Backfill Begins

First up today was the gravel portion of the waterproofing - covering the weeping tile with 10 or more inches of gravel helps water flow into the weepers, and away from the foundation.

Next up? Backfill - right after the City Inspector was in to pass the foundation and waterproofing stage of construction.  The area is very tight, so backfill may take two or three days here.  After that, the surveyors will be in and then we can start framing!

Waterproofing Complete

The waterproofing crew was in today to spray the walls with bitumen to seal the concrete and then add a layer of waterproofing membrane.  We should be good to backfill tomorrow and start framing by Thursday.

Voila... walls!

Rock Concrete was in early and spent a half day stripping the forms and patching the cross support holes with tar.  It's nice to see the shape of the house - now we can start to backfill pretty soon which makes everyone feel better!

Watching the Pour

You get all kinds of characters checking in on construction sites... especially when the big toys have come out to play.  This interesting character was poking around for a while, with not a word said to anyone on site... too funny.

I got a little video at the start and near the end of the pour below.  Tomorrow, we'll finally see some foundation walls!

Walls Formed

We are ready to pour!  They guys made really good progress on the forming today, and by end of day we had everything in place to start pouring tomorrow.  Though not quite backfilled, I always breath a little easier once the walls are formed.  I'm looking forward to getting the sides of the house restored - especially for Mo, the owner/builder of the house next door that's trying to sell his new home (sorry Mo!).

Forms Arrive

Rock Concrete crane dropped their forms off today.  With a little help from Mother Nature, we'll have our walls done and stripped and ready for backfill by the weekend!

Footings Repinned

A lot of builders don't bother getting the "footings repinned".  

Normally, the surveyors mark out the locations of the corners of the house using pins or stakes, then the footings are poured and you hope that either the footings are in the exact correct location, or that the pins are sticking out high enough to show above the concrete of the footings AND they haven't moved at all.  

What's the big deal?  Well, if the "as built" survey showing the actual wall location is off by as much as an inch, it can be a serious problem.  At best, the site can be shut down and we visit Committee of Adjustment - at worst?  Let's not think about that.  

So I always have the surveyors come and set new pins in the solid concrete footings for the exact location of the walls - a simple, cost effective step that can prevent a lot of headaches!

Fooings Poured

Now, we start building!  The footings were poured today, with the generous help of our neighbours to the South (thank you guys!).... more specifically, their front lawn which we'll fixing up once the boys with their big machines are done with our site.

Footings framed

Miguel arrived bright and early to frame the footings and help shore up the neighbours fence.  With such tight setbacks on new builds on this street (as little as 90cm!), excavation can sometimes mean we are literally digging from neighbour wall to neighbour wall.  Luckily, the owner next door is a builder so he's ok with some temporary discomfort in exchange for some long term gain!

Excavation complete

While we are busy prepping the footing material to get onsite, the guys have finished off the excavation.  Now we wait until tomorrow for the surveyors to mark the footings and we're ready to frame the footings.