Sunday, June 22, 2008

Foundation - The Movie

This movie took almost three weeks to make and in fifteen seconds it shows a sequence of the various elements of the foundation being installed.  First there is some final excavation, then the pier footers are drilled and the cement is pumped into them, the forms are then installed with tons of rebar, the concrete is pumped into them, the forms are removed and the foundation is then damp-proofed.

Click on the picture below to load the movie.  You’ll need QuickTime Player to see this movie, visit The Apple Website to get it.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Foundation Poured Today

The foundation for the house was poured this afternoon and it finally feels like we are making some positive progress.  Up to this point they have just been taking stuff away from the lot, some house and a lot of dirt, which feels negative to me.  The foundation crew has been working hard the last few days to get the forms in and I think they had 3 crews there today, roughly 12 guys scrambling around the forms making sure all of the rebar and stuff was ready.  The structural engineer came by and inspected everything and told me that it all looked great.  The foundation is a critical part of the house and I didn’t realize just how much engineering goes into it, but it is important that it is prepared to carry the different point loads of the house that is on top of it.  The pour took 3 to 4 hours in all with 10 concrete trucks coming and going.  They would back up to the concrete pump, an amazing piece of equipment that pumps the concrete up the tube along the boom, probably 25 feet in the air and then it gushes out the other end about 60 feet away and into the forms.  The guy controlling the pump walks around with a remote control so he can see and make sure to keep the end of the boom just where it needs to be.  All of the other workers were constantly checking to make sure the forms were true and level, bracing them with 2x4’s.  It is quite a choreographed event to watch.

The forms give away the shape of the foundation and it it fun to think about where all of the different elements of the house are going in relation to the rest of the neighborhood around us.  It is exciting that after 10 months of planning the house is starting to take shape.

Click on picture to get a larger version.