The Castle Project – Tilt Up Stone – Owner Build

Prepping footers with rebar pins

I Drilled over 20- 3/4×8″ holes in concrete tonight. Progress at last 🙂

Rebar pins will be epoxy’d in place next, and then we start setting forms.

I was actually working in the garden when I spooked this darling. He ran to the high weeds (near our (more…)

Sorry to disappoint. We are currently replacing a crossing that got washed out during flooding this year.
The crossing allows access to the construction site for concrete trucks, the crane, etc…
An essential piece of the puzzle.

With the help of my dad, and friend Sam we poured our footers Tuesday. They required 34 yards of concrete.

The engineer spec’d them 30″ wide, and 12″ thick. Also per spec, we poured 6 bag mix with 3 parallel pieces of #5 rebar tied with #4 crossbars every 2 feet.

Methinks an “act of God” is the only thing that could crack them. 🙂

The well we had drilled is an Artesian well!!!! Pretty rare.
Thanking God for that unexpected blessing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artesian_aquifer

The well is 45ft deep with 30 gallons per minute. The natural pressure in the well actually lifts it to within 2 feet of the ground level.

Our soon to be castle now has a well. I have known the gentlemen that own the well drilling company for over 20 years.

They are masters of their craft. If you know anyone needing a well in the area (greenbrier, summers, monroe, pocahontas county) they will do a great job.

The really unique thing about them is they use the time-proven method of “witching” or “divining” for water. It is amazing to watch. I shot video of them doing it on our property. Unfortunately yesterday and today I was at a conference we helped one of our clients put on, so I wasn’t able to get any footage of our well actually being drilled.

The excavator started his early work today, rough grading the home site. A major milestone. Next comes the well, and then the foundation.

Our engineer said we are looking at only 7 day cure time before we can tilt up the walls. That’s great news.

At best, I was hoping for a 14 day cure time. We are poring 6bag mix with #5 grade 60 rebar 12 inches on center horizontally and vertically. 1 extra rebar around all openings. Wall thickness 8″ for concrete +1 for the stone protrusion.

1st wall forms = stripped
2nd wall forms = 60% complete (built on top of the 1st wall to save time while the first wall cures.)

(this post was delayed by a tech glitch)