Day 6

“Good”, as in “it was a good day”, is a relative term. Day 6 was a good day for the footings crew as they were able to remove the two tree stumps, and dig the footings. It was not such a good day for us. For starters, the architect’s plan was to have the new addition line up with the left-hand edge of the chimney as depicted by the yellow line in the picture below. Since the right-hand side of the addition MUST line up with the right-hand side of the house, it appears the architect mis-measured the house when the addition was designed. Now we will have to lose the den’s double window. To offset the lack of sunlight this will cause, current plans are to replace the den’s single exterior door with double doors of a similar multi-paned design.

Apparently, in 1969 when our house was built, the lot had to be brought up to grade with a lot of fill dirt. After that, standard footings were dug on top of the graded site & the house was built. I never thought about it because we have never had any issues associated with the house’s foundation. Building codes have changed. The building inspector was not comfortable with our backyard’s soil, and mandated that the footings crew dig down to the original chirt. As a result, the addition’s footings are five feet deep in places. And, as a consequence, we have about two grand worth of additional concrete holding Big Tub up. But the Boyz are enjoying the mountain of dirt gracing our backyard. J

Matching brick, when an old structure is involved, is always a challenge especially when new brick needs to join with the old. When I built my shop seven years ago, the local brick vendor came out & identified the house brick as some made in one of their plants … that shut down 20 years ago. But luckily, they were making a very similar brick in a different plant, and I proceeded with the project. Now they do not make that brick anymore. Although, as before, the brick selected for this project is very similar to the original, the bottom line is that we will have three different brick faces visible on our lot when the addition is complete. But since it depends on where one stands, not all will be visible at once.

To aid the visual transition, a lot of thought was given to re-bricking certain existing walls. Up until the new addition was laid out, I had not made up my mind.

Between the layout crew going a bit overboard in referencing the addition to the house, and having to lose the double window in the den, the decision got much easier.

Beauty is only skin deep on the chimney. When the builder signed up to cut the fireplace in half, he assumed that the chimney’s innards had been constructed in a reasonable manner. But after seeing block laid in the wrong orientation with no mortar, he was forced to issue a change order for additional labor.

The blue hose is pumping ground water out before the first concrete truck arrives.

Reinforcing Bar (Rebar) needs to sit about six inches above the ground inside of the concrete if is to add any strength to the footing. Rebar supports, or “Chairs” as they are commonly known will accomplish this if the ground is firm. Since the seeping groundwater was making the bottom of the footings mushy, a couple inches of “flowable” concrete was poured at the end of the day. While this type of concrete adds nothing structurally, it does, when cured, give a hard shell for the chairs to sit on.