2nd Floor begins

The house continues to shoot up at an amazing rate.  They are making real progress on the 2nd floor.

1st Floor Framing, nearing completion...

Another long day for the guys - this time, Saturday.
Today they had 8 guys on site putting up the remaining first floor framing.

Framing has begun!

Today I stopped down to drop of water and Gatorade and got there just in time to see 84 Lumber delivering forklift loads of 2x6 studs and massive loads of plywood.

Also, the engineered limber I beams were on site as well.

Today I expect to see serious vertical changes.

Garage slab pour a.k.a. "Making our mark..."

This morning they poured the concrete slab for the garage.  Pretty amazing to see it all come together like this.

Anyway, we wanted to write in the concrete... cause, you know, that is what you have to do to concrete when it is drying.  As I understand it is a law.

So, I stopped by at lunch and walked up to the slab. There was a guy smoothing out the surface with a trowel, and I asked him:

"Is it OK if I write my name in the cement?"

"Is this your house?"

"Oh, yes.  I'm Chris, the owner."

"Well, then, go ahead... it is yours."

Thought that was a kind of funny exchange.  "No, I don't own it, but I'd like to write 'Killroy Wuz Here!'".  I'm sure it must happen.

Anyway, I made the mark.

2011

scRagz 

 

Now, I feel like the house is ours!

 

 

Too, F'ing Hot!!!

First of all, I cannot imagine working the way the construction crew does in 85º heat... let alone 101º.  But, they would it seems if it were not for the fact that the concrete guys can't do their work in these temperatures.  Don't know the exact details, but it seems that if it is too cold or too hot, the cement does not set correctly and will not provide the needed compressive strength.

Hopefully monday will be better...

Mmmm, better, but wetter.

Backfill

Today they began to backfill the foundation.

Actually, surprising how much dirt that actually used up... the large pile on the front of the lot is completely gone.  Tomorrow they plan to dig the foundation to the garage.

Due to the "overdig" they are going to need to take out some of the arbor vitae on the left of the lot and take off a few of the larger limbs from the tree.  They will be cut by a professional as opposed to being ripped out by an excavator - so that is good.  And, I suppose the fact that we are going to be doing some pretty significant work around the root ball... the less it has to deal with leaf wise, the better.

Here's to hoping.

Sub-floor is in... we have a true basement.

When you start with a large pile of wood, like this...

...and a team of guys with air-nailers,












You end up with...

 A floor... with a hole for the stairway, and

 

a true basement.

Support structure...

They brought in a support beam today that will support the upper floors.

With the pre-fab foundation in place already, they really just dropped it right in.

Hardening concrete and support beams

The concrete has set for about 24hrs, and then brought in the support beam for the basement.  Looks like the plan is to let it continue to cure for the weekend and then install the first floor sub-floor.

It is just amazing how fast it goes from a hole in the ground to a real house foundation.

The basement pour...

Now that the walls are up, they are pouring the basement floor.

Finished foundation walls...

Pre-fab foundation : A slide show.

The dig progresses

They continue to dig.  It really is amazing to watch them use that excavator so effortlessly.

Also learned about there GPS guided, laser level.  They spin this bad boy up, it gets its GPS location, then fires out an infrared laser beam that they can measure everything from.  They were checking 1/4 inch depths at the bottom of the dig.

Here you can see how deep this hole really is.

And, I think this one speaks for itself.

One hell of a hole...

This is how it all starts.  First, they dig a big hole in the ground.  About 9-10 ft deep.