Thursday, July 30, 2009

Leaving Radiator Springs

Besides the addition, there is significant work to be done on the old house. New wiring to replace the original knob and tube, new windows, and new heating and air conditioning amongst others. Our house was heated by hot water and radiators. Those are being replaced with a forced air gas heating system. Step one in this process is removing the old equipment. We located a fellow who specializes in this type of work and in about a day he removed all of our cast iron radiators, piping, and the old boiler system. It’s a dirty job and very labor intensive. Those radiators weigh a ton!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Slab Happy

Yesterday John Greco and his crew from The Greco Group began the work of installing the basement floor. After installing the sump pit, they filled the area up to the bottom of the footing with gravel, which they brought in by wheel barrow. It was raining pretty hard by the time they finished so they called it a day.

This morning they filled gravel in and around the outside of the foundation covering the weeping tile. They also installed vapour barrier over the gravel inside where the floor was to be poured. The vapour barrier is designed to stop moisture from coming up under the slab and into the basement. At 8am the concrete truck arrived with 5 meters of 30 mpa concretewhich the crew brought to the back of the house in wheel barrows. It was then poured down a chute, which they had constructed. The slab is to be 4 inches thick. An hour later the concrete was in and the initial finishing of the surface was complete. One of the crew was to stay onsite for the balance of the day and continue to finish the surface as the concrete cured. As there was a chance of rain during the day, the crew erected tarps over the entire area which they left up overnight.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Oh No, Don't Let the Rain come in....

The forms were removed the day after the concrete was poured and a few days later the process of waterproofing the foundation began. On day one, Nuno and Vera sprayed on a latex based product to seal the exterior concrete. On day two, they applied the 2-ply membrane to the walls with special fasteners. Once the backfilling is completed around the outside of the foundation the pressure of the soil will complete the process of sealing the membrane to the wall. We anticipate that we will never have any water leakage issues with this system. According to Nuno, "this is as good as it gets!"



Monday, July 13, 2009

Pump it Up!

Things got going early today. By 7:15 am, the pumper truck was on the site. The operator had to park it on the front yard for the job. The boom went over the top of our house to pump the concrete into the forms. A wild sight! One half hour later, the concrete trucks started arriving. 3 trucks in total delivered 23 cubic metres of 25 mpa concrete which was pumped first into the bench footing, then the foundation walls. By 10:30 am, it was all over. Everything went quite smoothly thanks to the crew at Chico's Forming.



Friday, July 10, 2009

It's All In Your Form!

Today, the guys from Chico's Forming installed the 8 foot forms for the poured concrete foundation walls. The walls once poured, will be 10" wide and 8 feet 1 inch above the footings. Rob, Marco and Bruno got the forms up in no time. Monday we pour concrete!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Eve of Destruction

This past weekend we got a 14 yard bin in the driveway out in front of the house and did some clean up and demolition. We threw out our old washer and dryer that we plopped in the garage, some construction debris and started demolishing the kitchen walls and ceiling. The walls were lathe and plaster and the ceiling was cement board. Everything you hear about this type of work is true. It is hard, physically demanding, and makes a hell of a mess. The only thing good about it is the beer when youre done! By noon Monday the bin was almost full and that included all of the kitchen and part of the ceiling in the basement below the kitchen. As far as demolition is concerned we still need to do the foyer and the stairway and upstairs landing as well as more ceiling in the basement. This is going to have to wait however as sometime soon the concrete pumper truck will be visiting the house and we cannot get another disposal bin until that job is completed.




Friday, July 3, 2009

Solid Footing!

On Thursday July 2nd, our forming contractor (Chico’s Forming) came in and poured concrete into the forms for the footings for the exterior walls of the house. They used a special concrete truck with a conveyor belt type device to move the concrete from the truck to the rear of the house, where they then filled wheelbarrows and poured the footings. Steel rebar was placed in the poured footings where they will tie into the bench footing. Next week they are supposed to come back, erect the forms for the walls and pour the walls and the bench footing at the same time.