With the forms for the walls under the deck done, today they made good progress on the forms for the walls of the apartment, shown in Picture 1. However, the real excitement of the day is documented in Picture 2.
In the background of this photo, you can see some of the completed forms for the area under the deck. In the foreground is a 2×4 that our contractor marked up to illustrate a problem. Yesterday’s post mentioned how the level of the first floor of the house continues (with a step down of one inch) to the deck and that level was to be the same as the top of the 6″ deep green-roof planters that sit on the top of the apartment roof. The ceiling of the apartment, measured to the top of the slab that is the roof is meant to be 8′ above the floor.
The top red line of the 2×4 is marked “Slab Main House.” The next line is one inch below that, the step down to the top of the deck slab, which is shown to be 6″ thick. This slab sits on top of what is shown to be the 10″ slab of what is called here, the Guest House — i.e., the apartment — allowing room for the 6″ green roof modules on top of that roof slab. The problem is revealed below that, where it says that it will be 7′-8″ from the bottom roof slab to the top of the floor slab. We will lose some of the 8″ to any flooring in the apartment and more to the fact that we have decided that we need to add a dropped ceiling to allow for wiring and light fixtures — these could be embedded in the roof slab but we would prefer not to. Take away four to five inches and we are perilously close to the 7′-2″ minimum allowed by code (and, even if there were not a code, this is just too low).
It is not clear how/why this happened, but, fortunately, there is an easy solution: have the roof slab of the apartment be a continuation of that of the deck an then add the 6″ deep green roof modules on top of that. Nerve racking for a few minutes, but problem solved!
Picture 1
Picture 2