Basement plumbing

Friday the 13th wasn't unlucky at all:  Harry Byrd inspected and passed the basement plumbing install, so the next up will be laying 2" pink insulation foam (Owens Corning Foamular r=10) on the gravel so the concrete can be poured for the floor. The seams will be sealed so it will help with waterproofing too.  The pipe running along the wall is for the condensate which will flow into the sump and then be pumped into the rain system when necessary.

 

The crew wrapped the foundation with the dimpled waterproofing.  It's nailed on at the top and there's a lip that helps moisture flow but there are no holes punched in the bottom. The only water in this basement will be from a spilled glass!

Newly delivered are the ash pegs and mallets to drive them:

 

Reading Cold Sassy Tree Burns **** Small town Georgia in early 1900s, coming of age story.

Forms removed

The crew didn't show up until about 0715 today but they worked all morning taking off the forms, stowing them in their cages and hoisting them out of the basement onto their truck.  They used steel forms and that resulted in very smooth wall surfaces, compared with the older wooden concrete forms used in the past. The basement door and 2 windows will help light the workshop area. It's fun to walk into the house now through the basement door. Gambol leaps across the trench into the basement. No chickens have fallen in (yet).
There is a PVC lined hole under the door and 2 small open areas (~9 sq. inches) on either side of the door left open for drainage and other accessibility issues.
The sump pump was delivered today.

Happy St. Martinstag. We didn't hang a lantern or eat a pretzel, but I heard that both Princes did. However, we had lunch at Applebee's to celebrate Veterans' Day. The restaurant bought all veterans their lunch. (I had to pay for mine, but it was a nice change of pace.)

A ballet of cement trucks

The Zook's pumper truck arrived at 0630 and the crew arrived about 20 minutes later. The first 2 cement trucks from Centre Cement arrived at 0735--the pour is underway!  The men first used a 2x4 to jiggle the air out of the forms so the sides are smooth.

Pour was finished at 0840 or so, all in all, about an hour and 10 minutes for the five truckloads. Although we had a lot of trucks, they managed to avoid wrecks in the congestion.

When the cement was full to the top of the forms they used a big stirrer/jiggler to force the air bubbles out.

Zook's crew left at 0925, so beginning to end the pour took 3 hours. Forms will be stripped off tomorrow.
Three rolls of waterproofing membrane were delivered this afternoon.

More foundation

We have the forms and they are ready to be filled with concrete.  Rebar has been placed in the forms.  All we need now are the 5 full trucks. The forms' storage compartments, that look like towers, are in the basement for quick removal the day after they are poured. Yesterday Rosie at Zook's said Centre Concrete was out of the waterproofing admix additive for the wall pour so the forms will wait a bit.  The weather is dry and fairly warm for mid-November.

Rebar is 1/2", drilled into the footings and extends to the top of the form. That will help stiffen the walls when the dirt is backfilled.

The walk-out basement door space is blocked out on the west side, near the aspens. There should be 2 basement windows on that same side but we can't see them yet.
Jerry and John brought the rest of the timbers to the Toy Shed this afternoon. Even the walnut live-edge post for the kitchen is here.

More footings and foundation work

Tressler &  Fedor put rock down inside the footings and used the power shovel to dig out the sump and grinder pits before filling with rock.  Centre Concrete poured the step footings at the corner for the basement walkout.    Zooks will be calling Harry Burd so he can check the rebar for the walls. I mentioned putting in a fitting on the outside of the pour-in-place forms for day-lighting the water collected from the footings and they said they would do that.  Zooks will probably  be pouring the walls Thursday and stripping the forms on Friday, although the forecast is for rain tonight and Thursday with a chance of changing to light snow tomorrow.  There was a lot of hard rock in the area where the step footings were poured (rock refusal!) and even the Tressler &  Fedor power shovel could not get any deeper, so we were lucky the depth was just right.  Jerry did a lot of hand shoveling to get the rock and dirt out of the excavation hole--it was a real effort to prepare the hole for the step footings.

Progress: Footing

Harry Burd passed our inspection and we are ready for concrete.

About 2 hours after Harry left, 2 concrete trucks (Centre Concrete, State College) showed up. Zooks Masonry (from Belleville) laid the plastic forms.  These forms stay in the house and are hollow so they gather radon gas and water so that they can easily be piped out of the house.
The porta-potty arrived from Shawley so I guess we are officially under construction.

last foundation digging

Diggers were here at 0800 with Jerry. They are getting out the last 1 foot of depth in the basement. It's still dripping but that big machine has no trouble scooping up muck. They searched for the "Y" septic connection that we had Builder Dave put in with the Carriage House. They found it at 6 ft depth, not too far from the old stake in the ground. It is now covered back up with dirt; Jerry put down a metal spike to mark where to find it. Tressler and Fedor will move dirt but leave it closer to the driveway today in a turn-around ramp; later, once the house is mostly complete, they will smooth out the piles of dirt in the meadow. They will also put down some of the dirt close to the shed so we can move it into the shed easily. It's very rocky so we'll have plenty to add to our rock wall at the property line and the back walkway/patio. All we have to do is carry them. I'd better get some new gloves.