Ted & Nina's Blog |

Tuesday, July 17th, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 18, 2018

The grading for the steps running up along the garage is done. As you can see in Picture 1, you can now walk up (albeit on a step dirt slope) to the doorway. Nina seemed excited to be able to walk into the apartment this way rather than having to climb a ladder to the balcony. You can see in Picture 1 that the area to the left of the door is flat. It will not always be; eventually this will be part of the stairway up to the deck and the back of the house. It is still flat because of the large cutout in the concrete pad below the deck — the one that the rainwater bladder will sit on. This needs to be filled in with concrete before they can do the rest of the decking. They could not pour this concrete originally because, until they had done the grading, there was no dirt to support the bottom of this slab.

It seems ironic that, as shown in Picture 2, no sooner had they filled and compacted the slope then they dug a large trench in it — this just seems to be the way of construction. In this case, the trench is needed to lay the pipe that will carry sewage pumped from the sump, under the floor of the garage, to the septic tank that is in the ground next to the house. A second irony here is that, having pumped the sewage up to the septic tank, the effluent will then flow down, in a different pipe that runs on almost exactly the same line, to the leech field that is below the garage.

Picture 3 shows how they obtained much of the soil to build up the bank by digging out the footings for the foundation walls around the crawl space.

Picture 4 shows today’s progress on the rebar for the lower part of the deck. Part of this deck will be cantilevered, that is supported on only one end. To make this possible, there are three beams in the concrete, that will be connected on one end to the upper part of the deck, be supported by a vertical pilaster in the middle, and then continue out under the tree. The most visible cluster of rebar in Picture 4 will strengthen the middle of these beams. A second of these beams, the rebar for which is complete, can just be seen uphill of the middle one. The guys have not yet started work on the third beam — or even constructed the scaffolding that will support it and its forms — but it will sit on the pilaster that you can see sticking out on the right side of Picture 4 and continue under the oak tree trunk.

Picture 1 – Completed grading alongside the garage leading to the door into the apartment.

Picture 2 – Trench for the line from the sump to the septic tank.

Picture 3 – Crawl space area of the house with the foundations dug out for the walls.

Picture 4 – Rebar for the concrete beams of the lower deck that extends under the oak tree.

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Monday, July 16th, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 17, 2018

Today the backhoe continued with the grading and compacting of the slope next to the garage that will become the stairway to the garage and the deck. Picture 1 shows what this area looked like this afternoon. Picture 2 is the same area, from almost the same viewpoint taken last week before any grading had been done. Because a concrete stairway will be built on this slope, it is necessary that the soil be heavily compacted. Picture 3 shows the device that they attach to the backhoe to do this — sort of looks like a meat tenderizer.

Meanwhile work continued on the framing for the part of the deck slab that will be cantilevered under the oak trees (Picture 4). This should be an amazing space.

Finally, they marked out the locations of the footings in the crawl space for the posts that will provide support in the center of the house (Picture 5). We marked out an area along the street where they will remove the sediment from the Modjeska Canyon Rd right of way that was dumped there to clear the road amid heavy rains in 2010 (Picture 6). This should make it easier to park on the road.

Picture 1 – Graded slope for the stairway next to the garage.

Picture 2 – The same area last week before the grading.

Picture 3 – Backhoe attachment used to compact the soil built up along the side of the garage for the stairway.

Picture 4 – Framing for the cantilevered deck slab under the oak tree.

Picture 5 – Orange markings show where footings need to be dug in the crawl space.

Picture 6 – Hard to see orange markings show where we will remove sediment. piled on the right of way after a storm in 2010 in order to make a parking space on Modjeska Canyon Rd.

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Friday, July 13th, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 14, 2018

Having the backhoe here allowed the crew to take care of lots of small tasks that needed its power. For example, they were able to move bundles of rebar (each might weight 1000 pounds) that were at the bottom of the hill in front of the garage, where they were clearly no longer needed, up to the house pad where they will be used in the foundation. It also turns out that one of the I-beams that will support the gabion wall, somehow was placed about 4″ out of alignment. The backhoe was able to hold the I-beam while they cut it with an acetylene torch (Picture 1), and then again, after they had welded a plate onto it, at the correct location while they welded it in place. The result is in Picture 2.

Because any grading that involves compacting has to be done with a geotechnical inspector overseeing it, they just did preliminary grading for the slope between the garage and the deck (Picture 3). On Monday, the inspector will be here and they will fill and compact this area so that they can finish pouring the floor in the area under the deck.

While this was going on, the rebar guys were forming the rebar for beams in both the upper (Picture 4) and lower (Picture 5) parts of the deck.

Picture 1 – Cutting the I-beam

Picture 2 – The welded I-beam.

Picture 3 – Preliminary grading between the garage and deck. Eventually this will be a 2-1 slope.

Picture 4- Rebar for a concrete beam in the upper deck.

Picture 5 – Rebar for a concrete beam in the lower deck.

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Thursday, July 12, 2018

By Nina Macdonald | July 13, 2018

Picture 1- Before

Today the bobcat arrived and they were able to move the blocks which held up the hill next to the garage to a spot on the side of the road that goes to the upper part of the property. We will save these to use to edge garden beds. The first picture is a photo taken yesterday of the hillside with three rows of blocks. The bottom row is mostly hidden. The second photo shows it as it is this evening. Picture three shows one of the sets of blocks neatly stacked up along the road.

Picture 2- Today

Picture 3-stacked blocks

The backhoe driver was digging out more of the crawl space under the house. (Pic 4) He will now be able to start moving dirt down next to the garage now that the blocks are out of the way. They need to build up the ground under where the stairs will go.

Picture 4. Crawl space for the house with the back wall towards the camera and garage apartment in the background.

Meanwhile the steel guys were working on building the scaffolding for the lower deck under the tree. (Picture 5)

Picture 5.

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Wednesday, July 11, 2018

By Nina Macdonald | July 12, 2018

Unfortunately, the post for Monday touting the new roof was saved as a page rather than a post, so it was not sent out to the email subscribers, nor was it shown other than as a menu item at the top of the screen. It has been switched, but whether it will be emailed out at all is unclear. If you don’t see it with this post, click this link: https://www.wright-macdonald.com/blog/monday-july-9th-2018/

Yesterday, the contractor had ordered the backhoe and a bobcat to arrive, but unfortunately, he had not confirmed their arrival, so they didn’t come. The workmen spent the day moving materials around to clear the area for the house grading.

Beginning of the crawl space for the house.

Today the backhoe arrived, but oddly, not the bobcat. The backhoe driver dug out most of the area for the crawlspace under the house. Only the great room will be on slab; the remainder, which includes all the water appliances is over a crawl space.

pilaster forms

gravel behind the support wall. (Pic 3)

The house deck will be on two levels. There is the main part that is level with the house and then a smaller lowered area under a couple of oak trees. The workers built the forms for the pilasters, which will be pillars to support the lower deck. (Pic 2)

The backhoe driver filled in the area behind the support wall for the water bag with gravel; unfortunately, it was supposed to have a pipe run through it to bring water off the roof from one side of the house to the other to go into the water bag. They will have to do something to fix that.

The backhoe was used to clear the area where the lowered deck will go. It had to remove a concrete waterfall and pond and dig out the area. This is right next to the pilasters in picture 2. (pic 5)

Area cleared of waterfall and leveled for lower level deck. (pic 5)

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Monday, July 9th, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 10, 2018

The apartment has a roof!

Finished roof of the apartment.

The day began early, since the first concrete truck was expected at 7 AM. Javi and the driver of the pump truck laid out the long tube that would carry the concrete up to where it needed to be. Although this pump (Picture 1) is a lot smaller — and less expensive — than the boom truck we had been using, and laying out the piping seemed like a chore, the actual pour seemed much easier with this pump. Javi then began the last minute job (not clear why they always have these) of forming the base for one of the pilasters that they also needed to pour (Picture 2).

As before, one person (in this case the pump driver) directed the flow of concrete (see Picture 3), another used the vibrator to get the concrete into all of the voids, while the specialists moved the concrete into place and smoothed it. Picture 4, shows the rough smoothers, who work using a 2×4. Picture 5, shows the fine smoothing with a float.

After the third truck was empty, the last truck had not yet arrived. Picture 6 shows that the roof was about 80% done at this point. In addition, to the roof, they also poured the bases for two pilasters for the deck (Picture 7). Since this all started at 7, everything was done by 10. The smoothers left, but the rest of the crew stayed to clean up the house site. As picture 8 shows, they moved the large stacks of 2x4s and plywood to places where they would not be in the way of the large backhoe and smaller Bobcat earth movers that will both arrive tomorrow. This equipment will do the grading next to the garage/deck. Before they can do this, they must move several hundred garden wall blocks, from an old, badly built, retaining wall, up to where we can use them to form planters and garden beds. Even more exciting, they will dig the foundations for the house.

Picture 1 – Cement pump

Picture 2 – Javi doing last-minute construction of a form.

Picture 3 – The main in the white hat in the foreground is running the vibrator. The man, toward the back in the blue shirt is the pump driver, moving the hose around. The guys in the orange shirts are the smoothing specialists.

Picture 4 – This pair is doing the rough smoothing with a long 2×4. It is amazing how well this father-son pair work together.

Picture 5- The fine smoothing is done with this float. I almost couldn’t pick it up, it is so heavy.

Picture 6 – After the third truck was empty, the roof was not quite complete.

Picture 7 – One of the two bases for the deck that they also poured today.

Picture 8 – The cleaned up house site.

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Saturday, July 7, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 8, 2018

It’s been a few days since the last post on Tuesday. Wednesday was the 4th of July. Since then the changes have been incremental, as they get ready to pour the concrete for the apartment roof Monday morning, and it has been HOT! The high at our weather station on Friday was 111; today it was a balmy 104.7. Fortunately, the high temperature Monday is forecast to be only 91, and the pour is scheduled for 7 AM — pouring concrete in high temperatures can cause problems since the chemical reaction in the curing concrete generates heat.

Picture 1 below, shows the completed rebar for the apartment roof and the wooden forms around the edge of the roof. We were appalled because they put these forms up leaning out from the roof — two stories up — rather than get scaffolding.

Also on Monday they will pour the base for one of the caissons that will hold up the deck. The forms for this are in Picture 2.

They waterproofed the retaining wall between the deck and the house (Picture 3) and did a lot of clean up. I believe that they took away at least two truck loads of trash. This is in anticipation of bringing a backhoe in on Tuesday that will spend a week or so doing the grading next to the garage and the deck — the door from the apartment will no longer open into empty air — and digging the foundations for the house itself.

In other news, we got the new mechanical plans for the house that replace the Messana ceiling panels, which were going to provide heating and cooling, with a more traditional forced air system. We had been very excited about the prospect of the Messana panels. Since they are radiant panels, there is no blower noise, and we are told the space would have been much more comfortable. Also, for this climate they are quite energy efficient. The reason that we are not using them is that when we went to get bids, they came in much higher than what the Messana representative had led us to expect 2 years ago: instead of 25% more expensive than a standard system, the bids were roughly 250% more than a standard system. After much agonizing, we decided that we simply could not justify that much additional cost.

However, retrofitting the ducts for a forced air system into a house that had not been designed to include them, also has been a challenge. We are pleased with the result. We still have to get these approved by the County. Because several of the ducts need to go below the slab, we need to get this approval before we can pour the slab for the house. Obviously, we would like not to have this slow down progress.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

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Tuesday, July 3rd, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 4, 2018

Work at the site was more of the same as yesterday. They added the upper mat of rebar to the apartment roof (Picture 1). It is somewhat hard to see, but there are two layers of crisscrossing rebar about 6″ apart, one that near the bottom of the roof and one that will be near the top of the concrete. The last step is to put up the wood forms for the roof edges, but they will need to erect scaffolding on at least two sides of the garage to be able to do this.

They also put in more of the scaffolding for the deck. Today they focused on the part of the deck that will not be over the rainwater bladder. As you can see in Picture 2, this part of the deck steps down. Eventually, this lower section will extend on a cantilever toward the location of the camera in this photo and wrap around the upper part underneath one of the large oak trees.

We also did work on the project today. Ted had been using an online app on the Ikea website to lay out the cabinets for the apartment kitchen. However, there were some things that he could not figure out how to get right. So this morning we went into Ikea when it opened so that we could talk with one of their designers and get our questions answered. Picture 3 is a rendering of the kitchen produced by that application. The leg and different color on the island extension are an artifact of the program.

Picture 1 – Finished rebar for the apartment roof.

Picture 2 – Scaffolding for the start of the two-level deck that is not above the rainwater bladder.

Picture 3 – Rendering of the apartment kitchen plan

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Monday, July 2, 2018

By Ted Wright | July 3, 2018

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.

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Friday, June 29, 2018

By Ted Wright | June 30, 2018

Today they made good progress on the rebar for the garage roof (Picture 1). In the area that will hold the rainwater bladder, they also began to erect that scaffolding for the deck (Pictures 2 and 3). We leave you with Picture 4, a view from higher up our hillside, showing the house site and the garage in context.

Picture 1 – Beginning of the rebar for the garage/apartment roof. You can see the grade beam running down the middle and the beginning of the rebar mesh in the rest of the roof. Because the load on the roof is so much less than that for the floor below, there is only the single grade beam and much less rebar generally.