Second Third of Footers

Two (big) thirds of the footers are finished. In the above diagram, the yellow represents the first 'third' we poured and the purple is what we did last Wednesday. The thin red line shows where our new walls are, and Shawn's down there as I type building the walls up on the purple footers. The light blue footers will be our last, as well as the easiest with a simple U shape. The pour went better this time than last. At least the mixer didn't get stuck in the mud!! (Click here and here to see videos of the last time we poured.)

This is a pretty cool shot of how the house is being supported. If you notice that the sill supporting the wall is bowed heavily in the middle, don't worry. I'm just a poor photo editor.

The supports don't always work out quite as well as we like, which is scary, but...eh... we lived. The left side of this one is a bit taller, or lower, rather. We had them both dug down as deep as the one on the right, but when we dug alongside it for our footer trench we had an accident. It started to collapse. So we lost several hours but were able to secure it. The house didn't cave in.

I guess we were misguided by the heavy clay content of the soil this far down (about 8 feet below ground.) Most of our dirt is silty sandy stuff, but we found a few areas that had a good 3-4 inch deep layer of pinkish, purplish clay. Very pretty but a pain to dig.

But dig it we must! Here Shawn's digging for rebar that he hammered horizontally into the dirt during the last pour. About 5 feet of the bars are in the previous footer and 5 feet are in the new one.

When you pour a footer is sections, the places they meet are called 'cold joints' and require these bars as extra reinforcement because these cold joints are the areas most susceptible to cracking over time.

The cement blocks are helping maintain the 24 inch width required as we set up the forms. Once the forms are nailed together and spreaders put on top, the blocks will be removed. Spreaders are just 2x4s long enough to bridge the gap and hold the forms the correct distance apart during the pour.

For this pour, Shawn made two chutes that the truck's chute could easily move between. This helped get the concrete spread out as it came in, a.k.a. less work for us.

Here's the end of one chute, just after the pour. Allowing for overflow is very important. We can always toss out the excess, but if we order too little.... oh, snap...

All done! This concrete has been poured and 'screeded' (leveled out by having a 2x4 dragged across it.) This is a cold joint, so the rebar is deep down in it. All that's left is to remove that spreader on top, let it dry (see the color change?) and the building can begin. We took the weekend to enjoy company and relax and this morning Shawn started the new walls.