Mike and Michele's Bigger House Project - GK

[glenn-k]

I see MicheleWOneL signed up -- new member -- wonder if it's the same one I know. :-?

Guess I'll have to watch my p's and q's -- and I wonder if those apostrophes are supposed to be there.  The one I know is a fanatic about that stuff. :-/

1.        P's and Q's        
           

From an old printer's axiom. Back in the early days of printing presses, each line of text had to be set up one letter at a time. Since the letters in the press were reversed (so they'd print forward), the printmaker (or typographer) needed to be careful not to confuse one letter for the other.
Reminding someone to "watch his p's and q's" means to pay attention to the details.

On the forum, Glenn was always careful to watch his p's and q's when dealing with MicheleWOneL.

Note:  Michele -- the wall is started -phase 2.

[glenn-k]

Mike's guys stripped most of the rest of the forms off - a couple big sections left.  I stripped out the key section I put in the end of the wall and started forming the next section.

Remarkably good walls considering we used recycled materials for forming.



Using the Rapiform clips every 16 inches at the base held the plywood just fine.



There is a 1/4 inch hole in the center of the clips that we drive 3 - 10d screw nails through at the same time -- other sizes may work - even smooth nails.  These make a low cost anchor that is remarkably strong especially for temporary anchoring or as in this case - permanent anchors.  It also works with temporary wood bracing.



Note that the lab reports came back on the concrete cylinder testing yesterday with the average being above 3600 lbs.  2500 PSI req'd.

[glenn-k]

it is good thing our woves do not read these threads glenn.... hehe oh wait yours does!.. too bad for you!

Peter -- did you mean wives or wolves? :-?  

Michele is very picky about getting things right on this thread.

[MicheleWOneL]

Gosh, Glenn with two n's. I'm not as anal retentive as you seem to think. And people do make typos, which I'm as prone to as the next guy. (Oh, I guess I should say the next wove.) So if I write on this forum on any kind of regular basis, you'll no doubt catch me at least as much as I catch you.  

Just so you know, you were correct a few days back, it's "yours" not "your's." And your apostrophe use for "p's and q's" was perfectly acceptable.

But "comradery"? Give me a break. Even Mikey B. caught that one. He didn't know how to spell it, but spotted that it was wrong. He told me "It's a French word," which I didn't know, and damn if he wasn't right.

I was hoping to make my maiden posting Saturday night, but we attended a lovely wedding that evening and got home sorta late. The groom's best man (Al's son Robert was the groom) was none other than our Fred. I must say, while most eyes were on the lovely bride, I found it difficult to take my eyes off Fred. I'm not one to crack inappropriate or gratuitious jokes, butt really I just didn't want to miss an opportunity to see in person what all the ruckus is about. Well, I didn't see a thing, and really I gotta wonder what you guys are so sprung about? What some guy's pants are supposed to be covering?

Just FYI we gals don't get nearly so excited about other women's butts and stuff as you all have been about Fred's. I think it's probably a conspiracy of some sort. I haven't worked out exactly what it's about, but I'm definitely starting to see a pattern. So guys, you can run (if you're wearing a belt or suspenders) but you can't hide! I'm gonna finger it out if it's the last thing I do!

[glenn-k]

...and she's on the forum like a bolt of greased lightning.   :-/  (Quick - hide the Vaseline.)

I suspected I was going to be in for it when you arrived.  

While you weren't here Saturday night, I promise, I'll still respect you in the morning.  You'll always be a maiden to me.  

Comradery is a word --- I had to check spelling because it came up wrong on my speel checker, but none the less I was right (unless you see some other reason I was wrong -- oh, gifted one.  )  Unless you are speaking of our actual network being BS.  Aha -- I'll bet you'd have liked this speeling better --Camaraderie --  but mine was there.   Hmmm -- maybe I used it wrong.  Butt it did say it was a noun.

Maybe more of a comradeship?

[French camarade, from Old French, roommate, from Old Spanish camarada, barracks company, roommate, from camara, room, from Late Latin camera; see  chamber.]
comrade·ship n.
Word History: A comrade can be socially or politically close, a closeness that is found at the etymological heart of the word comrade. In Spanish the Latin word camara, with its Late Latin meaning "chamber, room," was retained, and the derivative camarada, with the sense "roommates, especially barrack mates," was formed. Camarada then came to have the general sense "companion." English borrowed the word from Spanish and French, English comrade being first recorded in the 16th century. The political sense of comrade, now associated with Communism, had its origin in the late-19th-century use of the word as a title by socialists and communists in order to avoid such forms of address as mister. This usage, which originated during the French Revolution, is first recorded in English in 1884.

from www.thefreedictionary.com

com·rade·ry  (kmrd-r, -r-d-, -rd-r)
n.
Camaraderie; comradeship.
[Alteration (influenced by comrade) of camaraderie.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Thesaurus Legend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Noun      1.      comradery - the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability
camaraderie, chumminess, comradeliness, comradeship
sociability, sociableness - the relative tendency or disposition to be sociable or associate with one's fellows

I should have went to the wedding butt I haven't had any extra time lately - over 2 weeks of company, appointments on the weekend to look at jobs and equipment and still not accomplishing anything.

About Fred -- you mean our Fred? -- couldn't quit looking eh?   Just waiting for that fatal slip -- Maybe he wore a belt this time butt he doesn't usually.



What a concept -- lady saggers.  I think I kinda like the idea.

[glenn-k]

OK -- I give Michele-  that probably won't work either.   :-/

I guess it's just a good ol' boy network. :-?

[glenn kangiser]

Formwork is progressing on the second pour for the basement walls.



Still using a combination of Snapties and lag screws due to proximity to the rock walls.

[glenn-k]

We got the rest of the steel in and passed inspection today.  Now to get the rest of the Snap-ties installed and fastened and finish bracing the forms for the pour.  

Site looks a bit rough because it is a bit rough.  Much of the wood will get put up.  The dirt, clay and rock is pretty well a machine project to move.  The clay glues the rocks together as it dries and it becomes pretty rough to work with.  I probably won't bring the Bpbcat to the site until after the next pour to move and level things out.  Much of the dirt and rock in the foreground was from caving and hand shoveling during the early part of the season.

[glenn-k]

Steel is in and ready to put the fron half of the forms and snapties in where possible.  Where not possible, lag screws - 3/8 x 12 go thrught the whole works.  The 1/2 inch PVC is to make spacers to go over the lags.  If there are enough spacers, additional lags can be put in for extra strength and unscrewed after the wet concrete has set sufficiently to remove them.  Boards at the top are only to hold the floor ties in place.  Nails are up about an inch every foot on the top to tie a 3'x2' #4 rebar to.  The bottoms are tied to the horizontal steel - #5's.

[glenn kangiser]

All forms are again up, steel in and approved.  Looks like the next pour will happen this next week.



Cutouts are to leave the concrete low for future concrete beams that will hang down under the ceiling of the basement. 2' x 3' number 4 rebars tied to fixture around the top are to tie into the floor as designed by the engineer.  Minimum 20 bar diameter rebar laps or anything over that that is convenient.

We will put the truck and pump on the road to the back.

[glenn-k]

We got the second 90 feet of walls poured today.  Things went well.

Here is an overview of the site.




The Harbor Freight stinger is working with no problem and for about a third of the price of a big name brand.  Isn't it great that all of our manufacturing industries have moved to China? :-?



The blockout for the beam was made by simply keeping shorter boards on the inside then only pouring to the top of them.  The back boards were still the same height as I moved them in 12 to 16 foot x appx 9' high sections with the crane on my truck.  Saved a lot of re-work.  Rapiform clips were first installed on straight chalk lines to set the bases in.  All Rapiform clips were anchored only by driving 3 10d screw nails together into the 1/4 inch hole in the center, then into a pre-drilled 1/4" hole in the footing.  It was not necessary to nail the forms to the Rapiform clips.



There was not a need to do a lot of trowelong.  It just needed to be full and clean at the edges as it is going to be lapped about 2 inches down with the 20" thick concrete basement ceiling.



The board is only there as a fixture to space the floor reinforcements.  It will be removed and moved to the next location.

[glenn-k]

Most of the forms are stripped off the walls now and I'm taking a work break on another project.  

Mikes guys are putting rubberized sealer with an additional layer of plastic on the outside of the walls.  There is one small section we will have to chip out and repair due to a cement powder hangup in the truck on startup, but it is only a minor problem.  We plan on getting the drain pipe around the walls now before freezing weather and rain set in so that if there are minor cave offs of small rock we won't have to re-clean it out.  The drain pipe has a sock over it and we got a load of drain rock delivered so we shouldn't have any problem.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Mike and Michele have been working on the brick collection.  I don't have the whole story on the brick, so I am going to let Mike or Michele fill in the information on it next time one of them pops in here for a look.  



Here is another shot of the brick pallets.

[glenn kangiser]

Waterproofing is done on the existing walls now.  Mike got some HLM 5000 roller grade waterproofing



then a plastic membrane was stuck onto that as it was applied.



After that we cut and installed Mira Drain drainboard - a plastic thimble board with geotextile fabric over it.  This will assure that the water will go to the bottom - not through the walls.



The drainboard was not called for by the engineer, but I have been on many commercial jobs where it is used and with the rocks we are dealing with it made a lot of sense.

[glenn kangiser]

We used a Remeington Powder actuated fastener gun to attach the drainboard to the concrete.  I used #2 and #3 loads and 1 inch nails with washers as we had 2 different concrete pours to deal with.  This is a little fancier Home Depot model, but I have 2 "Professional " ones that cost 3 times more that don't work any better and - in fact are more troublesome.




The 4" French drain with rock drains to daylight at the lower end of the basement.This should help keep things dry..
You can see the pipe with a geotextile sock over it sticking out of the gravel.  This also was not called for on the plans but I wanted to add it to keep from future problems.



Now the rock walls can freeze and break and fall in the hole and I won't have to worry about it.  Some of the spaces from the rock to the concrete were just a few inches and very hard to clean the footings for the drain pipe.

[MountainDon]

Mmmm.    Deluxe gun. I make do with my 20+ year old whack it with a big hammer model. 

[glenn kangiser]

They do the job well, and for a reasonable price.  Not much difference in 10 seconds vs 5 seconds. 

Here it would have been a bit harder as I was stradling a 10 foot deep hole or sitting on a makeshift scaffold holding the drainboard and trying to shoot the gun -- even when 2 of us were working on it it was sometimes pretty hard.

I have a couple of old Omark guns I bought years ago but they have seen a lot of hard use and are pretty worn out.  Lots of troubles.

Sure beats drilling and anchoring by any other method.

[MountainDon]

... stradling a 10 foot deep hole or sitting on a makeshift scaffold holding the drainboard and trying to shoot the gun --

Ya' got me there.

I like to make noise too. 

[glenn kangiser]

Last section of basement wall forms is up.  Steel inspection was today --we passed but there were two short footing rebars I had to straighten vertically.  This is the same inspector that came out the first time.  He's the only one who ever walked down into the basement to actually look.  He was going to pass it and sign it off anyway so I just grabbed a bender and immediately straightened the bars.

Now we can put up the inner forms, snap ties, catwalks and go ahead and pour.

Our fill soil on this site is perfect road base when the big rocks are taken out so he said we would not need a compaction test for the inside floor.  It's harder than the back of my head anyway.  Absolutely no doubt this stuff would pass.

I've only had about 1 weekend off in the last month so being the braindead guy that I am, I forgot to take a picture.

Actually I put the camera in my pocket to clean up the area so PEG wouldn't make fun of me and then I forgot to take the picture. 

[PEG688]

  Sure pile it on,  I can take it. The blame that is for no photos.

So is that inspector the one who told you about the 5 permits being issued?

Seems between the news media and Govt tax's ,fee's, and "requirements they will shut down the building trades / market 

A guy  REALLY can begin to hate election years if he pays much attention at all        

[glenn kangiser]

I didn't want to embarrass myself with a messy unsafe jobsite,(I know how big you are on keeping the jobsite safe)  but actually it wasn't too bad -- just a few cutoffs from the last few days work.  The guys cleaned the whole place up a while back, and if one of them happens to drop a cigarette butt, Michele's on them like flies on stink.  Somehow she put the fear into them.

Yeah -- that was the same inspector.  Decent guy.

[PEG688]

  Good for her she should just tell them no smoking on her land IF they can't keep the place clean.

I never have understood WHY smokers seem to think thier butts are not litter , they just throw them down , generally still lit  and think it's OK. The damned things last years , the filters anyway.     

[MountainDon]

.... WHY smokers seem to think their butts are not litter , they just throw them down .....

ME TOO!!!!!  I really get PO'd when the preschool parents drop 'em in the drive, by the walk....

I once was going to run the surveillance tapes, see who the dirty culprits were, bag the evidence and send them home with their kids school work.  K talked me out of it.     

[PEG688]

 Some years ago a friend had parked thier car out front and a neighbor called the locals about it (pretty sure about that anyway) the cops came and we moved he car really no big deal , BUT while they where here "making us toe the line" one of the cops threw his  cigarette  butt out on my lawn , RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I said "dude your gonna pick that up" ,    which he did . He also apologized , but what nerve , or maybe bad manners / thinking it OK / etc etc , $hit he's cop , he writes littering tickets , or at least could have  / can write tickets   

Maybe ALL smokers "think" it's "no big deal" , Idanno  I never smoked , BUT still 

[glenn kangiser]

Yeah, I don't smoke.  I want my lungs to be pink when they fry me.

Good for you, PEG -- making the cop behave himself.

[NM_Shooter]

In looking at all the forms, rebar, excavated rock...


Anyone else reminded of the historical pix taken of the Manhattan project?