Week 7 - The Foundation

Forms continued to go up on Saturday and early in the week in hopes of pouring on Monday. Sadly, on Monday morning the form work wasn't completed. Even more sadly, they didn't pass the first inspection, so more mysterious form work was done on Tuesday and they were reinspected. The walls were poured on Wednesday while I was away.

On Thursday the forms started to come down and the foundation walls were revealed.

The garage was now defined well enough to begin recognizing what will be garage and what will be driveway. Notice the nifty jury-rigged drain that is temporarily carrying water away from the work area and into the parking lot next door. It is a couple of pieces of salvaged drain pipe, but it will come down as soon as the footings are secure.

I hope that I will be using it later to replace a drain on the east side of the house that was destroyed in the digging of the foundation. The drain was one I put in on the east side of my house to catch the runoff from my neighbor's roof and driveway, which was causing problems in my basement. That basement seepage has reappeared for the first time in six years and this is a dry year.

The missing basement/garage wall has begun to reappear, defining a somewhat dry storage area for project materials and tools.

Unfortunately there were also problems. Most obviously, what was supposed to be a side retaining wall for my remaining my front yard is instead an odd slice that slopes dramatically from the top of the foundation to the sidewalk. It is both too high at the foundation end and way too low at the sidewalk end. I am assured that it will be fixed.

More seriously, planned rafter pockets were found to be missing and the top of the wall was not entirely level. However, on Friday morning, the project foreman and the framer came out and marked all the errors, then the concrete guy went around the foundation with a roto-hammer correcting things.

When that was done, the carpenter, Mike, laid a plastic vapor barrier inside the foundation, put a foam strip at the top of the foundation that apparently prevents air leaks.

Then framing of the floor itself started which was very exciting for me.

By the end of the day the floor joists were in and plywood was laid across them to recreate a walkway in the front.

The temporary stairs that Larry had built were stored in the back yard. We moved them back around to the front of the house and they were attached to the new framing, and voila! once again I have access to my own front door. At this point the floor joists are ready for inspection, but framing is over until the water line, gas line, plumbing for the new half bath, and drain lines are in place.

Week 8 - Plumbing