We have the beginnings of a house!

It happened under the cover of darkness…. or so it seemed! One day we had a lonely garage on a cliff in Nova Scotia. The next day, our garage had a buddy!

It started with the footings, and then the forms went up and the foundation was poured. We’ll just have a crawl space, not a full basement. There’s just way too much rock to break through to get down low enough for a full basement.

Then the forms came down and the sealer went on. as well as the insulation around the stairs.

It was a couple of weeks before the excavator came back and did the backfill. I literally stood there all afternoon watching the excavator doing its thing!

That was close!

I missed the day the sonotubes and big foots went it, and of course Brian didn’t think to take any pictures – DOH! This is what they look like – they’re the footings for the joists that will hold up the deck. Each of these babies is filled with about 1,500 pounds of concrete!

Source

Yesterday afternoon the concrete truck and a crew of three guys came to fill the them, and I was there for all the action. It’s amazing the things that entertain me! :-D The tubes on the water side had to be filled with wheelbarrow after wheeelbarrow of concrete. The guy carting the wheelbarrow back and forth is going to have some serious pipes by the end of the summer!

The sonotubes on the side closest to the truck were filled right from the chute. The operator has a remote control that he uses to choose the direction that the mixer spins – clockwise to mix and counter-clockwise to dispense the concrete – and to control the flow of the concrete. As long as the truck is running, concrete can be mixed and poured :-)

A piece of rebar goes down into the concrete in each sonotube and a smaller piece goes into the top. These ones will hold the metal brackets that will hold the wood joists.

It didn’t take long for all the sonotubes to be filled. Which was a good thing, because right around the time they finished the rain started.

And now we’re completely up to date on the house progress :-)