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Progress on the foundation walls. |
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These two photos show the block we are using. Each one is 48 inches long by 16 inches high by 9.5 inches wide. This is the first time we have used them and so far they are great. The brand name is Insulform and as long as your layout is deadly they go together quick!!! Our layout is deadly. |
 | The layout on these blocks is critical to your ease of installation. We were building a wall that is 9 feet tall and we wanted it to go together as easily as possible and not cut an odd length. There is one trick to assembling these blocks. I will attempt to explain it here. Okay, if you are building a rectagular foundation with four corners and it is two or three blocks high this is not so important, anything else this is very important. The best example I can think of is Legos. They interlocked perfectly as long as you did not cut one or use a broken one so that the layoutwas thrown off by one. These Insulform blocks are exactly the same way, multiple courses have to stack on top of each other and you cannot cut 2 inches, for example, off of one and expect the next row to go perfectly over the cut block. You will have to cut that row and every row above in exactly the same spot. I argued with many sales people over this and never did convince some. On this house there were two places we found where we had to change the length of the wall by a few inches for the block to not have to be cut. 30 feet will not work, 30 feet 5 inches will. Remember a cut will require more bracing. |
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They require a lot of rebar. Yes we used one piece of either #4 or #5 on every course and two pieces of #5 on the top course. Also we dropped a #5 dowel down every cell. |
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Three pieces left to go in. There are lines on the outside of the blocks that are your cut lines. If you only cut on those lines you will have no problems because you are working with in the module of the Insulform. |
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The daylight basement. Notice the braces, we used them for our scaffolding as well. How much bracing is a good question, I guess enough till you feel comfortable. |
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The foundation is finally above ground. Notice cut for garage door. |
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Lots more rebar, 3500 feet total. |
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Ready for the pour. |
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Gretchen hard at it making final adjustments before the pour. (sorry no pour pics we were tooooo busy) |
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Gretchen priming the walls after the concrete pour to help the waterproof membrane adhere better. Priming is not required, we did it to ensure the bond. |
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The waterproof membrane is really sticky and with the primer once you stick it to the wall surface it is there for the duration. |
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Putting on the green plate. We did this early because we had our scaffold still set up and it made it a bit easier than from a ladder. |
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The foundation ready for backfill. Notice white perforated drain line. In this climate we do not have to have a very elaborate foundation drainage system. There is a lot of gravel which drains quickly and we have a good slope away from the house. We only partially backfilled because it takes three weeks for the concrete to cure enough to take the pressure off the backfill, and we wanted to have some framing up to help support the tall wall. |
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This pile of lumber was used to brace the walls, and make the scaffolding. The boards are 10 and 16 feet long. We were told to be careful of the insulform floating up off of the footer so we took great care to make sure this did not happen. It was tough to determine exactly when enough lumber was enough. |
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Laying out the drain lines for the master bath. I am in the shower right now. |
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Backfill started Tuesday May 15th. Keeping the sonotubes plumb. They will support the front porch after they are filled with concrete. |
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Lots of fill. |
