Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Week Two of Construction on House # 2

Week two began w/ bagging. Which basically means filling this black plastic looking material w/ the backfill you saw in those large mounds from last week's pictures. These "bags" holding backfill are stacked as shown and are amazingly level considering they are full of sand.















These "bags" are stacked to create large rectangular sections, topped with more of the black plastic like material, and the then the post tension cables ( all the blue cables) are run in a grid pattern spanning the entire slab.















This picture demonstrates why the slab is called a post tension slab. Each of the blue cables in the picture above is securely fastened to form boards on one side of the slab and then tensioned
(as shown below) on the form boards on the opposite side of the slab.
















Here, the foundation is being poured. Yippee!! A mixer truck empties fresh cement into the pump truck with the boom (shown below.) The wet cement is deposited within the form boards via the boom which a man carefully guides along.














This picture demonstrates the height of the slab on the north side of the house. Tall!!!




















So.....that's it for week two! Now on to the framing!!!!

3 comments:

Mindi Tipps said...

Wow! That IS a lot of progress! I remember when Victor drove us by the "new house" and it was all trees.

I am impressed by your house building knowledge! :)

Anonymous said...

Why is one side of the foundation so high?? Just wondering?? I have no idea about anything concerning house building!!??

CC said...

That would be because of the slope of the land we are building on. The foundation has to be taller on the side with the greatest slope. That may not make much sense. Sorry. I could explain it better if i could use my hands to demonstrate ! Haha