Friday, November 13, 2015

Field Stone Foundation Pier for the WellHaus

To start the WellHaus we took a look at the slope to determine where the lowest point was, and that just happened to be the Northwest corner. As this is the lowest point, it will be the tallest pier. With the finished height targeted at below 30 inches we are looking to establish enough height so that the  on the mountain side remain above grade. This also will allow us to have a deck that does not require a balustrade.

To determine where our corners would be we needed to take into account all of the restrictions and conditions present. Knowing that we want to stay under 200 square feet we selected the site and upon analysis we decided the site condition really only allowed somewhere near 200 sqft. With that in mind we took to configuring out plan, a rectangle is the most efficient shape for a work space.

Step 1- Draw it out!
Pier Detail
 Step 2- Set your forms. Pull centre from your batter boards and measure your height. For our rebar risers we're gonna go sustainable ( ok ok cheap) and clean up the site by breaking the bricks length wise to use the holes as rebar holders. Tie the rebar together with wire and drive four 3 foot sections of rebar into the ground per detail section.

Pier footing form

Step 3- Mix and pour your concrete,


Poured concrete footer
Step 4- Go and find some stone!




Stone pile

Step 5- Watch the Laying a Fieldstone Pier video 

Fieldstone pier
And there you have it! The cast concrete capstone was also made on site. The final step here will be to screw a temporary skirt board on the framing to create a form to pack high strength grout between the capstone and the framing on the inside corner. Notice the "Floating Column" making a cameo appearance! More on that later! Cheers. 





Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Time Changes

The memories of Summer still linger, stored with a smile as to not forget the warm dry sunshine. What a great Summer though, the Fall harvest was early and Autumn waited for the calendar to filp to October. The rains are upon us and as one might predict came with the remnants of a hurricane off the Pacific.

With Day Light Savings kicking in, it's dark before 5 o'clock which doesn't leave much time to be working outside. With that in mind I feel less guilty about sitting at the computer so I hope I'll have more time to write, edit and publish. It seems as though blogs are out of date and I get more traffic on my Youtube channel than I'll ever see on here.

Regardless! I have a whole summer of projects to document, so I'll try to spend equal effort in writing as videography.

This will be the first Winter since we switched out all off our lights to LED's. That should be a huge cost savings but more importantly, BRIGHT! Next on the list is the exterior lights and now that it's dark so early I'll have to be getting on that.
Because this is ugly

Because this is efficient

Becauase Damn, now I have to paint the ceiling

It's nice to not have those voids where the compact fluorescent bulbs were. Also, the CFL's took awhile to warm up in the winter, it was kinda of like a slow glow that was easy on the eyes in the morning but good luck finding anything before work.

Oh yes, I have more projects to show but the sun is out and that is rare so I better be getting on.