20 x 30 Single Story in Central NY

[drainl]

Congrats on breaking ground Squirl!  I'm looking forward to following your progress.  Hope you can get back to work soon!

[NM_Shooter]

Excellent start.  Make sure to celebrate when you get out of the ground.  The transition to wood was a happy time for me....

[Squirl]

8 Hours of work.



I got 30 ft of one course.  After it was done, I realized there was a 2.5" high spot in the center.  The west wall only took 3 hours.  I have to do the other two walls and find out if there are any other high spots.  Then I got a little rain.



This was in the morning.  It rained the rest of the day. I will need the pump next time.

[Barry Broome]

Damn Rain...

[speedfunk]

I was thinking about you when I was watching the rain come down last night.  I have dug out so much in our build I can feel your pain.

You might want to think about a transit or someway to check level before laying the whole course? So is it still 2.5"s out or did you readjust and put extra mud on both sides?

[Squirl]

I've got to get out of this hole. This is shaping up to be one of the wettest months on record.  I think we are up to almost 9" (edit 15") of rain.

I used a water level to set and level each corner. I then ran a string and ran the first course.  I had a grade laser when I was doing the footing.  It told me I was around 1-1.5" off on the concrete pour.  I didn't realize I was also off maybe an inch left to right.  So when I laid the first course there was a section that was up to 2.5 inches high(progressive over 10 ft). It is the one section where I poured against the wall and didn't use a form.  I didn't get a good screed.  The west wall was pretty level, within .5 inches. I'm going to check to see if I have any other high spots.  I figured I have 3 options, probably in this order.

1. Try and make up the difference with mortar.  I have 8 more courses to go with it.  Also, most of this is going to be hidden by balanced backfill.  I think I ordered to much mortar anyway.
2. Cut the block.  This may be an option if the rest of the other two walls don't have any high spots. I would probably have to cut around 8 blocks so far.
3. Pour a 4" concrete ledger over the block.

There is definitely a learning curve to laying block.  But the only way I learn anything...

[speedfunk]

8 blocks to cut doesnt sound to bad.  Although if you don't have a diamond blade they are not cheap.  You can borrow mine if you want.

[Jeff922]

Nice work!  I just read through this thread and you are doing a fine job!   

[Squirl]

So there was a little water to deal with.  It was 2.5 ft deep.  I pumped for 10 hours.  I estimate it was around 8000 gallons.







I had to clean off the mud as the water level dropped so there was a good surface to mortar too.



I did the first layers of the east and north wall.  I noticed the north wall has a high spot too.  Not as bad though. It was from a boulder that I concreted over.  I knew this might be a small problem at the time.  It is easier to deal with in mortar than with fill or concrete.

Here is the second layer of the north wall.  You can see how I keep even mortared joints.  I run a tape measure and measure each block as I go.



I was able to get the four corners leveled by the second layer.   I used thick mortar (3/4 inch) on the east and west and very thin (1/8 inch) on the high spots.



  I also noticed a problem I had done with the first layer.  I strung a line between two freshly mortared blocks.  I couldn't get the tension to keep a level mason line.  I need to set at least two blocks or mortar the corner blocks ahead of time before running a line. At the second layer the north wall had a ¾ inches high spot and the south wall had 1.25 inches.  I will correct this with mortar over the next 7 layers.

[Squirl]

So I went this weekend.  I was expecting a little water.  A little storm called Lee rolled through.  When I had left late Monday the hole was empty.  Friday I showed up for a little surprise.



16 inches of rain. I had a bucket I left empty in the middle of the field.  It was overflowing when I got back.  I literally got buckets of rain.  That is a 4.5 foot deep hole and 2.5-3 ft wide at the bottom of the hole and 4-6 ft wide near the top.  My estimate it was 12,000-15,000 gallons of water. I pumped for 28 hours straight.  At least the day wasn't a complete waste.  I piled blocks around the edges.

I could only get one row and four corner blocks set before I had to leave.




I've got to get the [expletive] out of this hole.  These hurricanes are starting to get to me.

[Mike 870]

Well, on the bright side, I bet you can make one awesome pond when you are done with the house!

[Alan Gage]

Man, and I thought I had rain problems trying to get my foundation in this spring. Gotta be pretty disheartening.

Don't worry, the mud will be gone soon when it freezes. 

Alan

[keyjoy]

Oh My!! That has to be depressing for you . And we complained that we had to dip a couple inches of water out of our pier holes, I can't even imagine what you are going through. 

[Sassy]

Hope you get a bit of a break, Squirl, so you can get the block walls done...  doesn't look like much fun    Is your ground clay?  It looks the same color as ours. 

[Squirl]

Yeah, I've probably got another 4 weekends before the freezing weather gets here.  If I can get a course a weekend, that gets me above grade.  Hopefully the inspector will let me fill it in before the rest of the wall is finished.  The tarp should be able to keep the water from getting in the blocks from there.  

The neighbor stopped by and said "Are you installing a pool?"

Sassy, it is a red clay/shale mixture. It stains everything.  It doesn't drain almost at all.  I will upload a picture tonight of the north west corner.  The edge of the dirt mound was cut in half by the overflow.  

This is indicative of why a PWF would not have worked. The footing is lower than anything on the property including the culvert at the road.  There would just be no place for the water to go.  If I could have done a PWF, I would have been building the floor by now.

I guess there is always an upside.  The house is going to be dependent on rainwater catchment.  In every storm I measured, the site got double to triple the rain totals recorded by the weather service.  I should have no shortage of water.

[drainl]

We were thinking about you this weekend!  Fingers crossed for a late start to winter this year - we could sure use the extra time as well!

[mogie01]

Squirl, so sorry to see all the trouble you are having.  Have you tried wishing for rain?  That usually works for me, when I wish for a sunny weekend it usually rains, so maybe it works the other way too, hang in there!!

[Squirl]

We were thinking about you this weekend!  Fingers crossed for a late start to winter this year - we could sure use the extra time as well!

Thanks.  I hope everything worked out for you.  Your place seems pretty weather tight, and hopefully the weather just runs down the mountain for you.  A neighbor stopped by and told be the bulbs are doing something?  Sprouting?  She said that was an indication of an early winter.  Whatever that means?

[Squirl]

I actually do wish for light rains.  They are nice to do block work in.  They keep you cool.  They keep the flies and gnats off of you.  It doesn't fill up your hole and it doesn't ruin your block work.  I guess I have to watch what I wish for.

[pocono_couple]

hey squirl,
    i admire that fact that you are doing your own foundation..   i had mine poured down here in northeast pa..   sorry that you picked such a wet time to work below grade!    how did you manage this past weekend?   we are in the wilke barre area, and we had to evacuate..  lucky for us, the house that we are building is up in the poconos, and  was left untouched by the flood..   and, fortunately, we  live in an area protected by dikes which held beyond their design limit.. so we are still dry, but there is a lot of devastation within blocks of where we live..    the weather is looking a lot brighter now.. i hope that you can make up some time!   jt

[Squirl]

I drove through your area before the river crested.  It sounded like a lot of panic from the people on the radio.

The two posts in a row (Sept 6th and 11th) are actually from the two different hurricanes.  I am heading up tonight to hopefully finally get some work done.

[RIjake]

wow, that's tough, sorry to see that.  I thought I had water problems with the mud on top of my vapor barrier in my basement!

[beckhamk]

Squirl  - you da man!   Thank you thank you for a great idea!  The bilge pump!

We had our crawlspace blocked may/june and its been very rainly season. Then we started in july building but the block guys pumped out the water in the crawl before we started , well by the time we got the sub floor on it had about 2 in of water above the rocks in the crawl.  So we went to harbor feight for a small electric water pump that sucks water. Couldnt ever get the dam thing to work. we have to keep trying to prime it etc. so we gave up and was going to pay our exavator to come out when he finished pushing the dirt back against the cabin.  Well i wanted to get the  plumber going at some point. so i ran accross your build thread earlier this week. So i checked walmat for that tsunami bilger pump and neir of our carries it. So ifor about $30 i orderd it from amazon.com and got it in the mail.  Boy i was a little skeptical when i first saw it. the 1200 GPH yeah right.  I was expecting something the size of a coffee maker, when it actually is the size of a small coffe cup. OMG...  This thing is awesome! its pump water like no ones business! WOW
We set it up and went on our way and in a few hours the crawl was drained, no more standing water.  Then i went back with a hoe and drained out various pits that was still left.  Very good and highly recommended bilge pumps!!!

[Squirl]

I'm glad it worked for you beckhamk. I went with it for a few reasons.  I was familiar with it from boating. It was 12v so I didn't have to get out the generator to run it.  It requires very little power (60 watts).  The last two reasons were very important two weekends ago.  I could leave the pump running attached to one deep cycle battery and leave to do other things for hours and it wouldn't kill the battery.  It still pumped away like crazy, but not as much as when it was attached to the Jeep.

[Squirl]

Ok, very little pumping had to get done this weekend.  Also the block was above were the water was, so it didn't slow me down.  My father insisted on helping.  I mortared most of the blocks while he fed me blocks and mortar.  I got three rows done, the water line is installed, and the corner blocks for the 6th row are in place.  I'm also set up for the next row.



I took some measurements when I hit the 6th row.  I am still ¾ of an inch high for around 8 ft of the south wall.  It is the first row that is above the center crawl space.  The walls were still exactly 20 ft and 30 ft.  The square measurements were 36 ft in one direction and 36'-1.5" the other.  So it is off square by ¾ of an inch.  I will try and adjust the block 1/8th an inch over per row for the next four rows. If I can get it within 1/8 to ¼ of an inch of square for the top row of block I will be happy.