Thank full for friends
It has been a reasonably productive few days. On Friday Ted was by and we were able to install the crucial vertical uprights, on the outboard side of the foundation, needed to install all the whalers at the top of the formed curb that will sit on top of the last row of ICF.
Over the holiday weekend, I was able to quietly install all of the plywood making up the inboard side of the formed curb, frame up the special form needed between the house and the garage (needed half the thickness of the foundation at finished height to allow the attachment of the floor trusses, but needed the other half to create a much lower shelf that the later poured garage slab will sit on), and start installing the 10M bar that is to run continuous through the top curb.
Yesterday I arranged the structural inspection of the form work with Brian from the Victoria Stantec office, as he was going to be on the Mainland for other appointments. I have not seen his report yet, but he seemed satisfied with the placement of all the rebar. His report will go to Tacoma who will then issue the official Site Report I need to provide to the District inspector at the beginning of his visit. I also had the foundation forms inspection completed. They were a very happy crew as the scaffold made their job fast and easy. I do not have their documents yet, but when I inquired, they downloaded one of the elevation checks and I was only 1/8″ out from where I wanted to be. I was quite satisfied with that.
Today my father-in-law and his friend Bert came and we checked off a number of outstanding items on my list. While Eric was de-nailing the final 60 or so salvaged 2×4’s, Bert was able to totally clean up the pit and around the site. He stacked the rebar I had ordered that was too short for later use in the basement walkout, cleaned up all the debris around my various cutting stations, and collected all of the broken and cut bits of ICF and transferred all to the trailer for a later trip to the dump.
While they were occupied I constructed 2 boxes to create the pockets needed for 2 of the beams that will sit on the foundation walls. Earlier this morning while drawing up my details for the day (I sketch up everything in AutoCAD so that I have accurate dims to go by and to look for issues before actually starting to build), I discovered a major snafu with one of the beam pockets – it had 2x 20M bars running through it that were needed to strengthen the wall beside the basement stairs. A series of emails to the engineer solved the problem by changing the design to support the beam on a 3-Ply 2×4 post that will just sit on the floor slab (it was a fairly lightly loaded beam). I have asked Tacoma to also look at another dropped beam pocket because it is on the corner of a wall and will penetrate into the ICF layer, and at this point with the upper curb formed, will be difficult to cut in (I should have had the beam pockets higher up on the action list).
After lunch Eric, Bert and I all worked to fabricate another 15 or so uprights and finished the day with filling in all the gaps between the uprights that Ted and I had installed last Friday. This will leave me with only inboard uprights to install which I can do by myself from the scaffold.
I am thank full to have friends that help take care of some of these tasks that would be more difficult to do by myself!
Even with this progress, I suspected I was not going to be done for Monday, especially since my back has suddenly got much worse again, and have therefore re-scheduled the pour for Thursday the 16th. I received confirmation from both the placers and the pumper that this day works for everyone. This way I can take the time to make sure the forms are complete and well supported, so that we do not have any surprises on the day of the pour.
Thanks for visiting.