The Foundation Saga, Day 4

[steven newman]

Ok, wall was poured the last time.   Time to remove all the forms, and maybe do a back fill?

 

First off......the turnbuckle braces.   Pull the nails out of the whalers, remove the stakes, no need to trip over either.    Stack the turnbuckles out of the  way,   Stakes into a pile.    Next off, those whalers themselves.   Pull the nails until just the 2xs are left.   Whaler wires have their own plastic bucket to be tossed into.   Make sure ALL nails have been removed from the wood.   You don't want to step down on one..DAMHIKT

 

Wood removed, time to remove the hardware.    Pins get knocked out, and placed in their own bucket.   Then the "dogs" get knocked off the forms.    If I'm on the outside crew, I would be working my way  from a corner, first.    IF I luck out, and have to do the inside....I work from a plywood filler strip, towards a corner.     Wall ties come through the form into square holes, and a pin is inserted into the tie.  A simple whack with the hammer to pop the pins back out.   There should be a couple nails holding the bottom of the form in place on the 2x4 "plate".......IF the mud crew hasn't slopped a bunch of the stuff down there, should be an easy job.   At  the corner, there is a part that looks like an angle iron.   Get it loose, and take it off.    Knock the wall tie loops out of the way and work the first form looseand off the wall.   Scrape the form clean of mud smears.    Hand the form to the gopher, and let him stack them up, using a pair of 2x4s as a skid.  ( BTDT)   and then onto the next form.  

 

IF the weather is kind of cold.....there is nothing like that green fog that arises up off the wall as you strip the forms....smells like money.   Work your way around the walls, until all forms are off, cleaned and stacked...should be about lunchtime by then.....if your not standing around, burning daylight.   Forms on the inside?    Can be stacked up like the outside ones, and a LULL can reach out and pick them up.   No LULL?  Hand the cleaned form over the wall, and let the gophers stack them.   Drills/screwguns to remove the Tapcons holding the plates down.   Tapcons into my nail bag, 2x4s to be stacked out of the way.  

 

Now, while you were stripping forms on the outside of the wall....where the wall ties come through the wall.    A hammer will be used to break the wall tie off.   They have notches on them, and that is where the break will happen.  Might create a crater, no big deal.....Later you can come back with a mix of "mix" and a rubber float, and fill in any and all holes/voids.  

 

On the inside of the  wall, we left the ties alone.    A 1-1/2" thick foam "board" is cut to size, and stuck onto the exposed ties...no glue needed.  Insulation is now installed.    Backhoe can drop a bucket of backfill gravel into the trench on the inside.  .   The templates for the anchor bolts have to come off.    Remove the tape around the threads, and remove the nut,  then the plywood.   When you install the nut this time, only go halfway onto the threads of the bolt.  Then fill the bolt with motor oil.    Keeps thing from rusty up.   Any wood inside the blockouts?    These need to be removed also.   Sparky's Mouse hole needs to be cleared out.  Same with the plumber's  holes.  

 

next, with everything out of the inside of the walls, and the trench around the inside filled and pounded.   A rockchucker shows up to shoot the gravel to cover the floor of this crawl space.   Insulation boards are in, so drape plastic sheeting all over the ground, and up the insulation boards,  and THEN have the gravel shot inside.   Laser level to check grade, and a rake man or two to help spread the stones out flat and level. 

 

Around the outside of the walls, foundation sealer is applied as per the print.     Might be brush on stuff, might be a sheet of stuff.    And have the backhoe drop gravel in to the trench.    Need to add it in layers, groundpounded, and add some more, until the outside has been backfilled to grade.  

 

And that is all the concrete crew has to do with the job.   Load up the hardware on the company flatbed, put the tools away.    And head out to the next job, as this one is done

 

Just a basic rectangle foundation for a ranch style home.   No basement.   IF they wanted an attached garage...we'd have done a thickened slab for that.   Then they could add a run or two of blocks before the wood goes up.  We'd come back and pour an "apron"  if needed. 

 

Hope you enjoyed this little tale....

[lew]

Concrete ain't for the faint of heart!

[Al B]

Sounds like a job well done Steve. That wall will stand for probably 200 years or longer.  With the old wooden forms, we had no turnbuckles to remove. The first job for the crew when removing the forms was to remove all  of the bracing, inside and outside of the walls and pull the stakes. All nails removed and materials stacked clear of the wall. Next, the 2 X 4's securing the corners  were removed, denailed and stacked in a pile Since these were all the same length, they were kept separate for use on the next job. Then  a ladder to the inside, to remove the staging that had been built.  Once everything was clear, we started removing the dogs and cleats  from the inside while two guys pulled forms clear , and handed them over the wall to a the guys outside, who stacked them. The reason for removing the inside wall first was to minimize any possible damage to the top edge of the wall when lifting the forms over the top. The routine was one man removing dogs and cleats while two men pulled the forms clear and handed them over the wall. It was seldom that we broke the ties off on the inside wall. 

Guess that was left to the builder. The routine was about the same for removing forms on the outside wall. We would then break off all of the ties on the outside wall.

 From this point, everyone was busy, cleaning and loading forms on the truck. Then, picking up all of the lumber, tools etc and generally cleaning up around the area. Two men would begin tarring the outer walls, while the truck driver,, sometimes followed by two others would move everything to the next location, depending on the time of day. There were times the driver took the loaded truck to the next job, followed by the boss, who gave him a ride back the the finished wall site. During this time, the guys left behind would relieve each other finishing up the tarring.

 We never got involved with any insulating the inside walls, though we sometimes graded and installed perforated pipe outside, before the back filling, to provide water drainage where water might be a problem. The boss was the operator of the equipment for digging and backfilling. He was great guy to work for.

I remember, every day on that job, I drank a quart of milk with my lunch. The older guys prefered a different brew.

Because the homes all had cellars, we included 2 extra inside and outside corners to provide for a bulkhead entrance into the cellar. MAN ! wish I was young again !!!