Day 37 - squaring the walls on the footings...

Today started out by completing the insertion of the rebar in the footings. This would normally have been done when the footings were poured, but this was impossible because the concrete set up too quickly. As a result, holes needed to be drilled in the footings every 32 inches and the rebar epoxied in. The result, as you can see, is a forest of rebar. Compare that, if you can imagine, to the way footings are formed in typical house construction. There, the footings only have a key (a groove marked in the concrete while it is workable). This approach is clearly significantly better for earthquake, etc, resistance.



The next step was marking out where the exterior walls of the ICF will be located on the footings. This is a critical, but somewhat tedious task, since it involves computing the Pythagorean Theorum over and over for ever corner - checking, double-checking, and triple-checking the calculations.


Charles and Dave figuring out the Pythagorean theorum. This proves that math and geometry are very important no matter what line of work you're in!



Charles and Dave measuring angles to ensure the walls will be square.

Once the calculations are made, the footing is marked, and then a screw is inserted into the footing as pencil marks will wash off.


This picture shows 3 things: first, you can see how the footings were capped to make the surface smooth and level (critical for ICF walls). 2nd - you can see the rebar inserted at least every 32 inches. 3rd - the blue screws indicate where the outside of the corners will be located.

In other news, a new crew member will be starting on Monday.