Well here we are back again with another episode of "Harold builds a house". Except this was not quite true this week. It should have been "Harold and family builds a house". Last week Sunday my Sister and her husband helped with raising some walls and today Saturday the sister and brother in-law along with their son helped install the Trusses on the garage. So on with the story.

As mentioned last week Sunday we raised the East and West walls of the garage that I had prebuilt. I had delayed raising it on Saturday due to the strong winds we were having. This meant though that we would not have the help of the nephew to raise the walls as he would be working. On Saturday night I had a brainstorm, I have a chain hoist so why not use that with a post to help raise the wall just like professional crews do with wall jacks. So on Sunday morning went to Home Depot and picked up a 14ft 4by4. At the job site I bored three holes in it to make a slot that I could insert some rope that was looped into a 4ply loop that the chain hoist could be hooked onto. Then I installed rope on the top plate in three places and looped that on the other end of the chain hoist. Then while the Brother in-law and I steadied the wall my sister started working the chain hoist and raising the wall. The walls are 2by6 construction on 2ft centres and were 24ft long. To cut down on weight and to prevent them from being big sails there was only one row of OSB nailed to the bottom. Once we reached the limit of the chain hoist, which was about a 45deg angle the Brother in-law and I raised the wall the final distance. The bottom plate was sitting on a couple of small blocks and had been carefully positioned such that when vertical, the anchor bolts and the holes in the plates should line up. We had success with this so then carefully removing the blocks resulted in the wall settling down onto the foundation. We then bolted her down braced it up and moved over to the East wall and did the same thing all over again. A couple of hours and both walls were standing. Here are some pictures showing the operation. First picture shows the hoist in place and in the second one we are starting the lift. Third picture shows me undoing all the ropes and in the fourth we are setting up for the next wall. Last pictures shows results at end of day.

Then on Monday I continued building the back wall. This wall is 32ft long so I broke it down into three sections so that I could raise it by myself. Later that afternoon the Framing crew showed up to begin the wall installation. For those who are really interested I suggest checking out You-Tube for videos on SIP panels. However here are the essentials. They begin by going around the house and laying out a chalk line 1/2in in from the edge. They then nail down a 2by6 to this line allowing 1/2in gap at any corner to allow the panels to fit in. Once done they spray some foam into one side channel of the panel and insert a 2by6 that will sit on top of the bottom plate and be short enough for the two top plates to fit on top. This is only done to the corner panels. They then spray some foam insulation on 4ft of the sill plate and stand up the panel. This panel is then secured to the sill plate by staples or nails, my Framers used a staple gun. While one fellow is securing the first panel the other two were preparing the second panel. In this one they placed some spray foam in the one vertical groove and then fitted in a special spline. This spline is essentially a very small panel that allows two larger panels to fit together. This spline is fitted in the one panel, they then place spray foam into the chase of the standing panel and on the next 4ft of sill plate. They then stand up the second panel such that the spline fits into the first panel and they ensure a snug fit. Again they staple the second panel onto the sill plate and on both sides of the spline locking the two panels together. They continue this all the way around the house. When they come to a window or door opening instead of a spline they insert a 2by6 into the panel groove as jack studs. They then place a couple on the flat both above and below the window and insert small panel sections to fit the openings. Here are some pictures. First one shows my back wall complete. Second one shows the first panel installed and they are working on the second panel. Third and fourth show the installation of a panel. Fifth picture shows them cutting a panel and then in the sixth photo cutting out the equivalent of 2by6 in piece of foam where either a spline or 2by6 stud will go. Seventh pictures shows him installing the 2by6 studs that form part of the window opening.

 

On Tuesday they came back to finish installing almost all the exterior walls. All they had left were the tops of a few windows and all the upper plates. During that time I started installing my deck beams that would be required to support the posts for the roofs over the deck. As well the roof trusses were delivered. Wednesday the Framers only stayed long enough to finish the window openings and cap the entire wall system. The caps consist of one 2by6 that is inserted into the upper groove of each panel. To ensure a really nice straight wall I substituted the normal 2by6's with LSL 2by6 lumber in 18ft lengths. This engineered lumber is more expensive but is dead straight and will not warp. This piece is now flush with the top of the wooden sides of the panels,. On top of this is laid a another cap 1.25in thick and 6.5in wide. This OSB cap was supplied by the SIP company and is designed to go over the top of the panel edges and help transfer all the truss weight down correctly. Here are a couple pictures showing Truss delivery and then the third picture shows them fitting the LSL plate into the top panel groove.

By Noon on Wednesday the Framers left for another priority job and stated they would be back either Monday or Tuesday and would then stay until the job was finished. For the rest of that day I worked on the Garage getting it ready for the trusses to be installed on Saturday, One issue that came up was when I was setting up the bottom plates I noticed that the two concrete stub walls between the door openings were a little lower than the main walls by upto 3/4in. This meant I would need to cut each stud separately to ensure a straight top plate. So I carefully stretched a string across the 32 ft opening as tight as I could and then measured out each stud length. The end result was a straight top plate. Here is a picture and if you look carefully you can see the string I am talking about.

On Thursday I had a quieter day and all I did was lay out the interior walls and cut and measure the upper and lower plates for these walls. They are now ready for the Framers next week. Friday was more work on the garage installing the second row of Sheathing and finishing up some of the work on the deck beams calculating where the posts would be and securing them to the saddles with screws and lag bolts. 

Now we come to the Grande Finale of the week, installing the trusses on the garage. Again the Sister and Brother in-law came over to help and this time we managed to snag the nephew to help as well.

We started around 0930 and by 1430 all 15 standard Trusses along with two Gable end trusses were installed and braced temporarily. We accomplished this by bringing each Truss into the garage upside down and then placing one rafter tail onto one wall. The Brother in-law had this end so he would go up the ladder on the outside and hold the truss in place. The nephew would go up the opposing end on a ladder and by use of a rope pull up his end of the Truss. The sister and I would help raise the Truss from inside and once it was hanging upside down on the sills she would go outside to the one end of  the garage where a second rope was hanging that would go over the trusses and come into the garage. We then hooked this rope up to the Truss peak and she would pull on this rope to assist in flipping the Truss to the vertical position. Prior to this happening I climbed a ladder leaning against either the wall or the last Truss in the middle to also assist in flipping the Truss and to nail it down with some bracing so that it was on 24in centres and to prevent it from flipping down again. Once these braces were nailed down I would go up the ladder on one end of the Truss to nail the rafter tail to the sill plate with toe nails and once complete go to the other end and do the same. Once secured we started the cycle all over again. The only change was that the last three Trusses were brought in with peak upright and manhandled into place that way. Once we got near the opposing end wall there was no room to flip the Truss. Although slightly faster getting the Truss on the roof it was also much more awkward. Here are some pictures of the job. The first two pictures show installing the first Gable end Truss. I had prepped this by installing small blocks that allowed the Truss to sit in the correct spot and were also used to nail the Truss down to. I'm in the middle the nephew is on the left and the Brother in-law is on the right. Next two pictures show us after we are about 1/3 done. In the Fifth picture I am nailing down one of the last rafter tails and in the sixth picture we see the sister getting ready to help guide and lift a rafter into place. The last picture is the standard "Hero" shot where the helpers stand in front of the work they just did. Unfortunately the Sister had already walked home.

And so ends another week on this project. Over the next week I plan to finish sheathing the garage and possibly start working on roofing it. The Framers should finish the house. Then the next contractor will be the plumber and the roofer. I have the Brother and his family coming down on Monday to visit with Mom and check out our project. He's bringing a strapping young lad along and has already offered to assist for a few hours. So we'll see what projects we can get them to assist in.

Well until next week, take care and Happy Halloween. Remember be careful out there on Halloween night there will be a lot of small kids walking around.

Harold

Well Canadian Thanksgiving has come and gone. I'm sure by now most people will be tired of the Turkey leftovers. Luckily for me I like Turkey for one and two I never had any this year so no leftovers. However there were leftovers at the build site. 

On Monday I went around and laid some Landscape fabric on top of the drainage gravel to protect the gravel from the dirt that would be backfilled on Tuesday. I also filled in the small shed with dirt in 6inch layers and tamped it down. This will help prepare it for gravel and concrete. I also plan on renting a "Jumping jack" compactor and doing the inside of the garage especially along the walls for the same reason to prepare it for gravel and concrete. 

On Tuesday the backfilling was done. The company came down with an operator and two Skidsteers, a large and small one. He started off using the larger one to do all the preliminary work and finished off in the garage and between the piers with the smaller one. He also helped me dig out a small trench from the house to the garage for the cable chases. While backfilling he also cleaned out the driveway so that we could bring in three truckloads of 2" stone for a base fill. When all was said and done we were about one dump truck short of fill. Supposedly when they dig the basement next door they'll move some over. However when they dug this basement they had some issues and the excavator was there longer than planned and they completely forgot about bringing some over to finish my backfilling. I guess we'll need to put the bug in the companies ear about coming down to finish this piece of work. Here are some pictures of the backfilling and the trenching. First two pictures show the backfilling around the front of the house. Third picture shows the house almost complete and we see the start of a problem with the piers which I'll discuss later. Fourth picture shows the garage completed. Fifth and Sixth pictures show the conduit for the power to the garage, the second conduit is for possible solar panel power back to the meter base. The last picture shows the driveway leading up to the garage.

 

 

While we were waiting for the second and third truck of gravel the delivery driver for my SIP panels called up and asked if he could deliver them Tuesday night as opposed to Wednesday since they were all loaded and ready to go. I said sure come on down. So he showed up an hour later just as the third trucks gravel was being spread out. He unloaded my 6 pallets of wall system and then left for North Bay where the remainder of his load of SIP's were going, Here is a picture showing him unloading a pallet of wall panels.

Now to the problem mentioned earlier. When we were backfilling it became apparent that I would not have my 18inches of exposed concrete on the house as I planned. When the rough grading was done it became apparent that I would end up with only around 8inches of exposed concrete at the back of the house beside the driveway. Because of this the piers were to low and the beam would have been almost sitting on dirt. So I went out and bought some more sono-tube and extended the rear and side porch piers by 10 and 8 inches respectively. The front piers were still okay since the property sloped down towards the front. I believe what happened was what I talked about in an earlier blog when I discussed having to raise the garage because the grading stick was to low. In my ignorance I forgot to talk to the surveyor that if the garage was to low then possibly the house might be as well since they used the same data to determine grade. Thankfully I had specified 18inches of exposed concrete. Had I specified a lower amount I would have had to lay a row of blocks on top of the foundation wall to raise it the same amount as I raised the garage walls. Here are two pictures showing the piers with their 10 and 8inch extensions. This was all done on Wednesday.

On Thursday the Framers showed up and we installed the floor. They went around and installed sill gasket and tyvek while they installed a double sill plate. By doubling up the sill plate I get an extra 1.5inches of head room in the basement. May not be much but every inch counts when your 6ft5inches tall. Once the sill plates were locked down the joists were laid out and the rim joist was installed. The first pieces of joist installed were the two LVL beams that went either side of the stairwell opening. After this was manhandled into place they started laying out all the I-Beam joists and nailing them down. At the same time short pieces of LVL headers were installed over the 6 window openings and the door into the cold cellar so that there was structure there to hang the floor joists from. Around 3pm we started laying down the Flooring. I'm using a 3/4inch product called Advantech. This is an OSB product that carries a 50yr warranty it is also warranted against water absorption. It has the strength of plywood but at a cheaper cost. Once they got the first row laid down I got involved screwing down the floor allowing the framers to continue the work of installing the flooring. I used a screw gun that uses a screw with a Torx like system. It worked great and I had very few misses or misfires. The screws come in a strip of 50 which is just enough to screw down an entire sheet of flooring. By 5:15 I was screwing the last of the screws into the sheathing. A little cleanup and then home to a dinner with Mom and my sister and husband. This was a auspicious day as it was one year ago that Dad passed away unexpectedly, so we got together to remember him. Here are a few pictures showing the flooring progress. First picture shows the start of sill installation. The second picture shows the beams around the stairwell being placed. Third picture is with the majority of the joists laid out. Fourth picture shows the first row of flooring and the last picture is at the end of day with a completed floor and safety rail around stairwell opening. Thus ended Thursday Oct 16th

 On Friday I went into the basement and removed all the bracing I had installed earlier prior to backfilling. I cleaned all the lumber out of the basement and brought it out onto the new floor. The basement is now ready for the plumber to come in and start his work. While down there I realized I needed to add one more stud under one of the beams. When I had installed the bearing wall I had measured out for the anticipated joist spacing and calculated where I would need to add the extra studs to carry the beam load. Looks like I missed by 1/2inch so I will cut out the one piece of blocking and add another stud to make sure the entire beam load is carried via studs to the footing.
As well on Friday I started working on the walls for the garage. These walls will be 2by6 by 10ft high. I initially laid out both the east and west walls. Unfortunately due weather and visitors did not get quite as far as I planned. So continued work on Saturday in the mist and drizzle. I had really hoped to have the two walls raised on Saturday and then start work on the back wall. However weather again played a factor and I was not comfortable raising the walls with the gusty winds we were having. As well as being miserable due rainy wet conditions. With a little luck the weather will  be nicer tomorrow on Sunday and we can raise those two walls. Then with the brother in laws help I will look at laying out the interior walls on the floor so the layout is ready for the Framers who will start raising the exterior walls either Monday or Tuesday. Here are a couple pictures showing the walls under construction and then ready for raising. To keep the weight down I only installed one row of sheathing. I'll install the rest once the walls are up.

Well as Porky the Pig used to say "That's all folks". We'll see you again next week same Bat station same Bat Channel.

Harold

Well the waterproofing is finished. Now as long as I did nothing wrong and didn't miss any small cuts or rips in the waterproofing membrane I will have a beautiful dry basement for years to come.

I began this all on Monday afternoon when I installed the Blueskin Membrane on the North wall. From the start it took approximately 4hours to roll on the glue, cut the membrane strips, install the membrane strips and then cover it with dimple material. At least that is the simple story. Prior to this in the morning I installed some braces against the wall for protection during backfilling. I also installed some bracing in the cold cellar to support the platform for when they pour the concrete top on this room. Now back to the waterproofing story. The membrane is called Blueskin and it is a product from Henry Bakor and company. It is a 60mil thick rubberized product with an exterior skin. This product comes in 65ft long rolls 3ft wide. You essentially get about 180sqft of coverage per roll. Along with this you need to use a glue/primer to help adhere the product to the concrete wall.This product also comes from Henry Bakor and is applied to the concrete wall by various methods. I used a roller and paint tray. 5 rollers later the basement was completed, I needed to use a new roller every day as I could not clean them. This glue goes on just like paint however it tacks up pretty quickly and if you try and roll a roller over the dried area it wants to hold onto it. Once the glue is a dry tacky consistency you can start to apply the Blueskin membrane. In my conditions this was about 30minutes or conveniently about the time it took me to roll the glue out over the wall section that I was working on. If  at the end of the day you still had uncovered glue area you need to re roll it with fresh glue the next day. I decided to work in chunks that were easily covered by me each day. When I started I placed a chalk line at 18inches below the top of the wall to signal the top of the Blueskin product and where I had to apply glue to. This meant I had approx 78inches of wall to cover. I cut each piece of Blueskin to 80inches so that I would have a small piece that would lap onto the footing below. Once the section of wall was finished with Blueskin I rolled out the black DMX dimple material and nailed to the wall using a cordless fuel activated nailing gun driving 1.25inch concrete nails. This dimple material came in a roll 85ft long and 6.5ft high so it covered the Blueskin from footing to the 18inch line I chalked on the wall. This material was secured with two rows of nails, one 12inches horizontally and and then a second row about 12inches lower, offset by 6inches. This was all finished off with a sealing strip that slipped over the edge of the dimple material and was nailed to the wall at 6inch spacing. Once this was all done I laid down a small bead of sealant at the stop of the sealing strip. And lastly I scraped up the extra gravel in the hole over the drain tile and over the bottom edge of the dimple material such that we had a min of 6inches of gravel over the footing lip and the drain tile. By the end of Thursday I was beat after scraping that gravel. I could really feel all my 54yrs that afternoon. However it was all worth it when on Friday afternoon the Building inspector passed it with flying colours and even remarked it was better than alot of basements she'd seen done by the professionals. So here we have two pictures one showing the Blueskin on the east wall, you can see why it has the name Blueskin. The second picture shows the Black dimple material over the Blueskin. In both pictures you can just see the bracing I was talking about earlier.

On Friday I worked on installing some Big O conduit that will be used as chases for the electrical wire from the meter to the Service panel and for power from the house to the garage and from the garage to the meter base for future Solar panel requirements. This was a pretty simple affair where I essentially hung the Big O along the side the house a min of 3ft below the window wells. When we backfill I will lay a row of warning tape 6inches above these pipes. As well I picked up a piece of 10inch Big O and sliced it in half and then laid this up against the house from the bottom of the window down to the footing and the weeping tile. When the backfilling is down I'll fill these pipes with gravel so that it provides an easy route for any water that gets into the window wells down to the drain tile. In the first picture you can see the smaller Big O on the left that goes to the garage to provide power there. The larger Big O on the right is coming from the meter base and going to where the main panel will be in the Utility room. The small Big O running along the bottom comes from the garage and goes to the Meter base for future use with a possible Solar system on my garage roof. In the second picture you can see the termination of the two pipes on the right where the meter base will be as well you can see the larger Big O that goes from the window to the Drain tile area. 

On Friday afternoon I laid a row of 4inch high 6inch wide blocks down the centre of the house on the footing installed there for the bearing wall. This was just a reasonably small masonry job so I decided to do it myself. I'm no fancy bricklayer however I know the basics and have laid a few brick and block over the years. So we carefully laid out the row and snapped the chalkline and laid it down. Then today, Saturday I went into the basement and started to build the central bearing wall. This wall is built up on 2 base plates and then 2by6 studs on 16inch centres from one end of the house to the other end. I kept both ends 1inch back from the wall to allow for a little spray foam to go behind the studs for a better thermal break. I also decided to use Bluwood studs for the bottom plates and the studs for better mould protection just incase we have a slightly damp basement. This was not too difficult other then I kept second guessing myself on what material I would need to use for the header in the 5ft opening in the wall. I finally decided not to do this section until I came home and reread the building code to ensure I had the correct sized header material. Seeing as it is Thanksgiving this weekend here in Canada and the lumber yards will be closed looks like I will not finish the wall until Tuesday morning. Which is also the day they will be backfilling the walls. In the first picture you can see the row of blocks and in the second picture you can see the bearing wall as it stands by end of day on Saturday.

Well there you have it this weeks story. I was very lucky in that I did not get rained out this week. We did have rain in the forecast for Monday afternoon and Tuesday but luckily enough it did not materialize in great volume. This coming week we have some more in the forecast but after backfilling on Tuesday the Framer will start on Thursday and sunshine is predicted for then. 

Well no Turkey for us on Monday however the Sister is having us over for finger food. Until next week for all you Canadians happy Thanksgiving and for all you Americans happy Columbus day.

All the best

Harold

Man what a week I've had. Thankfully the weather stayed good and now I pray that we have at least one week of really dry warm weather and then 3-4 weeks of reasonable dry weather until the shingles are on. Once that is done the rain can come. Well we went from an empty hole to a foundation that has started to have the waterproofing done.

On Monday the forming guys came and started working on the forms. Unfortunately I was not there to meet them first thing as I took a trip to Burlington to pick up two Sterling Accord Shower kits from a company called EMCO. By the time I got home, unloaded and out to the site it was 10am. By this time the two concrete fellows had already formed up the garage and were soon to start on the house. Since the house is essentially a big square box this did not take them to long either. They were easily finished by Noon however they needed to wait for the rebar to show up before they could officially call the forms complete. Shortly after noon they called up the concrete truck to pour the footings and by 3pm the footings were poured and ready for the next stage. Here are some pictures showing this. First one is the garage footings as I showed up. Second is the house footings done. Third one they are pouring concrete in the garage using a conveyor concrete truck. Fourth shows them pouring the pier footings without using forms. The last one shows them troweling off the forms after using the Neighbours driveway to pour the last of the forms in the house. I am glad that I have very accommodating neighbours, it makes my life easier.

On Tuesday the crew came back and stripped the forms and installed the drainage tile and the sump pump pit. After they were done I went into the hole and dug a small trench for the sewer pipe that will be under the slab. I had the time and figured cheaper for me to do this then to have the plumber charge me for this task. Then the first of the two slinger trucks came and started to dump gravel in the hole for under the slab and around the footings for the drain pipe. On Wednesday they finished this job and the first of the house forms were delivered on Wednesday afternoon. Here are a couple of pictures of this. First picture shows the trench I dug and you can see the drainpipe around the footings. Second picture shows the gravel in the hole and the first of the house forms being delivered. Also in the second picture you can see a small pile in the middle of the house. I decided to bring in the blocks and mortar mix I would need to build up the middle footing for the load bearing wall. Easier to bring them in now then later on overtop of an eight foot wall.

Thursday morning the fireworks began. Not only did I have a 5 man crew there to build up the forms but they brought in a second crew as well so we had around 10 people installing all the forms for the garage and house. This means that once they started forming at 1130 by 1500 they had all the forms installed, and the staging, just waiting for the first concrete truck. The foreman started this all by measuring out from the steel pins the surveyors had installed and laying down chalk lines for the forms to follow. Once they had the exterior lines all chalked and verified they pounded the steel pins into the footings so they would not interfere with the wall forms. The forms they use these days makes their job easier. First of all they have 2ft forms for the main runs, they they have preformed inner and outer corners as well as filler strips in various widths to fill out the walls. They lock together with steel pins and clips such that they build a wall almost as fast as they can stand up the forms. As well the forms have small studs and latches that allow special brackets to be attached so they can lay up 2by10's as staging. Then some braces on the forms to ensure the wall is straight and next comes the concrete. It took 5 trucks to bring the 45cubic metres of concrete they used to fill up the garage and house forms. Here are some pictures of this. First picture shows them setting the first corner. Second picture is a closeup of this corner and the pins and latches that hold the forms together. The pin is prestressed to snap off in four locations as I talk about later in this blog. The pin fits in notches and the latches swing over this pin locking it in and locking the two forms together. Third picture is about 1hr into the job. Fourth picture shows the forms up with the staging and awaiting concrete. You can also see in the foreground the string I used stretched across a batter board that was used to line up where the saddles went in the piers. I did this for the front and back set of piers. The side piers were installed measuring from the forms. Fifth picture shows the crew pouring concrete using a pumper truck system. By 1800 I was closing the fence and all the concrete was poured and the trucks had left the site.  

Friday morning a crew quickly came in and removed all the staging materials and then at 1130 an other crew came in to strip the forms. This crew had about 8 people and the forms were all stripped and cleaned up by 1530. The concrete walls looked great, no cold cures and no voids. The only issue was that for some reason the saddles I installed on the front set of piers were not parallel to the wall. The last one at the west end was exactly 6ft from the wall where it should be however the other end was 5ft11in from the wall. All the ones in between marched in a straight line so some how I either misplaced the string when installing it or it was bumped prior to me installing the saddle and I missed this. I tend to think the string got bumped as I had measured it a few times while setting it up. This is not a big issue and can be easily compensated for. As well it will not be the last mistake I'm sure that will be found on this project. Although I really plan on trying to make sure they are few and far between. So here are a few pictures showing the stripping operation, and no there were no clothes removed just concrete forms. First picture shows them stripping the garage forms. I guess I don't have any from the house however the second picture is the view at the end of the day once all the forms were removed.

So now it was time for me to go to work. On Saturday morning I went out to the site and started by going around the entire house with small sledge and large chipping chisel and carefully chipped of as much of the protrusions as I could. This would be remains of pin nubs and what oozes out between some of the forms. Would have been real nice to have all brand new forms as this would have made my life a little easier however I don't think I want to start paying for a new set of forms for my house. When the forms are removed there are small nubs left behind were the steel pins protrude. The are broken off and a portion of the steel pins is broken off as well. For reference this steel pin that is used to hold the forms together has 4 points on the pin where it can be broken with a little bit of work. They first twist off the outer piece when they remove the latching mechanism from the form upon stripping the forms. They then remove the form and once the forms are all removed they go around break off the nubs and the second small piece of steel pin. This crew only does the inside ones as they said the waterproofing crew does the exterior. Since there is no waterproofing crew since I am doing it myself a couple fellows stayed behind for 10 min to help me knock of the exterior stubs on Friday afternoon. When they do this there are always small pieces that don't come off and they don't exactly make sure it is 100% smooth. Once I had gone around with the chipping hammer and done as much as I could that way I grabbed my battery operated cutoff saw and with a concrete blade in it went around and smoothed all the seams. I did this because I am installing a rubberized membrane over the concrete and I did not want any rough or sharp protrusions that might damage the membrane. Once I had smoothed the North wall I took a tube of Polybitume sealant and proceeded to patch the small holes where the steel pins went through the wall. I just did the North wall on Saturday to see how much sealant I would need and once that was finished called it a day so I could go into town to buy the remaining tubes of sealant for Sunday. On Sunday went back at it and finished it all up. I finished the grinding since I needed to recharge the batteries and did not complete this on Saturday and then I went around and patched every pin hole. There are 4 pin holes per form per 2ft of wall so with 176 ft of wall I had 356 pin holes to patch over. So here are the obligatory photos. First picture shows the North wall at the end of Saturday. I had used one 850ml tube of sealant on this wall and had another 2 tubes so I decided to buy three more tubes. Second picture shows me using my cordless angle grinder to grind away the excess concrete. I used about 7 battery charges and 3 small concrete blades doing all this work. Third picture shows me working on the East wall.

By about 1400 I was finished patching all the pin holes and luckily enough I missed any rain on Saturday and Sunday that would have stopped me as wet concrete does not accept the sealant all that well. The next job is to install the Blueskin product. I hope that the weather will stay nice for the next few days so that I can install the Blueskin membrane as well as the outer dimple membrane. Once that is done I'll need to scrap the gravel up over the drain pipe and footing and have the Building inspector come to approve it all. Once that is done I'll need to brace the walls from the inside so that the backfilling can be done hopefully by Friday this week so that on next week Wednesday the framing can begin. 

Well there you have it the story of my week. All the best and see you next week.

Harold