when cured, but not strong enough to be used for walls or slabs. It is perfect for doing a quick backfill, since it can be done in one day and without multiple compaction inspections that would be required with a dirt backfill.


I filled both sides and the back, working my way around the garage so as not to get too high too fast. On the left side I created a dam so that the slurry would stay clear of the retaining wall I would need to build in the future.


On the right side I buried a section of 4" cast iron pipe for the sewer connection, being careful to cap the end so no concrete would get in.


By the end of the day I had filled the back side to the finished level, creating a new standing surface to continue building from, as well as a slab for a future storage space!


Now I can walk right out from the back of the garage to the hill! This is where the footing in the middle of the livingroom will be formed.


The laborer and I also cleared off the livingroom pad and marked out the placement for the livingroom footing. I can't wait to start cutting and forming that next week!

Also during this week, I met with the HVAC (heating and airconditioning) engineer who is designing my system. He has had the plans for months, but after visiting the site, he really got a much better feel for the job. He gave me some input on required openings, and went back with some notes to refine the drawings. It was exciting going over these details with him, and picturing installing this equipment!

I also got a visit from a plumber who was another recommendation of Ernie, the neighbor who had recommended the great concrete finishers. He seemed like a great guy, and I look forward to adding him to my team!

Waterproofing

The Waterproofing crew came this week to do the garage walls. This is a 2 step process.


The first step is a very sticky liquid membrane that is applied by paint roller.


Once this has partially set, but while it is still tacky, the drainboard and fabric are cut from long rolls and applied.


The drainboard looks like a tiny egg crate pattern of little cups that hold the fabric layer away from the wall, creating a pathway that any water can travel down instead of soaking in and going through the wall.


By the end of the day they had done all 3 walls and just needed to come back the next day to touch up the corners. They were a very efficient and friendly crew!


The next step was to set the french drain around the bottom of the wall. First I ordered a large pile of gravel to be delivered, so large it completely blocked the driveway!


While I waited for the gravel, I installed the perforated pipe. This allows any water that makes it through the backfill and to the wall, then down the drainboard, to drain through the gravel and into the pipe that leads out around each side wall to the driveway.


With the help of 2 laborers during the day, and Kyle after school, we buried the pipe with gravel.


The gravel in the back wall had to be loaded into buckets, lifted to the garage roof by bucket, carried across to the back, and dumped over.


This was time-consuming and exhausting, but was finished by the end of the day. I was now ready for my next inspection!