12-5-08 Most of the Concrete is done now. There are still a few retaining walls to build and then backfill over everything. The interior work is next.

Remember click on a picture for a full size view.  This is the 2nd page of my brother's house construction.

It's looking more and more like a house.

Waiting for the concrete truck, the last wall pour. Notice the pile of forms under the conveyor to limit a catastrophy like before.

The conveyor chutes ready and waiting

show time, the conveyor eliminates most of the work.

Cleanup was the hardest part, Carol looks like a coal miner running the pressure washer in a corner. A new X-mas card is born.

Cleaning the cleanup crew.

2 days later, removing the wall forms for the last time.

The A frame worked great, it needs to wiggle it's way out the garage door and wait for it's next use on the wing walls after the roof is poured next spring, the conveyor will hang inside the frame then rather than be supported well above it like it is now.

Dec 07, The decking is done and the first couple rows of roof forms are up.

Upstairs roof forms

The tools to pull the pocket forms out of the floor to reuse them on the roof. The pullers are screwed into the corners and a jack is then used to push them down and they fall a couple inches onto the lift. At least that's the plan.

Me screwing in the corner of the pocket form puller.

The lift is often pushed into place as a safety in case the form should fall out while we are working under it. Not much chance of that happening! LOL.

The pocket forms piled up waiting to be transported up stairs. Where they made another pile waiting to be moved again into position. I'm sure these will have been moved at least 2 dozen times during their lifetime.

Other forms, piled and waiting to be moved again.

After pulling all the pocket forms downstairs we worked on the wall forms upstairs.

This contraption was my idea to easily get the forms into place.

The mobile A frame did manage to snake it's way out the garage door.

This is where the last 6 weeks started, building posts like this. The upstairs roof forming is done. Soon it will be concrete time again. The 2x4's on top of these posts got our undivided attention later.

Putting the rebar into the beams, probably 10 thousand wire ties at this point.

Maybe 2/3 of the 13 tons of steel rebar is in place. And this is just the roof.

The water level, tubing and can reservoir is hanging from the post.

3 more weeks of work, 10,000 more wire ties, 5 tons of rebar and it's ready for 200 yards of concrete

Electrical conduit and boxes are cast into the beams. The pipes are used for screeding and then removed.

This is definitely a family job, Tracy and Mike, my brothers son in laws, Fritz and Jenny are waiting for the first concrete truck. Mike was also one of my engineering students.

My last addition to the forms, a Roman Numeral date, to help an Archeologist 15,000 years from now. It's kind of neat to help build something that hopefully will be inhabited for many centuries and might be around for millennia. Hopefully we can keep it in the family. We also see 10 of the 25,000 rebar wire ties, that number is just the ones in the roof!

Time to take a picture, waiting for the next concrete truck. We only had a few scares during the day. One form blew out, and changed the pour method, fill all beams first, then return later to pour the "floor". We also had those 2x4s on top of the posts break, dropping us 2 inches quickly. Fritz and I were moving fast at that point, not knowing if we where falling 2 inches or 20 feet. Quickly shims were made and installed to eliminate that problem. Even though this same design was tested on the lower floor forms built exactly the same way, after shims were installed many of these failed. With concrete one does not have time to ask questions and ponder, you just respond to the crisis, move forward, and hope a lot.

Still waiting, almost an hour. The flexible PVC pipe supports electric wires for the vibrators.

Fritz on the power trowel, we finished this long after dark. We were very tired. Overall it was a success.

Walking away, Nov 7, 2008, the major concrete part IS FINALLY DONE. The house has a long way to go, but most of the future work is inside. The pocket forms come down one last time and turn into combustible material in a big temporary woodstove. Lots of screws in these ashes, but a warm feeling indeed.....