July 28 - Preparing for the Walls

For a guy that grew up watching traditional wood and masonry construction, ICF (insulated concrete form) construction is as baffling as Common Core math. Forming and pouring a concrete footing makes a lot of sense. Building  church walls out of foam, tinker toy type blocks is nothing short of amazing.

Measure, drill and plant rebar -

The footing is marked for the outside of the foam block and a center line along which the holes are
drilled for the rebar to be planted. A ring cut from a length of pvc pipe is then dropped over each vertical rebar.

Mark and Brent are indicating where to put a hole
in the wall that does not yet exist. A length of plastic
tube, about 6  inches in diameter, will allow for
wires and pipes to get into or out of the building.

Mark Hillukka drills holes in the
the concrete.

Tim Sturos uses compressed
air to blow dirt from the holes.

Dustin and Spencer strike a pose
with their tools..

Dustin Parks squirts in the
epoxy and Spencer Karvonen
plants the rebar with a
hammer.

Brian Johnson, with the assistance of  his son
Bryce, measures and cuts the PVC
pipe rings.

Brian hauled rebar hoping to add "iron
worker" to his resume.

There are 4.2 gazillion lengths of rebar required. The rebar shortening device was in constant use, so much so that the handle kept coming off and could not be easily reattached.

The maintenance engineers puzzle over how to effectively repair the handle on the
rebar shortener. Standing are Eric Wuollet, Kevin Moll, Elias Aho and Paul Hillukka.
Lyle Makela strokes his beard while kneeling. Many possibilities were suggested but as of the time the chronicler had to leave no decision had been made. The device has been well used and worn surfaces make simple repair not possible. There remain 1.7 gazillion rebar chunks to be cut so a solution must be found. Stay tuned for further developments.