July 10th - August 8th 2008 - Building the Basement Walls

We visited an insulated concrete form (ICF) distributor in Orange County over a year ago, beginning to look into using this system called ARXX. ICFs have been around awhile, but still aren't widely used. They are becoming increasingly popular though for their many advantages over other building methods. Not only are they very "green," being very energy efficient, they are also super strong and fire proof, and are very easy to work with. Once we had them engineered into the plans, Jeff took a 1 day class on how to build with them in San Clemente, CA.

Once we had the foundation completed, Jeff ordered the forms and they were delivered shortly thereafter. The great part was that the owner of the distribution company delivers them himself and sticks around for a few hours to get you started. He had to deliver in two trips, helping each time and is even coming back a third time to help and answer any questions.

After measuring and remeasuring, Jeff was starting to build walls in no time.

It was so exciting to see walls taking shape!

July 23rd update -

Although it has taken a little bit longer than expected, Jeff has made good progress stacking the ICFs. Of course its not quite as easy as just stacking them up when you have imperfect footings and narrow trenches to work with. He has had lots of work to do measuring and cutting shims to make the walls level and straight. It also hasn't helped that we have had our share of monsoon rainstorms that have interrupted work and caused mud slides.

Exciting to see door openings take shape.

Jeff has started building door frames at the house. I helped attach the bracings to the walls which took us about 3 hours. These are used to attach scaffolding and function as supports to keep the walls straight. Seems easy enough, but it has to stay clean where the walls meet the concrete footing and its tough climbing down in the trenches without pushing dirt down in.

So, now to build the scaffolding, finish stacking the walls, and get it inspected.

July 30th Update:

The time came to build scaffolding before the walls could go any higher. A little challenging with uneven ground to work with.

The ICF guy, Russ came back again over the weekend to help Jeff and make sure everything was on track. It worked out great being able to offer them our friends' (the Fejtek's) cabin so he and his wife could enjoy a weekend away and be here to work. Door frames started to fit into place.

Finally, the walls were basically up with only one more course of blocks to go. Yikes there is going to be a lot of stone to lay over the walls.

So, just a bit to finish up before getting it inspected by the city and the engineer and get the ok to pour concrete.

To be continued...