It was the second day for placing the rebar on the working slab.  There is much coordination that needs to be done as we are planning to pour the structural slab late next week.

For example, any conduit going in the slab needs to be in place quickly.  For our structure, we’re going to run two 2 inch conduits from the Mechanical East room to the Mechanical West room.  This will allow us to have two 200 amp electric panels in the house, connected with conduit that can hold the required amount of wire.

Protective caps on the rebar placed yesterday.

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After completing the waterproofing, setting the rebar in place is next. 

Let’s pause for a moment …

Some people have asked us, ‘why is building your foundation so difficult?’  Let us explain.

Foundation Design, In Simple Terms

Given that our house is sitting on a ‘seasonal perched water table’, we need to have a completely watertight basement that is heavy enough to withstand hydrostatic pressures that can be up to 500 lbs per sq ft.  In simple terms, we need to build a:

Concrete boat that is heavy enough to sink
and
strong enough to resist cracking as it sinks.

The rough numbers go like this:

Building footprint      = 3,000 sq ft

Hydrostatic pressure  =  500 lbs per sq ft

Total building weight –> 1.5 million lbs

So, we need to have dead weight of 1.5 million lbs in our concrete boat and it has to be strong enough so it doesn’t break up or crack while it is sinking.

Sounds easy?  Yes.  And expensive.  Ouch!

The strength in the ‘concrete boat’ will come from the steel rebar placed in the concrete.  Thus, Bill Brown’s team is putting the rebar in place, per Duquette Engineerings’ design.  Yes, all to meet the soil engineer’s recommendations (JF Consulting).  What fun …

Placing Rebar

This was the first day of placing the rebar.  The rebar will cover the walls and go over the protection slab (which protects the waterproofing from being damaged by the rebar and construction activities).  The protection slab is 3 inches thick and adds weight to our ‘concrete boat’ so it sinks, even though it is completely waterproof.

Waterproofing completed on the east wall.

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We dodged another bullet with the weather today.  But the tarps are in place and we’re prepared for the rain.

Tarps on the east side.

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We took 90 minutes and buzzed up to Bunker Hill Drive for some remodel ideas in the San Mateo Highlands. 

The house we were interested in seeing was 2173 Bunker Hill Drive.  This house was remodeled and had a master bedroom added onto it.  The addition was done in steel and concrete and worked extremely well with the house.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t tour the house – just looked at it from the outside.

Street view of 2173 Bunker Hill Drive.

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Evereything was buttoned down for the storms on Friday afternoon.

Saturday was just fine …

Everything was covered on Friday, and the sun was shining on Saturday.

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The rains arrived today in Los Gatos.

With the tarps over most of the site, it was relatively dry and work continued as the insulation was fixed to the west wall.  As well, the Grace Preprufe 160R was placed on the forms on the north and south walls.

Insulation on the west wall and Grace Preprufe 160R on the forms on the south wall.

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