Forms Away! - Pulled the trigger on the foundation forming design.

Just a quick update tonight as not a lot has physically happened at site this week beyond doing wood moisture checks and humidifier maintenance.

A de-humidifier I bought online from Costco arrived today and based on initial testing (4 hours), it stands up really well against the Kompact rental unit I have.  They had similar specs, but at $315 CAD inc shipping and tax I did not have high hopes considering the Kompact retails for a min of $1000 USD + shipping and tax.  I suspected it would be a lightweight that I would have to return, but it was actually quite heavy physically.  I have each dumping into separate bins to compare the water volume stripped from the air in identical conditions.  Best part is it sips power at only 6.9 Amps. Once I confirm total volume in the morning, I will order two more and then return the rental unit.  Two months rental will pay for all three purchased units, and with three units running, I should be able to suck the moisture out of the basement in no time.  I will then have the units I can use again at anytime during construction, especially pre-drywall and during the drywall taping.

The rest of the week has been dedicated to office work and research/planning.  The next task is to form the exterior walk-up stair foundation.  This will be left as exposed concrete, so I will be using ties with cone spacers that allow the tie to break off 3/4″ behind the face of the concrete.  You can then mortar the hole or better yet use pre-made cone fillers that you epoxy in place.  This prevents the embedded ties from rusting and staining your wall.  Of course, this is yet another task I have never tackled before, so lots of research was needed to figure out the right method, the spacing of the components, and then vendors for all the parts.

I started process by sending requests to three form rental companies and learned really quick, they do not deal with cone ties.  They only supply quick strip flat ties (I will right up a technical doc explaining different options near end of forming). First vendor did not even respond (which actually happens way too many times), second one said can’t supply and provided name of places I could at least rent hardware.  Final vendor advised they would quote on providing me brand new paper face ply and then may be willing to buy it back from me when done depending on shape.  At a initial cost of about $3000 and no guarantee of buyout, I was in sticker shock. I was also going to rely on rental vendor to provide the shoring details but had no confidence they were going to give me a suitable plan.

So after wasting close to 2 days on this approach, I changed gears and looked into buying the material myself and renting the clamping hardware off my local form accessories supplier I have been using all along (EMC Form Rentals). So, after hours of web research, driving around to several job sites to observe how others did it, and finally a visit today to EMC to get the final kick in the right direction, I pulled the trigger and rented all of the clamps (single waler snap brackets and form alignment clamps), purchased the 10″ short end snap ties with cone spacers.  I then setup delivery of the Crown 43 Paper Faced 4×8 plywood and the 20′ 2×4’s for delivery first thing Tuesday AM (Monday is stat in BC). Next week will finally see the first serious progress on the build this year. Still planning to have foundations ready for inspection by the last full week of February, and maybe even earlier.

Rest of week was occupied with medical appointments, and my new pool regime for my prescribed hot tub shoulder exercises.  I absolutely detest the public swimming pool experience, so am quite proud that I went every day this week since starting the regime on Wednesday.

Now I am just hoping no more setbacks.  While I have been writing this, I have been crossing my fingers as we just had a mini wind storm sweep through (enough to blow out some transformers), and the tarp got a real workout.  But it came through like a champ and based on the webcam views, looks fine.  Speaking of tarp, I also spent half a day or so designing the next iteration of the B.A.T. (Big Ass Tarp).  This will be a heavily modified version of the 60’x80′ tarp I had over the site in the fall of 2014.  This one will rely on a rope grid slid through pockets in the tarp to support the whole assembly.  The last one relied on the tarp itself which puts weigh to much strain on the tarp and also considerably stretches it (last one stretched in the length direction at least 8′ over its 80′ length).  I will post a drawing once complete.

Thanks for continuing to visit my project and sharing ion my struggles. I am thrilled to advise that in 2015, I had a total of 8,715 unique visitors making 19,323 visits to the site. This level of interest has exceeded my wildest dreams and expectations. So once again – THANK YOU!

“The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.” —William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Dramatist, Poet

“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” —Bill Bradley (born 1943) American Hall Of Fame Basketball Player, Rhodes Scholar