How does it look so smooth?

"Like a baby's butt"

The really strong concrete guys

Goofing around with cement

Meet Jose the Concrete guy

Moving the concrete arond the basement

How does the concrete get spead around?

The basement radiant heating system

Bob Grubbs gives us a colorful explanation about he system that is going to be installed

So how does the concrete get into the basement

Well here you can see the concrete getting down into the basement

Bob Grubbs - a real serious mechanical contractor

July 7th - Pouring the Floor

So the floor is finally going in.
Here is a series of videos showing the activity for putting in the basement floor

Up to date view of the rear of the house

So the wall of the addition is complete and Jose has back filled the hole. We finally have level ground again in the back.

We decided to change the plans a bit and move the entrance to the basement. The media room in the basement was going to be to small based on the original design. So we basically flipped the doorway to the other side of the beam line adding an extra 3 feet in width to the future room.

How does the tubing actually work?

Here is Steve giving us a good description of the radiant tubing along with a quick explanation of the basement ejector pit

Putting in the radiant heat in the basement

Here is a video describing how the radiant heat system gets installed in the basement before the concrete is poured.

- You get to meet Bob Grubbs and Steve Linksy, the mechanical contractors. As you can see the have a great sense of humor

What's up with all the sand?

So I was asked why is there so much sand, normally you would expect to see dirt.

It is my understanding that Lake Michigan, way back when, actually went all the way to Ashalnd Avenue, which is west of the house. As the lake receded sand was left behind.

It is actually a really good thing. Sand is a great material to build on. It compacts very quickly and very tightly, this explains why the house is so level after all these years. The sand, so long as it remains "contained", will not shift vs plain dirt which can take a long time to become fully compacted.

New Addition Walls

Here is a video of the new wall. It was just poured yesterday. This really gives you an idea of how large the addition will be.

The basement floor will be going in this week and framing starts on Monday

Digging Out the Back

So the addition is underway. Here is a video showing the addition being dug out.

Interesting Gas Lines

I added this as a piece of history for those who are interested.

The old houses were originally lit by gas. This is video showing these old lines. Pretty cool

More of the 2nd floor

2nd flr Continued

2nd Flr - Front Layout (part 1 of 3)

This is a quick video showing the layout of the 2nd floor. As Mich has finished framing all the interior wall for the existing structure

Basement before fuily dug out

This video gives you a good idea of what is going on to dig out the basement.

Right after this video was shot we had a little scare. Jose, the concrete guy, was not working this day but one of his other guys was on. Well his guy decided to try and drive the Bob Cat onto the east side of the basement (you can see it sitting on the west side of the basement). Well the problem was that the west side of the basement had all the sand pulled out BELOW the footing already so driving on the east side meant that nothing was supporting the footing from the other side. Luckily Mick and I were there and made sure the guy stopped before he did any damage. Jose ended up having to finish the rest by hand.

Back of the House

Here is a video of the rear of the property describing how the addition will be done