September 1 - Cleaning Up Leftovers and Preparing the Next Big Thing

Leftover Thoughts from the Big Pour -

Filling the walls with concrete last Saturday was a really big step - a significant milestone. Sam said if he had known ahead of time how well the day would go, he would not have worried the whole week before. Jen and part of the family showed up to lend moral support to the work on Saturday. This is the part of the family that was not actually helping with the concrete pour.







Maybe I am just a big kid that never quite outgrew my enjoyment with playing in the mud, but I find watching this concrete business fascinating. Seeing the parade of trucks, each hauling around 40,000 pounds of cement, stone and water all stirred up together, dumping it into the hopper on the pumper truck is an exciting sight.

The pumper truck has a size large hopper into which the hauling trucks dump their loads. An auger in the hopper moves the mud into one of two chambers where two pistons with alternating strokes, push the mud into the pipe and ultimately out the hose into the foam bricks on the wall. My mind is boggled thinking about the power that is takes to move the heavy material up that boom that reaches into the sky. Before some wise person figured out how to put a concrete pump on a truck, ICF construction was not possible, at least on a project of this size.

Preparing for the Next Step -

I wondered about the pile of wood blocks, each with a really long bolt and nut attached, that was sitting next to the wall some days ago. Then a day or so later they were uniformly spaced all along the top of the wall with the half of the bolt, bolt-head-down, hanging into the wall and the wood block spanning the width of the block.


After the walls are filled, the nut is turned off the bolt, the wood block is extracted from the concrete, and the nut in returned to the bolt. These upright bolts will then be used to fasten a double 2x8 wood plate to the top of the wall. The wood plate will then serve as the surface to which the trusses will be secured.

Adrian was just getting up to speed on the wood block removal process when I positioned the camera to record his work. After removing the block, he proudly reinstalled the nut, as shown below. When I asked him what he was doing, I think he said, "Nuttin".

Bob took a break from battling the bulges to take a picture or two. I started to worry about competition, but then I remembered that he actually knows something about construction and is likely too busy to add chronicler to his duties.

This coming Saturday with the aid of a crane, and not one of the sandhill variety, trusses will be hoisted into position on the top of the walls. Onward and upward we go.