So this weekend we tackled a pretty quick and easy, but labor intensive project; installing the sill plates. Labor intensive because you have to mix up so many bags of concrete just to feel like you've made some progress. In all of the days of laying the foundation block work, I think the most bags I ever mixed in a day was four. Today we were mixing ten bags to cover all of the sill plate anchor bolts in the block cells where we would need them.
For the most part, Maryland follows the International Residential Code. For us, this means anchor bolts every six feet, and within a foot of the edge of a board. I had to take into account where our future joists would lie and then space the anchor bolts in between, maintaining the proper spacing.
I got Amy to help me go at this and help take turns mixing up the concrete. And instead of placing the bolts, then later coming back and drilling holes through the sill plates, I decided to drill the holes, install the anchor bolts into the sill plates and then set the whole assembly down onto the foundation, with the anchor bolts going into wet concrete. This ended up working out really well. There was one board that was warped just too much for my liking so we set the anchor bolts at the ends and let them harden over night. The next day we removed that nuts and pulled off the sill plate. The concrete had filled in nicely around the bolts and was nice and level with the surface. We added the center anchor bolts, filled with concrete and re-installed. I used some wood clamps and pull the board into submission.
So next up is to get some work done on the boat to get it back in the water for the season and off my plate. Then back to the house. I'll need to remove the old air conditioning fuse box from the side of the house, and I'll have to get into the crawl space and re-route the dryer vent as it to is in right in the way of the new floor. Once that's done I can install the new band beam that runs the length of the house. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
So this weekend the weather held out and so we were finally able to get the excavator that dug the footings back out to backfill around the new addition foundation. He and his crew were able to knock it all out in a single day.
They showed up with a big dump truck load of fill dirt. They used the bobcat to dump dirt around the inside of the foundation (crawlspace), filling in the footing trench. The rest of the fill was used to fill in the footing trench on the outside. Originally he figured he'd use two loads of fill, but only ended up needing one load. A load of pea gravel came next. They used the excavator to scoop it from the dumptruck and pour it into the interior crawlspace area. They raked it out nice and thick and even. The small pebbles should be easy on the knees. Anything will be better than the uneven dirt foundation under the original house!
Finally, a load of topsoil was spread around the whole area. This covered all around the new foundation and also covered all of the ruts and torn up yard from the previous four months of construction. And then they were gone. I bought 100lbs of grass seed and nine bales of straw to spread around the new area. It's the perfect time of year to plant grass seed, so it should come up quickly. And hopefully I can keep it nice, and avoid any mud for the remainder of the project!
