Flattening and Contreforts

Currently, the general contractor team works with preparations for the casting of the foundation.

Look here:

Here the team is flattening the shingle bedding. You may see a device on a tripod. This is a laser that rotates sending a thin beam in all directions and projecting a thin line.

The carpenters carry a staff with a plate on. Using this staff, they can measure heights with a granularity of less than a cm. Using this method they can distribute the shingle and maintain an overall height difference less than a centimeter, being a good start for the construction of the foundation mould.

A vibrating device flattens the shingle to make it more dense and smooth. This morning they hade problems, however, as it had been a cold night and there was ground frost.

In the foreground you see the retaining wall to be located between the house's east façade and the main stairway. You might see that the construction of that wall has been aborted and that is because of a lack of decision from us. We have to decide the step blocks to be used and their height, depicting the number of steps required.

Here is a general picture from the other day:

Here you see the forthcoming level of the house to be compared with the level of the garage. In the long wall you may see clusters of vertical reinforcement bars. Together with concrete, these make up contreforts or pillars to withstand impact forces from filling masses.

A lot of things happen each day in this period and I try to visit the working site daily, not the least for documenting the progress. A tricky thing these days is to coordinate the foundation effort with a new team (not working for the general contractor) that is to start the boring of the geothermal hole. Thanks to a few phone calls a collision in time was avoided.