Basement Pour

Last Tuesday I took off work early, and it was rainy, but I had to get the rebar cut, so I donned my yellow suit and worked in the rain. Shawn captured this picture when he got home. Evan helped me bend two bars, but by picture time he'd had enough.

On Wednesday I went home early because Evan had developed a fever. I suspected an ear infection so I took him to the neck chiropractor and see if that would nip it in the butt, so that he would not need antibiotics. Thursday we stayed home and by nighttime his fever was gone. Also,
I managed to tied all of the vertical rebar while he napped, and got that done. I started on laying out the special rebar design for the porch slab. These pieces need to be cast into the wall so that the porch slab can be tied to them. At night, Evan came out to help us. It was cold, and I don't have a stocking hat for him yet, so he borrowed one of daddy's. I say he looks like a little Russian.

On Friday, Pam and Derald arrived at night, and we discussed the plan of attack for Saturday. We were up early on Saturday, and it was cold and foggy, but by 10 am the sun came out and it was nice the rest of the day. Shawn made some wood blocks to create a beam pocket in the conctrete that will in the future hold the Beams that will hold the floor for the first floor. Derald did a lot of cleaning, clearing up debris and scraps of foam and wood. I worked on rebar tying for the porch area.

Bill came late in the morning and gave us a few things that needed to be fixed. He suggested that we make the beam pocket out of foam instead of wood, so it's easier to take out, so Derald modified our blocks and added foam on the outside. Shawn installed the beam blocks and you can see it in the picture here. While Evan napped, Pam came out to help and Shawn put her to work. She went around the windows, filling the gap between the window and the wall with foam. She did the bottom, and I got up on the scaffold to do the top. Pam took this picture as evidence. You can see Derald correcting the braces in an area where we thought it might not be stable. Bill suggested we move the braces out a little, and on one area to attach a 2x12 to the wall and have the two braces sit on that. That's what Derald is working ove over by the corner.

We were done for the day in the evening and went to town to meet Brian and Cari and Blair for dinner. We had two more things left to do: Fill the gap around the door with foam (we ran out of foam so we had to buy some more at Lowe's) and see if we could get some leaves out of the wall.

On Sunday, Shawn foamed up the door, and we tried a few different things to get the leaves out of the wall, but were unsuccesful. We did get some foam chunks and a few leaves out of the worst area, but the majority of the walls were pretty clean. On Saturday, Shawn and Derald covered the top of the wall to keep more leaves from falling in, and it was a good thing because Sunday it was so windy, a lot of leaves fell out of the trees.

Shawn also dug out one of the footing pads to show Bill and his crew how he wanted them done.
Bill said that they couldn't confirm the pump truck for this morning, so we are on standby. They crew is out there today getting ready just in case they can get the pump today. They are very optimistic that the pour will happen today. So we will see.