Category: House

The concrete truck arrived bright and early and they started pouring concrete at 7:00 in the morning. All the neighborhood boys were outside in the jammies watching the action.

It didn’t take long for them to get the trench all filled up with concrete.

By 7:30 am the truck was gone and the workers were screeding.

Here’s how it look when the workers removed the forms.

They had to put samples of the concrete in these cylinders that are required to sit “on location” for 30 days and then be sent off for inspection.

The inspector came by today and inspected the steel cage in the trench and the underground plumbing. He signed off on it and we are ready to pour the concrete tomorrow.

It looks the same from the outside, so I won’t post that pictures Instead, I’ll show you what they did today. They completed the forms for the concrete over the trench in the garage. Here’s what it looked like when they finished.

Tomorrow an inspector will come by to look at it and if he signs off on everything, they will pour concrete on Wednesday.

Here’s another view taken from the corner with my feet in the shot to give you an idea of the scale of this trench.

Today they determined that they will have to replace this beam:

This image shows you where that beam is located on the house:

They have to run the changes by the city and get the approvals before they can replace it.

I took some pictures of the steel in the trench this morning when the workers got here.

They plan to finish up on the trech work today and have it inspected tomorrow. The concrete pour is scheduled for Wednesday.

Looks pretty much the same as yesterday. The workers spent the day working on assembling the steel in the trench in the garage. I think they are pretty much finished with it. I want to pull up the boards this weekend and take some pictures of it.

It doesn’t look much different from the outside, but progress was made today. They plumber put in a drain to the sewer line. This pipe will eventually be inside the garage wall.

They also worked on assembling the steel in the trench in the garage. Once they finish this, it will have to be inspected before the concrete can be poured.

This is the start of day 3 of our construction. I am only going to count days where work was actually done. There was no work on the house yesterday because they had to order steel. The steel goes into a trench in the garage that was created by all the jackhammering two days ago. After they get all the steel in place they will pour concrete over it. Not just any concrete mind you, some sort of special grade concrete that has to be tested to make sure it is the right grade by a city inspector when it is poured. (Yes, this means it is very expensive concrete.)

Here’s a picture of the steel they will be putting into the trench.

Here’s a picture of the trench.

Because of all the structural work going on in the garage. They had to add extra bracing to keep it from falling down. This bracing is right by the front door and the screen door can only open a little bit before hitting it. I can barely fit through the space while holding Falyn. Talia has to turn her backpack sideways to get it out the door. Here’s a picture of it.

Today was a very loud day around here. They jackhammered part of the driveway and the garage. They had to make a huge trench in the garage where they have to put a special structural support and pour special grade concrete over it. This is due to the strict California earthquake codes. All the walls that were taken off where done so they can put in shear panel, also due to the earthquake codes. They also completely removed the balcony floor today. This has to be totally redone when they do the framing. Which they might start on tomorrow.

We’ve been getting a lot of lookie-loos. They drive by and stop and stare. Some sit there for several minutes. A few pull over and park and just watch for a while. It is kind of funny to watch them watching!

Here’s pictures of what it looks like today after the workers left.

View of the front of the house.

View of the old bonus room.

View of the garage.

Here’s what the house looks like now.

Here’s what the house looked like when the workers took their lunch break.