Concrete Work

The order of business is to commence work on the basement footings and columns. We are going to be lowering the floor in the basement and need an exact height of the new ceiling so that the steel contractor (Mick Wells) can fabricate the new columns.

Jose Tinoco (he is Mexican/Japanese..ok just kidding...he is just mexican, I think) So his guys got to work breaking up the floor around the existing steel columns.

They dug holes around all 4 posts to determine the height of the new ceiling as well as the height needed for the new columns that would be going in.

Here are the numbers:
     Current Height
       height under the beam line - 7'
       height outside the beam line - 7' 6"

    New height
       under the beam line - 8' 1"
       outside of the beam line - 8' 7"

So all in all not bad considering that 8' is the "standard" height of most spaces.

Here are so photos of the work;

The guys spray water all over the floor to keep the dust down.
One thing that blew me away -- these guys were using a jack hammer for almost 3 hours with no ear protection. Lord only knows how they can hear anything

See the big hole. This is the new footing that has to be added. The plans call for a new beam and post to be placed to support the staircase.