Foundation poured

A few pictures after the foundation was poured. Yes, that is snow dusting the ground on the left.


We poured the foundation on Dec 15th , after a week delay for weather. The Seattle area was hit with a cold snap when the temperature didn't get above freezing for 10 days; we couldn't pour the concrete in sub-freezing weather. The bright spot however was that the prolonged cold snap froze the roadbed, so when the concrete trucks did come up for the pour they did minimal damage to our dirt road! The grand total for the pour was 8 truckloads of concrete, for a grand total of 320,000 pounds of concrete.

Here it is, the foundation, waiting for the dirt to be filled back in around the walls. This picture is from the northeast corner, looking at what will eventually be our front door. The forms have been taken off much of the wall, but you can still see some on the left side of the picture.

This photo is inside the basement of the west wing of the house (on the original plans, this was to be a 4' deep crawl space, but the slope of the hill was more than we expected). The forms are off the wall, and you can see the cutout for door into the central part of the basement, and a window facing south from the basement.

Foundation pouring

We poured the foundation yesterday (12/15)! This is a picture of the concrete crew; their names are Jose, Jose, and Jose (really!) They are waiting for the next concrete truck to arrive with its load of concrete. This is a view of the 'west wing" of the basement (originally planned to be a crawl space, but the slope of the hill gave us a 12' deep basement). To pour the foundation, the forms had to be built up 12', with a scaffolding built up around the top for the guys to pour the concrete.

In this photo, Mark G and "Jose 1.5" are pouring concrete (pumped through the black pipe, and into the form) into the wall between the center part of the basement and the west wing; they are 12 feet above the ground, on forms and scaffolding. There are also 2 guys on the ground helping guide the concrete pipe (they happened to be named Jose, also), that is pumping concrete up the hill from the landing (a 16% grade that the trucks can't make).

Mark G, in the foreground, is placing bolts or screws that will eventually hold the house down onto the foundation. In the background is the guy who owns the concrete pump that we used to get all the concrete into the forms. All total, we needed 8 loads of concrete, each with 10 yards of concrete, each weighing 4,000 pound....that totaled up to 160 tons of concrete for the foundation....

This is a view of the north side of the house, facing toward what will eventually be the driveway. You can see the concrete leaking out between the forms. We fortunately never had a "blow-out" in the wall, however did have a blow-out in the base that will be under the masonry heater, which was quickly patched and refilled. If we had to have a blow=out, that was the best place to have it.

We were fortunate in weather: we had hoped to pour the foundation a week ago, but got put off because the weather was below freezing for over a week. As soon as the weather warmed up over freezing, we poured. As it turned out, having a deep freeze for 10 days before the Big Pour made the road up to the property very firm and frozen, and having big heavy concrete trucks on the road did much less damage than if the weather had been muddy.

Here you can see the concrete in the forms, and the bolts that will hold the house down. The tons of concrete we just poured should hold the house onto the hill, now we just have to be sure the wind doesn't blow the house away (that is the basis of the engineering for the building). The foundation guys let the concrete cure for a full day after pouring, and will start taking down the forms tomorrow
You should see it in person, it's amazing to look at!

Working in sub-freezing temps

The camera is standing at the east end of the house, looking over the forms in place, ready for the concrete to be poured for the foundation. Notice, however, that there is snow on the ground: that is snow that fell 4 days ago, and the temperature has been below freezing ever since, which is too cold to pour concrete. The current cold snap is supposed to continue all this week, so we can't pour concrete this week, and are hoping to pour the concrete early next week.

This is a view inside the west end of the basement, looking at the forms. Jeff is on the ladder attaching wires to the rebar. Each of the panels is 2 feet high, so the wall we're looking at is 12 feet tall. Since that exceeds the height maximum for concrete walls, we will actually need to put in 3 feet of dirt fill on the floor of the basement before we pour the slab (floor) so the wall will only be 9 feet high, which still makes an awesome basement. Note the snow on the ground.

James is standing in the doorway into the basement, at the western wall of the house. Note the very warm jacket and hat and gloves, which weren't warm enough. But in the Pacific NW, when you are in the construction business, most of the year is adverse weather conditions, so you need to handle cold, and rain, and....