Sealing the Foundation

Thursday was the day to pack up the forms from the outside of the foundation. After collecting them, their surface gets oiled prior to stacking and storing. The oil is necessary for the form to release from the concrete.

Once forms were off around the outside, we removed the part of the connector straps that protruded and Bert sealed the walls with hot tar. Once the tar has "set" overnight, gravel can be put in the overdig to cover the footing tile and then dirt backfill can close that trench around the house.

 

A bit of homeowner "sweat equity." Joel oils the forms as Bert brings and stacks them.

 

Inside wall. Forms removed. All the inside forms have to be put out through the windows or over the top of the wall on Friday. Then oiled and stacked. Labor intensive, heavy work.

The connector straps that held the forms need to be removed. These are removed in a very special way: You take a 3-foot 2x4 and whack the strap in a downward motion.  They pop right off after a couple of whacks (or maybe 3 or 4).

 

Outside of the house. Exterior footing tile that is visible will soon be covered with gravel and then the space filled in with soil.

 

Connector straps removed, Bert "paints" the foundation with hot tar to seal it from water infiltration.

 

In progress. 

 

A couple more loads of stone arrived. This will be used as the first layer of backfill.

Pouring the Foundation Walls

Today (Wednesday) was the day for pouring the basement walls. This morning, it took just over 2 hours for three redi-mix trucks to deliver about 30 yards of 4,000 psi material into our forms. Though he usually works alone, Bert did have two guys assist for the pour today. It all went quite well. In the evening, the forms were ready to be removed. Bert returned and we took the forms down to reveal our very nice walls.  These walls are 6 feet high and 8 inches wide.

Some people who have come by have wondered if the house is going to be lowered onto the top of the walls as they are.  The fact that the frames of the egress windows extend beyond the top of the present walls has confused a few, too. No, the house is not going to be set directly on the top of today's walls. Four rows of split-face concrete blocs will go atop the foundation wall, extending it just over 32 inches in height. To accomplish that, the house will actually be lifted a few more inches to make room for the blocks, then it will be set down on the blocks once they are in place. Once the floor is poured, the house will have a basement with ceilings just over 8 feet in height.

One of our three delivery trucks, each carrying just over 9 cubic yards of redi mix.

 Pouring. Bert controls the process. Helpers pound on the inside forms to help get the mix to be settled and smooth along the forms.

Filling the forms. Reinforcing bar and the connecting brackets holding the forms are visible.

 Redi-mix is delivered into the forms.

 Helper Brad works the mix to make sure it is distributed evenly in the forms--no air pockets.

 Filled forms.

 In addition to the walls, a few small pads had to be poured in the floor of the basement. These will give extra support to the floor in the locations where support posts will be installed.

This is a failed attempt of one blogger to take a "from behind our heads" selfie while sitting next to his homeowner son at the end of the pour. We did get a somewhat crooked photo of the front porch with the filled forms under it.

 Under this ooze of concrete are some pins go through the connector strap and lock the two form panels together. Prior to removing the forms, all the pins had to be uncovered and then removed. There are 6 pins in each panel.
Below, the pins are visible just to the right of the vertical once the concrete is knocked off.

The whalers and their 2x4s that make the forms rigid also had to be removed.  This proved to be a good job for a blogger while Bert was removing forms inside the basement.

Inside wall with forms removed! Beautiful.

Outside wall with forms down. Frame is for one of the 2 egress windows. After forms are cleared, the part of the connecting strap that protrudes from the wall will be broken off and the wall will be tarred.

Removing forms from the wall.

Setting Forms for Basement Walls

It feels like we're moving right along. A week after the big move down the street, Bert was forming up the walls. The next day (today, Tuesday) he had all the forms set and is ready to pour the foundation. The pouring of these foundation walls will be tomorrow.

The house has 184 linear feet of foundation. Bert uses Symons® forms. These are 6 feet high and most of them are 2 feet wide. Of course, there are corner pieces, narrower panels, etc. As the walls need to be formed on both sides, it took about 368 feet of forms. That means there are over 200 pieces of forms in use. Bert hauled those in on his trailer and started setting some of them on Monday. Today, he had two helpers with him and they got the rest of the forms set. This is really a big job to get all that set.

 A trailer loaded with forms for the walls.

Bert and two helpers set forms. 

 Forms go up to form both sides of the wall. Each form is connected to the one beside it with a locking pin. The inside and outside forms are tied together with connecting straps. Reinforcing bar is laid on those connectors at the 1, 3, and 5 foot levels.

Rebar is on top of the connecting strap. Distance between forms is 8 inches.

The frame for one of the egress windows is set into the wall. The space between the top of the 6' wall and the sill of the house will be filled in with 4 rows of concrete blocks.

 Forms set, they will be made rigid by using the "whaler" brackets that attach to the form. These hold 2x4s that keep the walls straight and keep the forms from moving when they are poured.

2x4s in place in the whalers. 

Looking down the north wall. Ready to receive ready-mix.

Trade Secret and Pulling Beams

Dear Blog Readers,
We hope you're enjoying the blog. We have had a few comments, a couple of questions, and several local folks have stopped by when we are over at the house. If you blog followers have any questions or comments, feel free to comment at the end of an entry by clicking on the comment link at the end of a post entry. I'll try to answer questions with a reply comment or in the next post.
-SF
 ---------

This post contains a "trade secret." Here's the back story: So if you get a house moved and over its footings, what do you do when it is just a little bit "off"? If it just needs to have the northeast corner go a few inches north, but the northwest corner is just fine. How do you nudge a 60-ton house into being at exactly the right place? Yesterday, Bert said that he needed to do just that: Get the east end of the house moved just a few inches to the north. He also told us it's a pretty cool process, a trade secret, and "a little bit of magic" to get that accomplished. He did that magic today. Now get some rare knowledge.

First, remember that there are four piers holding the beams that the house is on. The house is on east-west beams that are set on rollers that roll on the long north-south beams. Bert has a hydraulic jack on each of the piers. Here's a photo.

Top beam is one of two running E-W the length of the house. The red roller is on one of two beams running N-S and extending beyond the house. Those are the beams used to roll the house onto its position over the basement footings. The 20-ton hydraulic jack is to the right of the roller.

To get the house to do this little "nudge the the north" that we needed, all four jacks are used. The two jacks under the east side of the house and the one on the southwest are set up in a special way. The one jack, near the northwest corner that is where it needs no correction, is set to just lift straight as it always would. The secret to getting the house to twist a bit is accomplished by putting a chunk of styrofoam under one side of each of the jacks that needs movement. When the jack is exerting force, the foam squishes down and the house moves just a bit. See the photo above and notice the white styrofoam on the right.

Here are two video clips of the house getting nudged a little. Using full screen (click the little icon on the bottom right that looks like 4 corner brackets) will allow you to see it better. You can see it move in both clips, but the second one is probably more obvious. This process was done three times in order to get the house in exactly the right alignment.

One nudge.

And another.

 Next, alignment is checked. Do we need another nudge? (No)

Bert checked the alignment with his plumb bob, making sure all four corners of the house were lined up with the footings. That's pretty important before the walls are formed up and poured!

Homeowner and blogger took off to do construction errands. We went to the house's former basement at 511 N. Main and loaded up the old water heater, furnace, and air conditioner to haul them to scrap recycling in town. We got enough money to eat lunch and have a few bucks left.

Old furnace and water heater went to recycling.

While we did that, Bert lifted the house up a bit and blocked it up so he could remove the 60-foot beams used to roll the house over (the bottom beam in the first photo on this post).  

 Each beam is pulled out with the skid steer.

 Chain is attached and moved near the alley.

And they are loaded up on the trailer to go back to Bert's. 

Meanwhile, the trip to town netted ordering a new back door, buying a rolling scaffold, and purchasing nearly 50 4x8 sheets of pink insulation board. The insulation board will go under the basement floor. It will be on top of the gravel, then the tubing for the radiant floor will be attached to it before the floor is poured. 

Lots of 1-1/2 inch pink insulation board.

This coming week will see forms set for the walls and we should have the walls poured soon after that. Of course, everything is dependent on weather. Onward.....

Moving the House over the Basement

The rain slowed the progress a bit, but Bert was busy on Thursday and Friday. This post covers both days.
On Thursday, he squared the house up with the adjacent basement hole, then jacked the house up and removed the dollies. Then he moved the 60-foot I-beams from the 511 N Main site to the 501 N 3rd site. These are the beams the house will roll on.
On Friday, he got the beams aligned with the house and rolled it over the basement hole. That was a 2-stage process, as the house needed to roll more than the 60-foot length of the beams. So the house was moved  part way, then the beams were pulled south about 10 more feet, then the house was pulled the final distance to be squared up over the basement hole.

  Dollies removed and ready to load on the trailer.

 

Dollies loading up. Their job is done.

 One man, a skid steer, and a 60-foot beam.

Beam ready to be slid under the house. 

Dollies removed from under house, Both beams ready to go under the house.  

 The 1979 International tow truck's winch will pull the house across. The beams are in place. Notice that they don't reach the second pier. They will be pulled out to that pier later.

The first pull will take the house less than 20 feet, then stop just short of the edge of the hole. Then the beams get re-positioned. 

 After one pull, the house is near the hole and the beams can be pulled on over the second piers.

Homeowners watch and wait. Bert's baby grand-daughter came to visit with her parents.

 House at the edge. Ready for the big move.

 Re-positioning the jacks, then lifting the house beams off the slider beams so the slider beams can be pulled.

 Once slider beams are in place, the rollers are again placed between the two beams and ready to roll. 

The second stage pull was actually a couple of pulls with some stops to check alignment.  

Then some crazy blogger decided to just stand under the house and shoot video as it rolled over.... and then do a 360 degree view for the people who wonder what that looked like. Enjoy.

And, the homeowners get in on pushing the house. They ate extra spinach to be able to push the 60-ton house.

And, if you want one more view, this is from the sidewalk.

At the end of the day, the house is over the hole and resting on the 4 piers!

Next, the 60-foot beams that the house rolled on will be pulled out and the house will rest on the two east-west beams (ends visible under porch) until the foundation is finished. Then the house will be set down onto the foundation and those beams will be pulled out.

Rain, Rain

We got 1.8" of rain on Tuesday night. So today's accomplishment was that Bert put some blocking under the back of the house and he put a sump pump into the basement so he could get some of the water out. It looked pretty decent by evening. No standing water, but the soil is soaked. This may cause a bit of delay in sliding the house over. We'll see how the ground dries up and how soft it is.

A bit of blocking to keep the house steady.

The footings and basement base. Sump pump is in the center of the photo.

 The sump pump in its temporary hole. Big thanks to our neighbor for allowing us to use his electricity.

Improvised way to get the water away. Pipe from sump goes into a ready mix chute and away from the basement.

Preparing to Move it Over (Part 1)

Yesterday's excitement and some media coverage made traffic on 3rd Street pretty interesting today. Instead of speeding by at 30mph, about half of the cars were going about 5-10mph and looking at the house and the basement hole. This amused Bert a bit as he went about building up the floor of the basement hole with more gravel and then building piers. These piers will be used to hold the beams that will slide the house over and will then hold the house while the foundation is poured and laid.

We had an unrelated thing to take care of, too, and that was that a big horizontal limb split in the huge maple tree. Then the split continued to open. The tree men from the village came and cut it back.

It is supposed to rain tonight (Tues), so that will impact building piers under the house and setting it down in order to get the dollies out and the roller beams placed. For clarity on how this will roll over the hole, go back to the post of "Three Exciting Events" and see how the house was rolled off the foundation. This will be quite similar.

 Ouch! Look at that split in the maple tree!

 After. Good work by the tree guys.

 Building sturdy piers is very important in preparation for rolling the house over from the yard to its proper place over this basement hole. Once it is rolled over on N-S beams, they will be removed and the E-W beams that actually hold the house will rest on these piers while the 6 foot foundation walls are poured and then 4 rows of concrete block are added for the exposed portion of the foundation. Then the house will be set down, the beams pulled, piers removed, and basement floor will be poured. 

 All four piers. Similar, shorter piers will be built under the house prior to the N-S beam being put in to remove the dollies and then roll the house over.