Day 8 - Window Bucks & Inspection #1

At the end of the day today it was hard to see much difference from the end of the day yesterday.  But since we had worked all day we knew we did something.  One of my first jobs on this gorgeously sunshine-filled day was to vacuum.  Yes, I know, the house isn't even built and I am already vacuuming.  The guys were trying not to make quips about the woman doing the woman's work but somehow they slipped out anyway.  But instead of vacuuming the floors, I was vacuuming the walls. Inside the walls.  Since we had to trim some of the ICF blocks down to size, a bunch of shredded Styrofoam was sitting on the footings inside the walls.  That has the potential to cause seal issues between the footings and the walls and allow moisture through.  We want a good seal with no moisture seepage so I got to vacuum inside most of those blocks.  You remember the picture I showed of the inside of one of the blocks after it was filled with rebar?  Well, that leaves little room to vacuum but I made it work.

Since the walls stand 9'4" tall I first inserted an 8' piece of central vac pipe into the wall.  I attached the shop vac to the end of the pipe and sucked up all the Styrofoam garbage and other litter.  I removed the vac, removed the pipe and moved over 8" to do it all again.  Over and over and over again.  About 125' worth of it (since some of it stayed remarkably free of debris, I didn't have to do all the walls).  Needless to say, I was glad to be done!

While I was vacuuming, Mr.W and Jay were making these bizarre torture devices.  Or what appeared to be torture devices.  Actually they are the insides of the window buck.  A window buck is the framing that goes around the inside of the window openings.  The nails help the concrete to adhere to the window bucks better.  Isn't Mr.W so smart?  He should be, he is an award-winning carpenter!

Once those window bucks were installed, we needed to add bracing to the window openings.  When the concrete is added to the walls, the pressure on the walls and the window openings is huge.  We want the openings to stay the correct size so extra bracing is needed to ensure they are the perfect size for our windows.  (And, yes, it takes me about 2x as long to brace a window as it takes Mr.W but that is okay!)

While we were bracing the windows, the boys were chatting it up, discussing their new rooms and the window seats they would like to have.  Little do they know, it is already in the plans!

Though the kids spend a lot of time running around, climbing hills, digging holes and getting extremely dirty, the boys, especially, are incredibly helpful.  They often ask if there is anything they can do to help so we send them for drinks or for wood or tools or anything else they can do to help (and don't forget all the pictures they take while I am busy working).  We love that they want to help and they love that they can help.

Finally, we also needed to reinforce spots in the ICF walls.  There are certain areas where the blocks had to be cut to size and those areas are most prone to blow-outs (along with a few other areas) when the concrete is being poured in the wall.  Mr.W went around and sprayed those areas red - Jay commented that he felt like we had written a test and those were all the red pen markings saying it was all wrong!  Mr.W just smiled and said they weren't mistakes, just vulnerabilities!  So, Jay reinforced those vulnerabilities now while we are not panicking over blow-outs. 

So, after a productive day today, we only have a little more to do to be all ready to pour the concrete in the walls tomorrow afternoon.  And we even got the go-ahead from the inspector today - our first inspection and we passed!  Woot!  Woot!

Partying over here: