Ready for the next inspection

Everything is in place to pour the concrete for the foundation walls. There are three 1/2" horizontal rebars tied to the verticals that were cast into the footings - one about halfway up the wall and two near the top. Rectangular molded plastic pieces are held in place between the boards; these form the ventilation holes for the crawl space and have wire mesh molded into them to keep out critters. There is an opening that you can see near the far corner that will allow access into the crawl space from outside. There are also provisions for bringing the water line in and the sewer out. In the picture you can see some rebar sticking out of the side of the panels; this will tie in the foundation walls for the garage and shop area that will be added later.

The county inspector will have to inspect the work before the concrete is poured.

Preparing for the foundation walls

Today the crew started preparing for the foundation walls. These are normally 2 feet high, but the ground had a significant slope to it - so when we found the solid ground at the lowest point, it was more than 2 feet below the highest ground level - so we had to go with 3 feet high walls. An additional factor was that the floor joists are to be hung from the mud sills so that they hang below the tops of the foundation walls, reducing the available height in the crawlspace. In the picture you can see the first row of boards used to mold the concrete walls are in place; these are the 2 feet high boards that are used for standard walls. Another set of 1 foot high boards will be placed on top of these. The boards are held in place by steel clips that are fastened to the footings - you can see some of these clips have also been used to hold the tops of the boards; these are temporary and will be replaced by special clips that clamp the boards firmly and also help to fasten the top row of boards when they are in position.

The regular inspector is in our prayers.

A side note here on the regular building inspector for the island. I just found out today that he is very ill - in hospital apparently with a serious illness. We hold him and his family in our prayers.

The first concrete goes in.

The inspector came back again today and it became obvious that he was not going to be flexible on anything. He insisted on having the rebar verticals tied to the laterals that were in place in the footings; this is not how they normally do it - they just put the pieces in place after the concrete is poured, while the mix is still wet - that way, they are not in the way of the pour. But - it didn't say we could do it that way on the drawings, so the inspector gave us two options - do it the way he wanted (and take pictures before the concrete went in), or get a waiver from the Engineer to do it the normal way. We didn't have time to contact the Engineer, so we had to do it his way. Both the builder and the contractor said they have never had to do this before.

So - here is the formwork & rebar - as the inspector wanted:



And here is the start of the concrete pour:



This was a four-man job - Jon controlled the flow of concrete along with the truck driver, Brent tamped the concrete down, and Larry followed up last, smoothing the surface.



And here's what it looked like at the end of the day:

A minor setback...

Today (Monday) gave us a little setback - the county building inspector came early - 7:15 a.m. - before I was out of bed and before the contractor was here. He just wrote a rejection slip and left. All we could do was to finish off the little bit of work left to set the rebar in position and request another inspection for tomorrow.

As one of the points of rejection was that we didn't have the job site documents posted and I didn't want to let the inspector use that excuse again, I disappeared into the shed for the evening and built this cabinet to keep the documents outside, but protected from the weather:

The formwork for the foundation footings go in...

At the end of the third day, the formwork for the footings of the main part of the house were in place and the rebar is being put in. This stage will be complete on Monday - we will then have to wait for the county to perform the first inspection.

A "Hole" lot bigger...

After the second day, we had a much bigger hole in the ground:



And we are not done yet - in this next picture, the two stakes on the left mark the remaining corners of the building. The area that is not excavated yet is the garage/shop area which will be a slab and will not be dug as deep - the hole that is dug so far is for a crawl space.

First day progress

Today, we broke ground:

That's Bob the builder on the left, Jon the foundation contractor (and a neighbor of ours), and me wielding the shovel. I didn't make much of a dent in the ground as we are now well into the dry season and the ground is as hard as a rock! John's helper Larry took the picture.

Here is Jon with his backhoe making the first real dent in the ground.

And this is the first hole; we only had to go down about 12" to hit firm clay (the lighter color in the bottom of the hole):

At the end of the first day, we had a sizeable hole in the ground:

The work begins...

The excavating equipment has arrived on the property. The dogs are fascinated and we are excited.

How the "New Manor House" will look when finished

This is to give you an idea of what we are shooting for.