First Course Complete!

Wow, it's amazing what can get done when everything aligns. I was off for the day. I had nothing else on my schedule. And the weather...the weather cooperated! We had a high of 58 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. It made for an enjoyable day outside. And as you'll see in my photos, I had good company (and yes, I had to change out our well pressure tank last weekend). My plan today was to get the entire first course of blocks finished. I really don't want to worry about drying the footing and scrapping away mud and dirt again. If I can get the first course complete, then I won't have to worry about it. Any water that gets under the tarp won't bother me much after that point, except for wet shoes. 

Since all the corner blocks were in place and set up nicely from the day before,  I used some mason line and pair of mason line blocks to stretch a line from corner to corner. The line was set at the top corner block of each end. This gave me a guide to set the remainder of the blocks. I could lay a block and tap it into position so it was just off the line, and then set the height so that the top of the block was level with the line. I still used a level to make sure the block was level in its width, but otherwise I moved pretty quickly. Quick being relative as I've only been doing this for a few hours now. 

The one frustrating thing, and I'm sure all masons have to deal with it, is the uneven footing. I just didn't think with that fancy laser level it would be quite the issue. As I go along the line I'll have to pile up a good bit of mortar, or really thin it out when the footing gets high. But I've now taken care of all the low spots. My first course blocks are either spot on where they need to be, or they are still high by about 1/2"-5/8" or so. As I mentioned in the previous post, there's only so much ground you can recover from being high. So while my wall won't be perfectly level as of yet (a fact that really bothers me), it will be soon.

I got the entire first course completed. Before daylight ran out, I was able to set a block in all four corners for the second course. Once these setup, I'll be able to use my mason line blocks and string to stretch between them to fill in. It's supposed to start raining tonight and then turn cold, so it looks like they'll have a week (at least) to setup before I can get back to it. And now I can concentrate on building up the corners to the full 6 course height, like a pyramid. 

So, that's 39 blocks today, 54 total, 243 to go! Being an engineer, I think I'll need to put these in a table and work up some graphs for a future post...

First Blocks are Set

I had a four day weekend coming up. What better time to get started on laying the concrete block foundation? If only the weather would hold up I could get quite a bit done. And of course, it did not. That's what I get for trying to build in February. But better now than in July. 

After checking out the upcoming weather forecast, it looked like there were going to be two straight days, Thursday and Friday that were good for mixing up some concrete and laying block. The rest of my long weekend Saturday, Sunday and Monday, not so good. So I took a day off of work to get a jump start. 

It had rained the day before, so after getting the kids to school I pumped off the water on the tarp. I was frustrated to see water had gotten beneath the tarp and coated half my footing trench with mud. I was thinking I might as well go to back to work, but fortunately the other half of the trench was clean.   I have a nice blower fan unit that I grabbed from the barn and put in the trench to try to dry the water, while I spread it around with a broom to thin it out. 

As the blower was doing it's thing, I decided to get started on the other side. By now it was already nearly 2 o'clock. Better late than never. I had quite a bit of a nervous adrenaline rush getting ready to break open the first 80 lb. bag of concrete. No turning back now. It had been 14 years since I last laid block on my previous house garage and I had just that nervous anticipation of the unknown. 

Six quarts of water was perfect for the mix (as the instructions called for) and I thought I had it just right. Using a concrete pan and a ordinary garden hoe (the same from '99!), it wasn't even as hard to mix as I thought. My nerves quickly subsided as everything clicked and I felt like I had just done all this yesterday. I started in the corner where the footing was the lowest point of the whole perimeter. A good 1" low or so. I built a thick and full bed of mortar to lay the first block. And down it went. I used a story pole I had made to check my height against the string line above and carefully tapped it down into position. At the right height, level in both the length and width directions. No don't bump it! 

I set four more blocks around the first corner block and then moved to the next corner. Although I had a chalk line snapped to guide me along, it's not the easiest to stay perfectly straight. So I wanted to set another corner block so that I could then use a string line pulled taut from corner to corner

to more easily guide the way, and set the height. 

I set the first block of this corner (not really a corner, but an end) to be exactly 10 blocks away from where I started. This was because I didn't want to start right at the end against the existing house foundation, otherwise I'd have a small cut block in the middle somewhere. This way, I keep the cut block against the house, and underground.

By now I had the other side of the footing pretty dry. In between laying the previous block I had moved the fan around, spread the water around and swept the dried mud away with a stiff straw broom. The corner nearest the house is actually a high point of about 3/4" high. The opposite corner is about the desired height. 

With the contractor using that rotating laser level to set the pins for the footing depth, I have no idea how this footing was so un-level. From 3/4" high to 1" low. The low points aren't so bad, they can be built up quickly. But there is only so much space to made up when you are high. Normal mortar joints should be 3/8" thick. And obviously you have to have some mortar between each layer to hold everything together. I have 6 courses to work with, and I think it will take most of them to remove these high points. I'd rather get it taken care of below grade where it won't be seen, but I don't think I'm going to have that option here. 

Anyway, the remainder of the blocks went smoothly, although my back started to feel the effects of carrying 80 lb. bags of concrete, mixing them, and then working in the bottom of a hole all day. Hopefully I'll get conditioned to this. I have a long way to go...

If you want to keep track, that's 15 blocks today, 282 to go!

Level (With a Laser) and Square

Today we braved the cold and set out to set up our batter boards and lay out our string lines for the foundation. I had already cut the stakes and boards and gathered all the other equipment we'd need including string, water level, screws, etc. 

Water level? I had used one of those in the past to layout a garage foundation years ago, and while they work great they sure are a hassle to use. You always have to be mindful of where the ends of the water hose are before uncapping them or else you'll surely get wet, and then have to refill the hose. So...in you recall in a previous post I told you to to remember the excavators use of a self-leveling rotating laser level? Well, that thing was pretty slick. So after much deliberation, I splurged and bought a Johnson Level & Tool Co. Model 40-6515 laser level kit. Complete package including the level, detector, grade stick, tripod and a nice case to contain everything. 

And what do I have to say after using it so set the batter boards? Money well spent! It was a piece of cake and made quick work of setting all the boards perfectly level with one another and at the exact height to match the existing foundation. I'll be using the laser level again when we start work on the porch foundation, and I'll always have other uses around the house for it. It's one of those things you wonder how you ever did without it. Now if only I had it last year when I made that retaining wall all around the barn...

To backtrack a bit, we started by pounding in the posts where we needed them. They were located out away from the footing so they wouldn't get in our way later. I pounded them in using one of those steel fence post drivers. Worked great. Then I set the laser level up on the tripod and clamped the detector to the grade stick. That's all there is to it. Turn it on and it self levels and begins spinning around. You can't see the laser in the daylight, but the detector can and will let you know with with a series of beeps and LED's when you get close and then hit the mark.

I had marked on the existing foundation the spot that I wanted the new foundation to come up to. This will be 3/4" below the current foundation as we are using 9-1/2" I-joists (existing house has 9" lumber) and 3/4" subfloor (existing house uses 1/2" plywood) which accounts for the difference. So I set the bottom of the grade stick on the mark and adjusted the detector to signal it had detected the laser. 

After that it was simply a matter of walking around to each stake in the ground, moving the stick until the detector beeped and marking the bottom of the stick with a pencil. 1x6 boards were screwed across the stakes at the level line all around the perimeter. That's it. 

The hard part was running the string lines. I couldn't think of a new way to make this easier. So out came the tape measures. I also printed out a foundation layout plan from my Sketchup plan that contained all of the diagonal measurements for the addition. Our oldest daughter came out of the nice warm house to help us. One person to hold one end of the tape measure, one to read the measurement, and one to move the line. So with three people working the lines, it wasn't too terribly bad. It was straightforward, but took a lot of walking around back and forth to get everything spot-on. 

And spot-on we did. When all was complete, my diagonal measurements were right on the mark from corner to corner, a nearly 40' distance. And I'm talking on-the-mark! Did you expect anything less? (Hint, my wife would tell you No). 

Next up is actually putting down some cement and laying some block. If only the weather would warm up...

First Delivery

Today we received our very first construction related delivery: Three pallets worth of concrete masonry units (CMU's), otherwise referred to as concrete blocks. 297 of them to be exact. That's how many my 3D SketchUp plans told me I'd need so that's how many we ordered. Don't think I'll screw one up? We'll see. But actually I'd rather be a little too short and have to throw a few in the back of the truck, then have too many lying around. Something about having to load up and return heavy blocks doesn't sound very appealing. And what else would I use them for? They're not really known for their curb appeal or artistic landscape features.

So those, and another pallet containing 23 bags of 80lb. Quikrete Type S Mortar, a pair of lintel blocks for the crawl space opening and a bunch of 10" anchor bolts to secure the subfloor and we're in business. Now all I need is for this rainy and cold weather to break and I can start the laying some block. Did I mention we just received our first snowfall of the year a few days ago? Four inches of the fluffy (and wet) stuff. Nice.