Milestone Reached - Foundations Complete

For most houses on crawl spaces or slabs on grade, this wouldn't be that big of a milestone. For our house, this is a MAJOR milestone, as the house has raised concrete slabs over crawlspaces, not at all typical for residential construction around here.  The entire foundation process consisted of 3 individual concrete pours, all of which required a pump.  The final pour, included in this update, was the concrete for what are our finished interior floors on the main level, and the porches.  The surface treatment of the concrete was important, as was the ultimate level of flatness, since it will all be visible.    I took a chance on not cutting control joints, and we did get some minor cracking, but it is all manageable and will likely not even be noticed once the house is finished. 

We also received the first shipment of steel components, which were fabricated locally in Hollywood and are based on the detailed drawings we provided to the fabricator.  The steel includes the large moment frame to stiffen the rear wall of the house, as well as all of the truss plates which will be used to assemble the timber trusses.  The moment frame is approximately 2000 pounds and came in 4 pieces.  The truss plates are all 1/4" mild steel plate, plasma-cut into the shapes we needed.  We have some minor work to do on them here in my shop, including welding on spacers and painting them. 

We also received the first shipment of lumber, which includes (I hope) all of the lumber for the walls and some of the smaller floor areas.  Framing starts on Monday, and we are hoping it goes ALOT smoother than the foundation work, but I am prepared for plenty of my own involvement in site to make sure we get it all figured out.  The framer's estimate is 8 weeks to get it done.  I will be thrilled if it happens that fast, especially with the holidays coming up. 

Shoring Walls in the Crawlspace to Support Wet Concrete on the Metal Pans

Metal Pans in Place at Back Porch, Wood Formwork for Cantilevered Edge

Negative Reinforcement Over the Intermediate Walls

Main Slab Pans Under Bedroom and Kitchen with Re-wire, Wall Rebar Bent Into Slab

Pouring with Pump Trailer, 4000 PSI Concrete, Crew of 7

More Pouring

Brand New Concrete Floated and Awaiting Trowel Machine

Finished Product, Rear Porch

Front Porch

Steel truss Plates Laid Out and Ready for Paint

Lumber Stockpile in the Yard, Steel Moment Frame Beams Rear for Erection



Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 3, 2019 at 6:56 PM

    Chris, did you put plastic under the crawlspace slab in contact with soil to reduce moisture?
    Will you have carpet or flooring on the finished concrete floor? Expect some cracking over time.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waterproofing, Siding, Roofing, and More!!

Image
Soooooo.... I had typed out the last post but then forgot to post it, so that's why there are two posts back to back.  This one will be alot more in-depth, with better pictures!  Sorry about that! Since finishing the framing, we have been very busy.  Some of the most important systems have been installed, namely the Prosoco CAT V fluid-applied weather barrier, and the MidState roofing underlayment.  Seems like almost overnight, we went from "camping" in our old house due to the numerous and immense roof leaks, holes in the walls, and other major construction obstacles, to a dried in, semblance of a house  Even though the only access to the new portion of the house at the moment is through the garage, it is still nice to have a closed in space next door to mitigate some of the air leakage and weather from coming in unwanted!  We can even park our cars in the garage! First thing to happen after the framing was completed was the installation of the exterio...
Read more

Framing Complete

Image
After about 8 weeks of bad weather, the Christmas holidays, framing challenges, more material orders than I can count, and allot of time spent with Judah (our amazing framer), we have a house!  The roof decking was completed today along with all the eves, rakes, and overhangs.  All that is left is the rear porch roof and columns, the small eyebrow roof over the garage doors, all the shear wall bracing and steel stealing, and miscellaneous odds and ends.  Overall, it's a pretty impressive structure.  The ceilings are really high, and the trusses look fantastic even in their raw form before being sanded or sealed.  The rear tall wall was particularly challenging, as it is 28 feet tall in the center, 36 feet wide, and needs to withstand hurricane force winds.  It contains a large steel moment frame as well as some creative LVL framing to transfer the wind loads into the side walls as well as into a center wind beam, which carries those forces to a reinforce...
Read more

Slow Progress... But Progress All the Same!

Image
It's been a while since I posted our last update o the project.   We got the site staked, which is the surveyor coming in and establishing with pins on the ground where the new structures will be located.  In our case, this is easier said than done, as the new addition and garage have to be square to the house, but also have to be carefully planned so as not to extend over any critical line setbacks or property line setbacks.  We used a combination of the surveyor's pins, the drawings, and some field "adjustments" to get the layout "right".  At least that's what we hope.  We will not know for sure until the surveyor comes back and surveys the now-complete block walls to ensure we haven't crossed over any critical lines.  Site Completely Graded and ready to Layout Footings We had some significant personnel changes occur at the onset of the project, which I am coming to find is a very normal thing.  Getting subcontractors to show up on time...
Read more