Today the welders were at the house working their magic, the concrete guys kept plugging away, and we discovered a new problem involving a first-floor concrete wall that is needed but was not built. A big part of the confusion is that the walls in question are interior to the house and are not shown as concrete on the architectural plans, only the structural plans. Adding to the problem, the first floor of this wall is not very salient on the structural plans since it is broken by a passageway and a doorway. As a result, it was only when we were looking at the second floor structural plans and saw this concrete wall sitting above open space that anyone became aware that something might be wrong. The good news is that this wall will not be particularly difficult to do. However, it must be done in two sections and that means that instead of just one more concrete pour there must be at least two.
The welders were busy fabricating plates and “baskets” — cutting pieces of steel and welding them together — that will be used to attach large wood beams to the steel beams and then welding the resulting pieces to the steel beams. Pictures 1-3 show several examples of this. It seems amazing that heavy steel can be fabricated so easily. Of course, these guys are incredibly skillful at what they do.
Picture 1 -They attached a U-shaped connector to the far side of the beam in the middle of this picture and plate to the end of the beam on the right side. Probably tomorrow, they framers will attach a 6″x10″ wood beam that will begin on the far side of the middle beam, and extend past the beam on the right to make a cantilevered portion of the roof over the front door.Picture 2 -This shows a plate that they fabricated — including cutting the holes — and then welded to the steel beam on the side of the wood beam. There is and identical plate on the other side. Tomorrow the framers will drill holes in the wood beam and bolt it to these plates.Picture 3 – Because of the wooden nailers, there was not room here to weld plates to the steel beam, so they fabricated this basket, which is welded to the steel beam on the top. Tomorrow the framers will drill holes in the wood beam and bolt it to the basket.
The steel guys had also fabricated another set of four baskets at their shop. Picture 4 shows that the concrete guys attached these to the top of the concrete wall on the east side of our bedroom. It is the concrete guys who do this because they drill holes down into the concrete and then anchor bolts in these holes with epoxy that will be used to hold down the baskets. Tomorrow the framers will attach two wooden beams to the concrete wall using these baskets. These will extend out past each end of the wall to support more cantilevered roof overhangs.
Picture 4 – On the left side of the picture are the baskets that the concrete guys attached to the top of the wall. Two wooden beams will be anchored to the wall using these baskets. One of these will be attached to and continue past the basket on the top of the post at the corner of two windows of our bedroom to support the cantilevered roof over the front of these two windows. The second will extend in the other direction past the left side of the picture.
Yesterday’s blog included a picture looking into the forms for the second floor of the west wall. Today they embedded the piece of steel shown in Picture 5 into the rebar that you can see in that opening. The pegs welded to the metal piece are there to help hold it in place in the concrete. Picture 6 shows how this metal piece will extend out past the back of the house to support the cantilevered roof over one of the windows that wraps around that corner.
Picture 5 – Small steel beam that will support the cantilevered roof past the back of the house.Picture 6 – This small beam is in place extending out from the back of the house. Below it are the openings for the window that will wrap around this corner in the guest room.
Picture 7 shows the start of the construction board form on the outside of the second floor wall next to the front door. Even though these boards will create a “board-formed” surface, they cannot serve as the form for this wall. Instead they are being attached to a plywood backing.
Picture 7 – The board form for the outside wall on the second floor next to the front door being constructed.
It was election day and work continued. Picture 1 shows the finished rebar and framing of the north and west walls. Picture 2 is an interesting shot into the framed west wall, showing the rebar and the cross ties that hold the forms together. Picture 3 shows the start of the work on the wall containing the front door. This will take longer since the exterior of this needs to be board formed. It is possible to look up at this without looking through joists, because, with the stairway here, the space is open from the first floor to the ceiling of the second floor — so no joists.
Picture 1 – Completed rebar and framing of the north and west walls. Compare this to yesterday’s picture from the same viewpoint.Picture 2 – A view inside the forms for the west wall.Picture 3 – Initial work on the wall above the front door.
No posts since last Wednesday as we have both been busy in Irvine for many of the intervening days. A week ago Friday (October 26th), the sale of our house at UCI closed and our purchase of a smaller two-bedroom condo at UCI also closed. Although we will not take possession of the condo until the day after Thanksgiving — no interest in Black Friday sales for us! — we (especially Nina) have been working hard to arrange for contractors to work on the condo once we do take possession so that we can move in by mid December. Why the rush? We are fortunate to have a rental house in Modjeska Canyon about half a mile from where the house is being built, but we may have to leave that by January 1st. Another thing that occupied us this weekend was the 30th anniversary celebration of the Campuswide Honors Program that Ted is now in his 6th year directing.
So what has happened at the house since last Wednesday? Three kinds of things: preparations for the final concrete pour this Thursday or Friday (this will be an important milestone in the project!), some framing work, but less than we had hoped, and discovering and fixing some issues that have become apparent as everything starts coming together.
Picture 1 shows the northwest corner of the house last Friday; Picture 2 shows it today. In Picture 1, they had just begun putting up the forms and rebar for the west and north walls. You can see the plywood forms on the inside of the house and the initial vertical pieces of rebar — the easy ones. In Picture 2, you can see that they have finished all of the rebar work on the west wall (right side of the photo) and covered most of it with plywood — it still needs sheets cut in half the long way to finish the top of this wall. However, they still need to finish applying the ties that hold the two sheets together and adjust the forms so that they are plumb and true, a process that can be surprisingly hard. The north wall (left side of the picture), is about half done. You can see the section of this wall that is the furthest to the left still only has its vertical rebar.
Picture 1 – The northwest corner of the house last Friday. In this picture they have just begun putting up the forms and rebar for the west and north walls.Picture 2 – The northwest corner of the house this afternoon. In this picture they have finished all of the rebar work on the west wall and covered most of it with plywood. They are about halfway done with the north wall.
Picture 3 shows Avi and his crew working on the west wall. I just included this photo because I like it.
Picture 3 – Working on the forms for the west wall of the house.
The framers put blocking between the studs (Picture 4) and some of the joists (Picture 5). The blocking is the short pieces of wood placed between successive studs or joists to help keep them from twisting. However, they had to stop doing other framing work because of some problems that were discovered.
Picture 4 – New blocking between the studs.Picture 5 – Blocking between the joists.
Picture 6 shows one of the problem areas. Although the framers initially put up a joist here, the contractor realized that there should be a beam here instead to support a wall on the second floor. Should have been an easy fix except that the laminated wood beam (6 layers of 2×6’s glued together), which was supposedly delivered a week before was nowhere to be found. It is still not clear what happened to it; however, until it is replaced the framers cannot put down the subflooring for the second floor which is why everyone is walking around on sheets of plywood simply laid across the joists.
Picture 6 – Future home of the missing laminated beam.
Both of the other issues are related to the steel beam, which we have discussed in previous blog posts, that will support the wall on the east side of the second floor of the house and is in turn supported by two steel posts (the ones that were too short) and connections to walls on the north and south sides of the house. This wall needs so much support because it is to be a concrete wall on the outside of the second floor of the house (all the exterior walls are concrete) but is sitting above the middle of the house not on top of a first first floor wall — so we REALLY want this wall to be well supported! Picture 7 shows the rebar welded to this beam that will connect it to the concrete wall above it.
Picture 7 – Steel beam with rebar welded to it that connects it to the concrete wall above.
Picture 8 was taken back on October 22nd, when this beam was being installed. What you are looking at is the beam being maneuvered into place to connect it to a bracket embedded in a concrete wall on the south side of the house. What is a little hard to see is that the this connection is to a short span of concrete wall that is sitting above a window. The problem is that this piece of cantilevered concrete (and its rebar) might not be able to support enough of the weight of a concrete wall even with the help of the steel posts once they were extended.
Picture 8 – Steel beam being installed that will support the concrete wall on the east side of the second floor.
This all seemed odd to me. Fortunately, once he realized what this beam was to support, it seemed insufficient to our contractor. So, as you can see in Picture 9, he simply decided to jack hammer this concrete out.
Picture 9 – Same end of the steel beam as in Picture 8, with concrete supporting its bracket removed.
Picture 10 is a view from above. It shows that the plan is to extend the rebar and the concrete all the way across the window opening and onto the concrete walls on both sides. Vertical pieces of rebar will be epoxied into the holes you can see in the top of the concrete wall both to connect the wall above and below these joints and to tie to the horizontal rebar that is connected to the bracket holding the beam. You might ask at this point, whether raising the height of the rest of this concrete wall won’t create some new problem? Fortunately no. Originally, the plans called for a wood beam to be attached to the top of that wall and then extended over the opening for a window and door to connect with another wood beam at the corner of the house. The new concrete will simply replace the part of that beam that was to sit on top of the wall; the rest of the beam, which runs over the window and door, can be supported by a hanger attached at the end of the new concrete. This will increase the support for the steel beam supporting the concrete wall, spreading it over the entire wall, without decreasing the support for the wood beam over the window.
Picture 10 – View from above of the bracket that will fasten the steel beam into the concrete wall that will be extended onto the wall on BOTH side of the window.
There was also a small problem at the other end of this beam. As Picture 11 shows, the existing concrete wall and the one that will be on top of the beam do not quite line up. Because of this there will be a 4″ jog in the concrete wall on the outside of the house. Fortunately, the jog occurs where an interior wall meets the exterior wall and so will not be obvious inside the house. On the outside, the jog is occurring in a location where it will be quite hard to see. It’s still not clear how this misalignment came about, but fortunately it won’t matter.
The Modjeska witches and goblins must have scared the wood framers away, but today the steel and concrete guys were hard at work. As shown in Picture 1, the concrete guys put up scaffolding outside of the house and began to use it to build the forms for the second floor concrete walls. Once the sheathing is installed on the 2nd floor joists, that deck will serve as the scaffolding to work on the inside of these walls.
Picture 1 – Scaffolding and the start of the forms for the 2nd floor concrete walls.
The concrete guys also anchored bolts on the top of one of the walls with epoxy, so that the beam that is meant to sit on that wall could be attached to it (Picture 2). Now the wood framers will be able to put the nailer on the top and then hang the joists for this section.
Picture 2 – With bolts epoxied into the top of the wall to hold it in place, this beam was finally installed.
The steel workers had many other things to adjust and finalize. For example, Pictures 3 shows that they put the post for the southwest corner of the great room in its final position and embedded it in concrete. Picture 4 shows how they welded it to the beam it supports — we are told that, correctly done, these welds are stronger than bolts.
Picture 3 – The post on the southwest corner of the great room is cemented into final position.Picture 4 – The post is welded to the beam it supports.
Picture 5 shows the welding of a support or possibly a connector into one of the beams. To complete this blog entry, Picture 6 is a view from above that that may provide a little more perspective.
Picture 5 – Welding of a support or possibly a connector into one of the beams.
The framers were out in force today. As the first four pictures show, they finished all of the stud walls and about two-thirds of the joists that will support the second floor. The last picture shows some of the natural beauty that makes this place so special.
Picture 1 – Stud walls of the kitchen and powder room.Picture 2 – Looking into the house from the deck. The closest steel beams and wooden joists are part of the 8′ overhang that will shade these windows with southern and western exposures.Picture 3 – Looking into the house from the window opening in the master bedroom.Picture 4 – A view from above.Picture – One of our cacti trying to steal the show.
Today a lot of work got done, but it was sort of a crazy day. One of the big goals was to pour the slab in the garage and the slab in the great room. Picture 1 shows the slab in the garage as it is being smoothed. You can see how this has an odd shape because of the unusual way that we expanded the existing garage.
Picture 1 – New slab to complete the slab in the garage.
They also poured the slab in the great room, but here things were somewhat more chaotic. Picture 2 shows the concrete guys smoothing out the initial section of the slab, poured from what was left in the truck after the garage was poured.
Picture 2 – Smoothing the initial section of the Great Room slab.
While they were waiting for the second truck to arrive — as usual, this took much too long — the framers decided that they needed to finish attaching the nailers to the steel beams above the great room (see Picture 3). Unfortunately, this created lots of sawdust and wood fragments that fell on the newly poured concrete. Picture 4 shows the concrete covered up to protect it.
Picture 3 – The framers attaching the nailers to the steel beams above the great room.Picture 4 – Trying to protect the concrete from the wood chips and sawdust!
Once the second truck arrived and they started pouring concrete again, things got truly crazy, as you can see in Picture 5. Fortunately, they soon finished the work on the nailers so the concrete guys could work in peace.
Picture 5 – Working above and below on the Great Room.
Picture 6 shows the finished Great Room slab and gives some sense of the view we will eventually have out through the Great Room windows across the deck.
Picture 6 – The finished Great Room Slab.
In addition to the slabs, they also poured a foundation (grade beam?) that connected the bases of all of the steel posts that will hold the gabions on the west side of the house in place. (See Picture 7.)
Picture 7 – Concrete connecting the bases of all of the steel posts that will hold the gabions on the west side of the house in place.
What the contractor had hoped a large crew of the framers would be doing was the walls and second-floor joists in the part of the house not over the slab. (It’s still not clear why the framers felt it necessary to focus on the nailers for the Great Room.) However, as Picture 8 shows, the two framers did start on that too.
Picture 8 – The framers putting up the stud walls for the kitchen.
One thing that sped this process was the amazing, compressed powered nail gun that they used (Picture 9) – with one press of the trigger it completely sinks a 12-penny common nail. Picture 10 shows that, by the end of the day, they had gotten many of the walls up.
Picture 9 – Using the compressed-air nail gun.Picture 10 – The house from above. You can see the many internal, stud walls that they got up today as well as the system of beams over the Great Room.
Progress today was all focused on what needs to be finished to pour concrete on Monday. Picture 1 shows the slab for the great room. The only this that was done for this today was to add the conduit and boxes for the receptacles that will be in the floor. Picture 2 shows the rebar for the extension of the slab — recall that we are expanding the existing garage. Picture 3 shows the forms for concrete that will hold the bases of the steel supports for the gabion wall west of the house.
Picture 1 – Added conduit and boxes for the receptacles in the slab of the great room.Picture 2- Rebar for the expanded slab in the garage. Stella is inspecting something, but it’s not the rebar.Picture 3 – Forms for the concrete base of the support posts for the gabions west of the house.
Yesterday, they hauled in the final sand that was needed for the great room and put down the rebar for the slab. They still need to put in wiring to three receptacles that will be in the great room floor. The plan is to get this and the slab for the garage inspected tomorrow and poured on Monday.
Picture 1 – Great room floor ready for the concrete.
The steel guys also did more, including adding nailers to the beams.
Picture 2 – Ledgers on the back wall of the house and nailers on the beam supporting the east wall of the second floor.
Picture 3 – Nailer on the main beam in the great room.
The pace of progress was slower today, but some important things were done. Below you can see that they fixed the problem of the short posts. They did this by welding in new, short segments of post. If you look carefully at the post on the right, you can see that the area is redder where they repainted it after the weld.
Picture 1 – Short sections were welded in so that these support posts are now tall enough.
They also began the preparations to pour the slab in the great room. First they had to put down a layer of several inches on sand. On top of this goes a plastic vapor barrier. That is the yellow material in this picture. On top of that goes several more inches of sand. They ran out of sand halfway through putting down the top layer, so in this picture you can see some of the bottom layer of sand, on the right, some of the finished top layer of sand, on the left, and the plastic, which still needs to be spread out to the right, in the middle. Once all of the sand is in place they will put in rebar.
Notice also, in this and the first picture that they have attached nailer boards to I-beams that will be used to attach the joists for the floor above.
Picture 2 – Preparations for the slab in the great room.Picture 3 – Fixed connection of the beams.
Picture 3 is an inset from Picture 2, that highlights some of the work that they did, which I had not noticed when I was taking these photos. The circled area show that they fixed the problem I had noted on Monday. The beam that extends toward the upper right corner of the photo is now attached flush on the bottom of the taller, main beam in the great room, which runs from the left to the right sides of the picture. Although I don’t have a picture of it, this means that the other end of the beam extending to the upper left corner is now sitting directly on the concrete wall instead of being suspended two inches above it.
Finally, picture 4 shows the new post that they put up that will be at the corner between the window and the sliding door in the master bedroom.
Picture 4 – New post for the corner between a window and a sliding door.
Yesterday, in addition to the steel, there were two other crews working on the house, two starting the framing of the first floor, and the concrete guys, who were working on some repairs. However, since there were so many pictures showing the steel work, we decided to hold off on posting the pictures of this other work until today — we also knew that we would be away from Modjeska all day today, and so would not have new photos from today.
The concrete guys were working on two projects. Pictures 1-4 show the repair of the “cold” concrete joint, which came about when the delay between one concrete truck and the next was too long. Picture 5-7 shows that they also repaired a place where they couldn’t get the concrete to fill in fully under the wood blocking out a window opening.
Picture 1 – This shows Javi removing the poorly consolidated material on one side of the cold joint. Fortunately, within about an inch of the surface, the concrete began to be fully consolidated.Picture 2 – Here he is mixing a special, epoxy-based concrete to fill the void that he chipped out. This material is specially formulated to bind to existing concrete.Picture 3 – Here Javi is moistening the joint before troweling the patching material into it. It was critical that the joint be fully filled and well packed.Picture 4 – Here is the finished patch. The main function of this patch will be to keep water from getting inside the concrete and rusting the iron rebar.Picture 5 – Here Javi is constructing new framing around the short pour, where not enough concrete got in under the form of the window.Picture 6 – Hand-mixed is concrete is poured into the form to fill the gap under the window.Picture 7 – The end result.
Wood framing seems fairly straightforward, so it is interesting that the crews that are doing this are so specialized. Today there were two of these crews working on the house, and I gather that we will see others. The first crew was putting down the sill plates. These are made up of lengths of 2×4″ or 2×6″ lumber nailed to the floor to form what will be the base of the walls. The guys who do this must be able to read the framing plans, since, in order to put down the sill plates they must first determine where the walls will go, and they also mark notations on the sill plates that tell the next crew exactly how to build each wall.
Picture 8 – This shows one of the framers notching out a 2×6″ so that the sill plate will fit around the post on the left side of the picture.
Picture 9 – The hieroglyphics that the framer is writing on this sill plate tells the next crew how to build the wall that goes here.
Finally, there was a crew to put the ledger boards on the walls. The ledger boards are, in a way, analogous to the sill plates, in that they provide a substrate to which other framing members can be attached. Ledger boards differ from sill plates in that they are attached to the concrete walls and the sill plates go on the plywood sub floor.
Picture 10 – The ledger boards are attached to bolts that were embedded in the concrete walls when they were poured. This man is straightening each of the bolts. The exact position of each bolt is then measured and a corresponding hole is drilled in the ledger board, a 4″x12″ piece of treated lumber.Picture 11 – The ledger board weighs well over 100 pounds. Here they are lifting the drilled board into place. Picture 12 – 2×4’s, cut to the height of the bottom of the ledger board, are used to hold the large piece of lumber in place until the holes can be brought into alignment with the bolts.Picture 13 – Some blows with a sledge hammer encourage the ledger board onto the bolts. (Note: the head of the sledge hammer is moving so fast that you can only see a splotch of red on the head, but the shadow shows up nicely.)Picture 14 – Metal plates and nuts — a pair for every foot or so, hold the ledger board in place.
