Almost ready for a Big Pour!

We had a great wind storm, much stronger than I thought! It actually blew the plastic that I had draped over the cut slopes all the way up and over the top fence!

In the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas we finished the Amdeck floor forms for the living-room and foyer, and started lay in the steel reinforcement.  And there is a LOT of it!

At the front of the livingroom,  there is a very strong reinforced beam. This beam spans the width of the garage below,  and supports the 2 story high front wall of the house.  Also visible is the AmDeck floor forms and the steel joists that support it.

Just before the Christmas Break,  the majority of the forming was done, and most of the steel was placed.  I was finally able to make a list of things to do on one page!   

This view shows the Living-room floor which is partially on grade and partially suspended on the AmDeck.  The round foyer is also visible in the center of the picture.

From the top of the cut,  the entire building site is visible, as well as my stockpile of ICFs waiting to be used!

After Christmas Break,  it was back to the forming details!  A full week of working on the items on my to-do list,  and it wasn't getting much shorter!  Many of the items were for complex forming connections that needed to be figured out,  and that took a lot of time.   Just before the New Years holiday,  I had the Structural Observation inspection of the steel reinforcement. There was a lot to look at,  and I passed!  That was a nice way to end 2007!    

It was a short week to start 2008.  The first 2 days were spent whittling down my to-do list,  it is getting shorter!

At the end on this week we were threatened with a triple rain storm,  the worst since 2005.  

I fixed the plastic I had hung earlier,  and added another 200 square feet,  mostly covering the lower cuts and some of the forms.

It's a bit surreal now with my white foam house rising up from a black plastic hole in the ground!

The storm hit as expected,  but not quite as strong as they were warning.  It started raining Friday and has rained every night this weekend,  but as of Sunday afternoon,  everything looks OK.  I went up and sump pumped the trenches during a break in the rain,  and other than some of the plastic tearing where water had gathered into puddles,  and a lot of mud backing up behind my sandbag dams,  I think we will come through the storm pretty well.  Now I just need to dry it out,  and do the final touches and get my city inspection so I can POUR!