progress report: finishing up the foundation

one of the challenges we faced because of our decision to use Insulated Concrete Forms to build our stem walls was what to do where the foundation is above ground.  we planned on having about 6" of the foundation above the ground level however, if you recall the ICF's have foam on the exterior.  

we could have applied a finish to the foam however, this would leave us with a small ledge where the "house" sits on the foundation.  in order to avoid this problem we removed 8" of the foam from the stem walls, exposing the concrete wall behind.  this worked out well- but now we were faced with the problem of the plastic bracing built in to the ICFs being exposed as well.

in order to cleanly cover the entire area that will be above ground we had some colored metal flashing made.  this was simply a piece of metal with a 2" flange a 90 degree bend and an 8" flange.  this we tacked all around the perimeter of the foundation.  the sill plate will sit on top of this flashing.

the flashing around the corner of the stemwall-
and our beautiful water-proofing job

we also water proofed the entire foundation using a peel and stick water proofing product called Tamko TW-60, it is a rubberized asphalt product designed for below grade applications. our foundation is going to be super dry and that makes us excited.

what also makes us excited is the fact that our guys are back and working hard to clean up the site.  they are putting down a foundation drain with gravel on top and eventually will be back filling the hole around the foundation to bring everything up to ground level.  it will be nice to have the dirt under control!

the drain pipe will direct water away from our foundation

progress report: monday

mondays used to be such a drag but now i look forward to all of the projects that we are going to complete on the house during the week.  its still a little hard getting up for 7 am yoga on monday mornings but when i return home i am ready to get to work on the project.

now that we have our foundation complete the building process will start to happen a little more quickly, we hope.  we are going to be building the first floor this week- which involves building poney walls in the crawl space and then laying up sill plates and the floor joists.  we will also be water proofing the foundation and getting ready to back fill.  our friends at  Carll Construction will be working on getting the permitting to dig up our street to install the water and sewer lines.  this is definitely an aspect of the project that björn and i cannot take on ourselves so we are thankful for the help.

i thought i would share a few photos of another project we were managing during all of the other work we have been doing on our house project.  björn's grandmother, the one with the awesome apartment that we stay in, here, has a rental property in durango that need a new deck built.  here is the finished product!

this week is thanksgiving but we are planning on working right on thru the holiday, only taking a break to stuff our faces with turkey and pumpkin pie!  ciao

progress report: concrete

last week björn and i kept ourselves busy, just organizing all of the work to be done was a full time job.  luckily we had some great help, jack baer joined us again thursday and friday to work on the foundation.  on thursday björn and jack squared the entire foundation and tied all of the rebar.  i also tied a ton of rebar and my legs and knees are still paying for it.  it wasn't until we were finished setting up and tying all of that #5 rebar that we realized our foundation could probably hold a skyscraper, thats how beefy the slab foundation was going to be.  thursday night björn and jack worked late into the evening to make sure the forms were square- my grandfather warned us against having a trapezoid for a foundation.


thursday night i couldn't sleep- neither could björn, i felt like the next day was christmas, the thought of pouring the concrete on friday was making us both really nervous, and excited too.  so much could go wrong, did we have the right crew, would it be too cold to pour, would everything go as planned, did we plan enough?  well, friday came and thank goodness everything went well.

the schwing truck- this pumps the concrete

nichols concrete was awesome to work with and their trucks were impressively clean

the arm on the schwing truck is huge (and this is the small one)

look how beautiful our rebar looks- in order to have the rebar sit in the middle of the
8" slab we set the rebar on "chairs"  this brings the grid up 4"

here comes the concrete truck - sandco inc concrete (now im really nervous)

rob our concrete pumper was great- here the boys are getting ready for the first pump

there it goes- no turning back now

the guys worked in quadrants starting in the "main" house.  jack and petey work
at leveling the pour

rob is bull floating- which makes a very smooth surface, jack and petey are screeting
and björn is helping to move the concrete around

things are going well, the main house is poured- now working on the great
room side of the house

my job- while the concrete is wet i am sticking in the pre-bent #4 rebar you saw here

these vertical pieces of rebar will be what ties the stem wall and the slab together
eventually- don't you love my sparkly headband and concrete attire

my finished vertical rebar- these had to be placed 24" on center around the
entire perimeter, we also roughed up the area around the uprights so that
the stem wall blocks can get a good grip on the slab

björn using a specialty float to create a beautiful smooth finish

the concrete is poured and setting up- we covered this with plastic and concrete blankets
to keep it nice and warm so that the curing process continues

good thing we poured on friday because this is what happened saturday

our winter wonderland

we couldn't have asked for a better crew- jack was instrumental in making sure the pour went smoothly, and his expertise was invaluable.  petey was also a great person to have on site- he has a ton of concrete experience and worked well with the team.  we were all amazed at how well the pour went, it was a very chill job site and at the end of the day everyone was eating bbq and drinking beer.   i was so proud of how we handled the whole job, everyone worked so well together and i think we all had fun too!  we are looking forward to pouring the stem walls this week!

progress report: bending rebar

when we started thinking about this project and about the process of designing and building a house i knew that i would be working hard.  i was looking forward to the hard work, i was excited to learn everything i could, what i didn't realize i would be doing is cutting and bending rebar.  i didn't really understand how one little person could bend steel without the use of a machine, but now i get it.  björn had to cut all of the #5 rebar because it was a little to hard for me but i used a rebar cutter / bender to cut #4 rebar and then add an 8" bend.  björn and i cut and bent all of the rebar needed for the 8" slab to length and prepared it for installation.  for those of you who don't know much about rebar here is a little tutorial:

all rebar is numbered 3, 4, 5 etc.  #4 and #5 are pretty standard sizes and is what we are using for our slab and the stem walls.  these numbers tell you how thick the rebar is a #4 rebar is 4/8" and #5 is 5/8, etc, etc. which is why the #5 was much harder to cut.

me bending the #4 rebar

putting some muscle into it

forming up the slab and laying rebar 18" on center

all of my bent rebar

its starting to really look like a foundation, looking into the main house

looking into the great room

we are super excited to have jack baer working with us forming up the foundation and helping with the concrete pour.  he is a professional stone mason and has done a ton of concrete finishing.  björn grew up with him here in durango and we are so lucky to have him, now we just have to assemble the rest of our concrete crew!

progress report: doing it egyptian style

sorry for the late post today, the weekend was full of organizing tools, digging big holes, and using fun gadgets!  here are a few pictures of what we were up to.  we created an "egyptian water level" using 60 feet of clear plastic tubing and water.  the egyptians used this type of technology to build the pyramids so it must be good enough for björn and i.

the water level

the pencil just plugs the two ends as we move around

we knew the elevation at the curb from our survey so one end was held at curb level and the other was stretched across the property to a stake.  water doesn't lie and is always level so the height was marked on the stake.

the stake was marked and this became our baseline for all the other information we needed.  

we then checked all our work using a high tech laser level.

we constructed batter boards to mark the points that will remain in place during the excavation phase

our water level was super accurate, within 1/8"!  those egyptians were pretty clever folks!

if you want to learn more about water levels or egyptian levels check out this article from Fine Home Building.  the laser level is an awesome tool as well, we borrowed a Bosch laser from Carll Construction (the guys building the rock wall).

Speaking of the rock wall here are a few photos of the progress the guys have made! we are so happy with the look of the wall and the awesome space that it is opened up next to the river.  this area is sure to be one of our favorite spots on the property.

i love that we used varying sizes and shapes for our boulder wall.  

looking down the wall toward the river.  lots of interesting ledges  and spaces are created to
put potted plants and hopefully get something to grow down the sides of the wall.

this area will eventually have stairs up to the house level.

finally this weekend we actually started the excavation!  after setting up our batter boards and finding the ground level as well as several other levels such as the top of foundation level, etc.  we staked out the house and began the rough excavation using the back hoe.  we are hoping to finish up digging today and start compaction tomorrow.