Starting a new home

[sr160009]

Eddie,

He uses the concrete chairs in the rebar, but right now it is just laid out. We have not yet pig tied the rebar together yet, in fear of rain before the concrete arrival. As you know if we get very much rain we will have to remove some of the rebar and redig the ditches. They are calling for rain all week. So we are just going to leave it as is untill the day before pouring, so we don't waste any unnessary work.

Makes a big difference after I mowed, it was getting kinda snakey. The are a few places I need to smooth out in front of the house, was pretty rough. But I can do that later, im sure after the house is complete I will have plenty of places to smooth out.

 

[sr160009]

Eddie,

I was looking through some of my older picture and I found this one I thought you might like. It is a picture of my place back in November 2004, I just started building my shop.

 

[firefighter9208]

What about plastic under the slab? We always put plastic under a slab or the soil will pull all the water out of the concrete and cause it to crack. The plastic will also help with water "coming up" from the ground and causing the slab to stay damp in the future. The plastic goes under the rebar.

Chris

 

[sr160009]

What about plastic under the slab? We always put plastic under a slab or the soil will pull all the water out of the concrete and cause it to crack. The plastic will also help with water "coming up" from the ground and causing the slab to stay damp in the future. The plastic goes under the rebar.

Chris

Chris,

Most of the concrete guy's around here does not put the Plastic down under the slab. I am not sure why. I did not put down the the plastic on my shop and I don't have any cracks in the concrete. Maybe something about the soil type and climate. I would think there would still be some water coming in though the areas of the plumbing with the plastic anyway. That is the way they have been doing it for years and I have not heard of any problems. If there have been any issues I think I would of heard of them, since a lot of the houses he has built for his costomers have been people I know real well. People talk in small towns.

 

[sr160009]

Update 5/23

We poured the concrete today, when I checked it out it looked pretty good. They still had som finishing up to do but I could not hang around, since I still have to work a little for a livin'. Looks like we will be setting up more forms for the porch and garage tomarrow and hopefully we will get the rest of the concrete poured by Monday or Tuesday. If it rains we can still start the framing anyway. There should not be anymore rain delays .

Here is couple of pix from today.

 

[KaiB]

...Should be no more rain delays...

sounds great, but its kinda sad in a way. We've had a wonderful spring up here...but August looms.

slab is looking great!!!

 

[EddieWalker]

Congrats on the slab. The rest is easy!!! hahaha

Not sure about no more rain delays. I'm in the process of framing out a roof on a house I'm building and the rain is killing me. I've only been able to work one day on that project this week. Luckily I have other clients. LOL

Do you have rock down for your driveway and parking areas? If they can't get to your site, nobody is gonna get much work done. Especially if your delivery trucks can't make it it because of mud.

I had a truck decide to make a wide U turn at a site and leave the gravel drive. He just decided to do this on his own and never asked about the mud or wetness of the ground. Of couse, his front end found an area of fill that was holding water and he buried both front tires. If the truck hadn't been resting on it's frame, there's no telling how deep it would have sunk.

It took a few hours to get him out with the backhoe, and one heck of a mess.

Eddie

 

[sr160009]

Congrats on the slab. The rest is easy!!! hahaha

Not sure about no more rain delays. I'm in the process of framing out a roof on a house I'm building and the rain is killing me. I've only been able to work one day on that project this week. Luckily I have other clients. LOL

Do you have rock down for your driveway and parking areas? If they can't get to your site, nobody is gonna get much work done. Especially if your delivery trucks can't make it it because of mud.

I had a truck decide to make a wide U turn at a site and leave the gravel drive. He just decided to do this on his own and never asked about the mud or wetness of the ground. Of couse, his front end found an area of fill that was holding water and he buried both front tires. If the truck hadn't been resting on it's frame, there's no telling how deep it would have sunk.

It took a few hours to get him out with the backhoe, and one heck of a mess.

Eddie

I do have a gravel driveway, it is close enough to the house. Once we get the garage poured I am going to bring in more gravel. Right now the driveway just goes to my shop and I will be adding anouther driveway that will split off the excisting drive and will be going in front of the house to the garage. Here is a diagram of the layout.

 

[NCDeere]

Eddie,

I was looking through some of my older picture and I found this one I thought you might like. It is a picture of my place back in November 2004, I just started building my shop.

I hope this isn't a dumb question, but that hasn't stopped me in the past. So, I noticed what looks like a cardboard box in the concrete with the PVC pipe coming up in it. Is it being used as a form? If so, what is it for? What is the PVC for?

It looks pretty good so far. I hope you have smooth sailing...

Thanks.


Bryan

 

[EddieWalker]

Bryan,

I'm cluless on the quote you have for me, but from your question, I'm pretty sure you are talking about either the tub or shower drain. What happens when you pour a foundation is the traps need to have a little "wiggle" room to line them up. The box around the pipe keeps the concrete from locking in the drain pile and lets you move the drain a few inches in the needed direction.

Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, the concrete needs to be cut out and the drain moved a quite a distance. This could be because the tub or shower has an odd location for the drain and it's not on site when the pad is poured, or the homeowner decides on a different model after the pad is poured. I've had both happen to me.

Sometimes the hole is filled with concrete after the drain is connected, but sometimes it's just filled with sand or dirt. It always changes from home to home and until you take out your tub, there's no way to know how it's done in your home.

Eddie

 

[sr160009]

Eddie

You sumed it up perfectly.....

 

[sr160009]

Congrats on the slab. The rest is easy!!! hahaha

Not sure about no more rain delays. I'm in the process of framing out a roof on a house I'm building and the rain is killing me. I've only been able to work one day on that project this week. Luckily I have other clients. LOL

Eddie

Again, Eddie you are right. It has rained every day since the concrete was poured. Just glad we got it pour when we did or we would be still waiting another week or 2.

We have not done much more because of the rain. I will run up there tomarrow to see how wet it is.

 

[sr160009]

Update,

Well it has been about 7 weeks since we have started on our house. By now you would think we would have it dried in, Wrong..... Due to the rain almost everyday we are way behind. I have been out of town lately an very busy so I have not been able to keep up. Last week we was able to pour the rest of the concrete around the porch and the garage and the house is almost framed. As we speak right now there is a major storm over the house right now and I hope the framing is ok after the storm is over. Here is a few more pix of our progress.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the pictures and update. I'm watching that storm on the radar right now and it sure looks intense. After the last couple days, it's gone from dificult to get anything done, to impossible!!!

The house I'm building right now is two weeks away from being dried in, but I'm not getting anything done because of the weather. It's not just the rain, but the winds, thunder and lightning. I actually saw it hit some trees on friday!!!! That's the closest I've ever been to a strike and the noise was more then I would have imagined. No fires, but I did see smoke coming off the trees.

Your porches look like they are going to be pretty big. The house I'm building also has a large wrap around porch that is a big part of why I got the job. I also designed the roofline that they really liked, plus worked with them on the layout. We're finishing it off in Hardi lap siding and painting the posts.

Here's a picture from last week.

Eddie

 

[sr160009]

Your porches look like they are going to be pretty big. The house I'm building also has a large wrap around porch that is a big part of why I got the job. I also designed the roofline that they really liked, plus worked with them on the layout. We're finishing it off in Hardi lap siding and painting the posts.

Here's a picture from last week.

Eddie

What is the pitch of the house you are building? Mine is going to be real simular to yours. I will have a 8/12 pitch on the roof and the porches will have a 4/12.

 

[EddieWalker]

It's 3:12 and 7:12.

I sort of drew it out for them before I started, but we didn't decide on the pitch until I had the walls framed in and held up a board for them to decide what they liked. It was thier call, and they liked the shallow pitch over the porch. For the steep pitch, I went with the 7:12 because I didn't want to deal with anything steeper or taller. They wanted 12:12, but I talked them out of that. Too darn steep and even worse, it would have been higher up then I'm comfortable working on. I'm afraid of heights, so putting a step ladder on top of the rafters to attache the peaks can get kind of crazy.

Another consideration was to have a wall that would fit a four foot octogon window in front and look like it belongs. I've seen it where the window distracts or looks odd. Here, it will look pretty good in my opinion.

Eddie

 

[sr160009]

Update 6-27-07

Well the constuction guys are not able to work very much since the last update, but we have made some progress. We framed up the garge and they are almost complete with the ceiling part of the framing. Here is the pic's of the garage.

 

[sr160009]

here is the living room.

 

[sr160009]

here is the porch and patio.

 

[sr160009]

here is a few pic's from the driveway and road.