Pouring the Footings!

So, this week the guys worked really hard.  The footings were poured Monday. Brent has been gone, so when Brian needed a few branches trimmed and a scrub oak removed for the concrete truck's access - it fell to me.  Fortunately I have used our chainsaw before and Brent had just either sharpened the chain or put a new one on - it cut like butter!

Brian had asked for the smaller truck due to the tightness of access and that they were only filling narrow trenches (the footings) with cement, so it did take two truck loads. The truck was able to back in to the front southwest corner and all along the east side of the house.  A wheel barrow was used a bit in the middle portions, where the truck's chute couldn't quite reach.  There were probably about 4-5 guys from the cement company and then Brian and Robin working - all working hard and efficiently.  Looked like a well rehearsed task for all of them.

They began with filling the south footing.

Here they are filling in the trench for the footing for the interior weight bearing wall.  This was not smoothed and was left rough and "chunky".  The slab will be poured right onto it.













Here you can see they've been working on smoothing the surface of the footings and Brian is embedding the "j" (or "L") bolts into the concrete footing.  The sill plates will have matching holes drilled into them and be set down onto those bolts.

Here's an overall picture of the End of Day 7.

You can see the bolts better here.  The darker ones without nuts are where the box beams will sit.

This shows the difference in the footings.  So, the higher, smoothed  surface is the footings for the bale walls.  The rougher, lower concrete filled trench are weight bearing walls that will be stick frame and have the slab poured right on top.  Our south facing wall has so much glass (passive solar) that it made more sense to make it a stick frame wall rather than a bale wall.

This is showing the interior weight bearing wall in the east side of the house (looking north).

This picture is looking to the northeast and is our bedroom/walk in closet/bathroom.

This is our front door.

This is looking to our guest room/office (front/south side of house) and the utility room (rear/north side of house).  You can also make out the location of the interior weight bearing wall for the west side of the house.

Here I am standing at the southwest corner (front) of the house looking to the east along the south facing/front wall.

Here, I am standing at the northwest corner, looking to the east along the northern (strawbale) wall.















Feels like lots of progress made!!!