First Floor!

We heard from Nick yesterday (Monday) morning that the framers were on site and working and by 4 pm we'd be able to walk the first floor.  When we arrived, this is what we saw.  As you can guess we were pretty excited.

View from the East

They hadn't finished sheathing the back and when the crew left at 5 it was mostly sheathed, but not completely.

The purpose of the J-bolts that were inserted in the foundation became clear.  They hold the footing, and the frame, to the foundation.  (duh!)

garage side

J-bolts grab the footings and hold them to the foundation

7 trucks of concrete...

Thursday morning, May 22, 2014

Progress....

When we drove up last evening, we noticed we have a street number painted on the foundation forms.




Then noticed they'd discovered the location of the water service.

There's more detail to the forms.  There are sections marked for different levels of concrete.  The front porch isn't as high at the house slab and there's more detail at the garage openings.  There's also a pit for the future elevator.

Forms create the elevator pit.

More action... but no concrete yet....

It's not a matter of just poring concrete into the forms.

First they have to set the plumbing that needs to be in/under the slab and have it inspected.  They seal it up and pressurize the system then watch to make sure it holds.  You can see the pressure gauge at the bottom of the photo to the right.



Here's the process as Nick describes it once the plumbing has been installed and inspected:

• digging beams and placing poly
• steel and cable crew will be installing cable
• marking for windstorm lags and floaters
• Engineering Inspection
• pour when concrete available.

You can see from these photos that the beams have been dug and poly is in place.  Those green cables and the steel cables that get tightened as the concrete cures to make the whole foundation stronger.  

There is some rebar in place, but you can't see it in these photos.

So, unlike last week, when things were slowed down by 2 inches of rain, we're expecting the week to be in the mid-upper 80s and no precipitation. Unless there's heavy call on concrete by other projects, we hope to see concrete trucks at the end of the week.

And, did you notice the Building Permit, posted to the right of this post?