Mike and Michele's Bigger House Project - GK

Started by glenn kangiser, September 14, 2006, 10:35:25 PM

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glenn kangiser

Should be close when we get the 18 inches of concrete over it.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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glenn kangiser

#101
Well -- we got the last 100 feet of basement walls poured today except for detail areas like stairs and door openings.  This is the best pour yet.  We changed or form process a bit and everything was as close to perfect as it could have been.  A couple of Mike' guys, Zach and Mike were steady on this and did a great job.  I popped in and out as needed.  Our member, Harry - my neighbor and his friend Aaron came in for a bit to help with finishing the top off and misc. form details as we were doing the primary and second pour.  Ideally the end of the hose is in the form far enough to prevent falling of the material for a distance greater than about 3 feet to prevent separation of the rock and slurry of sand and cement as it hits the rebar.



We made nice catwalks for working from -- even semi-safe.  Had a guardrail around the top anyway.  One of the guys was vibrating the concrete to prevent voids between the rebars and the form.  As you can see, we make jigs to hold all rebar - anchors if we had them and the steel in the forms in place so we don't have to mess with them as we work.  No worries while pouring is the best policy.  We foamed the gaps to prevent most of the leaks.  Rapiform clips were used around the bottom.  Some of our pour got to 6 feet with no sign of strain.  We poured it in two trips around the forms with about 2 hours between trucks.  The same truck had to relay as the other one was busy.

This was our biggest and deepest pour yet so I had extra guys on hand to make sure we kept up.  We only had one truck so it was 2 hours between loads but that helped prevent the forms from being overloaded also.



The walls were 8"x 10'6"x 100 feet total - about 24 yards.

We designed the catwalk for ease of moving the pump hose and access to working the concrete - vibrating - finishing the top.



We added legs and bracing to be sure of supporting the total load on the catwalk and guarantee that a good safe time would be had by all.

We spent a lot of time making sure everything was right on this pour and it paid off in the end with not having even a minute of worrisome time.



The catwalks and joists for them were also part of the wall reinforcement and bracing.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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ScottA

Nice work. I was on a big job a couple of years back where they had a blow out on the wall forms because they tried to pour it too fast. What a mess that was. Set the whole job back 6 weeks behind schedule while they cleaned up the mess and rebuilt the wall.

glenn kangiser

Sorry I somehow missed this, Scott.

We wanted to make sure we had no blowouts so did an extra good job this time.  We are using recycled plywood and on the last pour we had a couple spread a bit due to the places we used 12 inch lags - rocks were too close for snap ties.  This time we junked all the questionable pieces and used only real sound ones.

I worked out the system so we had vertical 2x4 walers on the back attached to snap ties, and they attached to horizontal walers on the front.  It made the wall very straight in both directions and easy to plumb.
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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glenn kangiser

The leach field is finally finished.  I called for inspection so that should happen on Monday.

The inspector for the Environmental Health department is a good one - I even consider him a friend. :)

He told us exactly what he wanted to see - D box set in concrete and precisely leveled with water inside to be sure both drain fields get fed equally.  The downhill run from the effluent pipe must crash into the back of the box, although I put a square corner by the bank to move the pipe away from the D box for grading and erosion control purposes.  That will also slow down the water from the 20' drop.

He required that the fields feed off of the sides of the D box to prevent force feeding one of the drain fields with the water rushing into the box....ie: no opening opposite the inlet of the D box.

"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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glenn kangiser

Moved this into the owner builder projects as there are lots of things of interest to the small home builder too.  Don't expect this one to move fast.  It is being built as funds become available and is planned as a longer term project.

We poured the slab between the walls Thursday.  I hadn't used my old trowel machine fo over 10 years - a 48" Whiteman I bought new in about '78.  A few hours fooling around with it and the old Wisconsin Engine was running pretty darn good, all things considered.  Note the nice aluminum cat food can muffler/spark arrestor I made.



We dropped the trowel into the basement with the small crane on my truck.  That was the end we started pouring on so it set first.


Here is a shot of the most complex corner.



We shot 2x4's to a chalkline set on the wall at a 1% grade with my laser per the approved plans.  We set them 4" high to screed from leaving about 1/2 inch between the 2x4 and the top of finished floor.  This was about a 1500 SF pour at about 25 yards.

Here is a view from the driveway looking at the above corner.



"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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glenn kangiser

Mike has been working on a solid wood door for the entrance to the utility tunnel/basement.  It will go right where I was standing when I took the last photo.

He sent along some pix and a story of the door the other day.



Hey Glenn, okay here's the deal with the door. And not everybody is going to be able to do this, I realize. But I have an ideal situation to be able to retrieve and salvage trees.

Being in the chainsaw business puts me in contact with a lot of tree service people who consequently need to get rid of take-downs from residential jobs.



So they call me up and say, "Hey Mike, we got a big redwood tree, do you want it?" And I send my guy out with a tilt-bed trailer and a winch. (Not a wench, otherwise they'd get nothing done.) [shocked]









I have some friends to have a mill in Denair and they turn it into lumber for me at a very reasonable price. And this door probably has 750 board-feet or more of redwood. After we get it cut and stickered, I make sure that it's really dry. Then we took our plans and put it together using 7 gallons of glue and 825 screws, laminating piece upon piece.

As you can see, all the edges are tapered inward, making the door fit like a cork, but releasing very easily with no drag. The pictures do it no justice, but the outside cut between the two doors is perfectly straight for a depth of about 4 inches. Then the cut starts to serpentine towards the inside of the door, making the inside joint very fluid and wavy. My next step before you get the door will be to finish tapering the outside edges, sanding and filling most of the flaws, and then sealing the door with a product called WoodTech.

WoodTech is an acrylic resin that hopefully will saturate and permeate most of the wood, giving us a lot harder finished product not susceptible to UV rays and waterproof. I will make a large bath and stack the doors upon one another and submerse them in the WoodTech in a plastic bag that I will have to make, so I can eliminate all the air. I'm hoping I can reach saturation by 2-3 weeks. At that point I will fill all cracks to seal the door from bugs and whatever. This product dries quickly, so you sould be getting the 2 heavy huge big monstrous doors to put on the huge heavier monstrous gigantic hinges. Damn, I wish steel was cheaper!

-- Mike
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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Jens

is that door fallout safe?  Pretty cool.  7 gallons of glue!   d*
just spent a few days building a website, and didn't know that it could be so physically taxing to sit and do nothing all day!

glenn kangiser

I hope so.  Mike was trying to make something substantial I think as his engineer has 18 to 20 inches as I recall, of concrete over the basement. :)
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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Bishopknight

I love the basement and door. I was thinking of making my own door because the one I want is over a grand. I might just put a crappy door up and build one later that looks like the one I want.

glenn kangiser

That should work well.  Mike thought about it a while before deciding how he wanted to do this one.  Originally it was to be a 3' wide door and 6 foot wide utility tunnel, but I suggested he go wide enough to make use of it and the door big enough for a hot rod project or what ever he wanted to do in there.  Back in a surplus Abrams? hmm

Tracks would rub the walls -- on to plan "B"

Who knows?
"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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glenn kangiser

Pouring the roof of the basement/partial house floor Monday it looks like.  I'm thinking there is around 4 to 5 tons of steel in it.  It will be about 120 cu. yds as it is 20 inches thick per the engineered design.  Passed inspection about a week and a half ago. 

"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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glenn kangiser

Finally got it together and poured the floor for Mike and Michele.

About 5:30 AM to the Job and back to the shop around 8 PM. 



There we go - around 1500 square feet 20 inches thick.  Only 4.6 yards more than my estimate and time was about as I originally figured it would be.  Finished up after dark.



We had spent a couple days checking, reinforcing and making sure we would have no problems with the forms.  The last day we set some screeds in the areas that would be hard to work otherwise.  I always like to take care of all of the problems I can before the pour rather than during it.  Nothing like a form blowing out to get the adrenaline flowing.  I don't need that.

No major problems.  Even with the relatively short trip to reload, the mountain roads kept the trucks fairly slow.  About an hour apart on the average.

Al set up the barbecue and had dogs and burgers for all of us all day long. [hungry]



"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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Redoverfarm

Gkenn what type of temporary cribbing did you use on that much weight?


glenn kangiser

#114
Good question, John, and now I realize I did not take one picture of it underneath..... wait a minute... sorry, I lied.... [waiting]

I just failed to post them after we did it. d*

I found them in my album.  Pix below.

Mike has a good friend, Jerry, who does giant concrete structures, so he acquires the necessary shoring from him temporarily along with a lot of good advice and a weekend or two of help.  It was nice having a pro set up the shoring.  While he was there we all helped set the 1" plywood on top of the shoring timbers and he also set up the beams which had an 8" drop in several places.  

I had blocked out the walls for the beams in nearly all of the right places already.

These were the first to get shoring for the dropped beams.



We had 4x4 posts on adjustable brackets.  They were on 4 foot centers under 4x8 girders on 4' centers with 4x4's horizontal on 12 inch centers as above.  They fit into the pockets after most of the frame was up and lasered in.



We also shored the walls against crushing in during backfill and compaction before the concrete was poured.  It doesn't seem possible but they will move in under heavy compaction.



Here is how the girders were set.  The brackets on the bottom are for the shore tops.



Jerry's son, Elliot checking things out.  They were great especially because they were working there, because they wanted to be a part of it.  






"Always work from the general to the specific." J. Raabe

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