The demolition began in early February, so we are now roughly 6 months into the project. It is wonderful to see a new structure rising up.
Today began with several of the workmen arriving late, because they stayed home to watch Brazil beat their beloved Mexico in the World Cup. Ted met with the general contractor for an hour and a half in the morning to discuss some construction details (how to get the rainwater from the roof to the water storage bladder) and security (Friday evening, Michael, our neighbor noticed someone drive up to the house site, and try the lock on a storage shed), and learn about the schedule for the next two weeks.
Once the workmen were on site, they made good progress on the rebar for the garage/apartment roof (Picture 1) and the setup of the scaffolding for the deck over the water storage bladder (Picture 2).
Next Monday they will pour the roof of the garage apartment. Next Monday they will also bring in a backhoe and operator to do the grading work for the area next to the garage and the deck. Some of the dirt for this will come from digging out the space for the part of the house over the crawl space and the footings for the part of the house on a slab.
Picture 1 -Rebar on the garage/apartment roof: the grade beam, which runs from the lower left to the upper right in the picture is now fully in place and they have finished the bottom mat of rebar. They still have to weave the top rebar mat.
Picture 2 – Scaffolding and forms for the deck that will sit over the rainwater bladder. The channel running in the middle of the image is a vertical beam, a mass of rebar and concrete the top of which is even with the surface of the deck but that also extends one foot below the bottom of the deck. This deck will not actually be poured when the concrete is next poured on Monday, but it was important to get the scaffolding built to get all the pieces for it out of the way so that grading can start next week.