Prepping for Forms

It’s time to start rebuilding the house and it all starts with the concrete. There’s still a bit of prep to do but nothing too terribly complex. The first task was to get the excavator in again and dig the final grade for the concrete grade beams. This involves digging around all of the newly installed pipe piles, which seems like a tough task but the pipes are sturdy enough that is isn’t too bad. The real challenge was digging through the glacial till. Once again the excavator made quick work of it and we were done in about a half a day.

At the end of the dig we were left with a mine field of deep trenches with 3 feet of pipe sticking up interspersed with mountains of soil. It was progress and I was super happy with that!

The next task was to cut off all of the pipe piles to 2 1/2″ above the soil so the pipe caps could be installed. I enlisted the services of my trusty portable bandsaw which cuts metal like butter. It became apparent that these pipes weren’t going to cut like butter because the glacial till is so dense that driving the pile causes the soil to push up and fill the pipe. Once the saw blade touches a rock in the pipe it dulls and no longer cuts metal. I went through about 20 blades but eventually got through them all and installed the pipe caps.

It kind of felt like being at an archaeological dig site. Deep trenches, string line and piles of dirt. We just used a bigger shovel.As a final step I pressure washed all the paint off of the existing concrete wall and applied an amazing waterproofing product called Xypex. It’s a cement based product which forms a crystalline barrier which swells up when in contact with water, thus preventing water from coming through the wall. Only time will tell how well it works but I’m hopeful.

In the picture above you can see the giant 12″ x 12″ pipe caps that were inserted into the top of the pipe and bolted to the wall with Simpson Titen‘s. These caps were the result of the engineers plan to reinforce the existing concrete wall to make it more structurally sound. They are quite impressive but will be a bear to obscure in the final finished product.