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Cistern, water lines, and perimeter drains go in

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 9/6/2010

With the foundation complete, it was time to put in the French drains and water lines before the backfill of the foundation could be completed. In Colorado, it is now mandatory and part of the code process to have a perimeter drain set around the foundation. The perimeter drain was designed by the structural engineer and consisted of 4" perforated pipe, crushed gravel, a polyethylene barrier, and a water-permeable membrane. The purpose of the perimeter drain is, of course, to collect any water that may happen to make its way below grade, and direct it to a sump pit or dry well. I did not want a sump pit in my basement, so I will have a dry well dug about 200' away from the house to collect any water from the drain system.

The drain system took three days to install, with most of the first day and a half consisting of digging the trench around the house and getting the correct slope for proper drainage. Once the trench was dug, the polyethylene barrier was tacked to the foundation wall and spread out over the trench. When that was done, they put a layer of crushed gravel down and set the 4" perf. pipe over that. Lastly, the water-permeable material was placed over the pipe and gravel, and the system was ready for backfill.

I also had the water lines and cistern installed at this time, just prior to the backfill process. The cistern is a 1000-gallon concrete tank, which is the size that was recommended to me by the well digger. The cistern was placed about 20' away from the water well on the west side of the house. The run for the water lines from the cistern to the house was about 130'.

Photos

The French drain going in around the frost wall in the back of the house.	The cistern being installed.
The trench for the water lines and electrical cable for the pumps	The penetrations for the water and electrical lines	The cistern after it was buried. All that is visible is the manhole cover for maintenance access.

Finally, the basement slab gets poured.

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 9/6/2010

The beginning of August is usually a pretty dry time of the year for this part of Colorado, but this year is proving to be a different story. Instead of the typical dry, hot days, we have been having a lot rainy, wet, humid days around here. This posed a problem when we tried to get the flat work completed in the basement. However, after a frustrating week and a half of rain delays, we finally had a couple of dry days and a window of opportunity to get the basement slab poured. The pumper arrived early in the morning along with four concrete trucks and the crew got to work immediately. The crew consisted of 12 concrete workers, and they were able to get the slab down in about two hours.

After the slab was poured and leveled, the concrete workers spent the rest of the day perfecting the level and smoothness of the slab. Once that was completed, they cut 1/4" joints in the slab with a soft-cut machine. The concrete workers did an excellent job on the slab - very flat and smooth. With the slab poured, the framers could come in and start their work.

Photos

Concrete Poured

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 8/29/2010

Here's some pictures of the foundation wall poured. The foundation crew brought in a pumper to do the job. If I remember correctly, it took about 60 yards of concrete to pour the walls. It went fairly quickly and they were done in about 2 1/2 hours. It was nice and sunny when they poured the walls in the morning and the temp was in the low 70's, although it climbed to about 97 degrees by mid-afternoon. The next day, the foundation crew came back to begin stripping the forms from the walls. It took them all day to remove most of the forms, and the following day to complete the job. After all the forms were removed, the waterproof coating was applied to the exterior walls. Overall, they did a very good job on the foundation walls and I was pleased.

Photos

The foundation walls in the front of the house.	The frost wall in the back of the house that the walkout basement wall will rest on.	The garage foundation walls.
The forms are stripped off.	The brick ledge around the perimeter of the foundation.	Another view showing the stepped walls on the side of the house and the frost wall in the back for the walkout basement.
Waterproofed

Putting up the forms

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 8/15/2010

Putting up the forms was a pretty-smooth process and took about three days to finish. One thing worth mentioning, though, is a mistake in the engineered-foundation plan that was discovered. For some inexplicable reason, the foundation engineer put a wall in a place where a wall wasn't supposed to go.

Luckily, I was present when the foundation guys were putting up the forms that day and I noticed the mistake immediately. The fix required some extra excavating, which was done by hand by the concrete laborers, but set everything back a few hours. If I hadn't caught the mistake before the concrete was poured, it would have been a much more serious situation to deal with. I called the engineers at Colorado Engineering and Geotechnical Group about the mistake in the foundation plans, and basically all I got was an "oops". This was just one of several mistakes that I caught in the engineered plans. I will talk more about the other errors in future posts.

Photos

	The first forms and rebar go up
	The frost wall in the back of the house is formed

Signal Mountain

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 8/15/2010

As I was leaving the land, I took this photo from the back of my property just before the sun set. In the background is Signal Mountain, which is just south of the town of Beulah. The canyon in the middle of the photo is where the St. Charles runs through the area. The picture is a little deceptive, as the canyon is fairly large and deep. It runs about 200 to 500 feet deep and about 800 to 1,000 feet wide.

Photos

The void forms

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 8/8/2010

Once the caissons were drilled and poured, and all the bad soil from deep in those caisson holes was removed from the excavated area of the foundation, the void forms were put in place around the perimeter of the foundation. The void forms are constructed of stiff cardboard, and are placed in between the concrete piers under the foundation walls. The purpose of the void forms is to create a space or "void" between the soil and the bottom of the poured foundation walls. In the event that water were to get down to the bottom of the foundation walls and swell the expansive soils there, the pressure from the swelling will collapse the void forms instead of putting any pressure on the foundation wall itself.

In practice, water should never find its way down to the bottom of the foundation, because of the way the house will be graded, so that any water from rain or snow will be directed away from the foundation. Also, there will be a "French drain" (required by code in Colorado) around the entire perimeter of the foundation, so any water that found it way down that far will be sent away from the house via perforated pipe and gravel.

Photos

Before the void forms

The void forms in place

Concrete Piers

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 8/8/2010

As stated in earlier posts, the engineering company that designed the house foundation recommended a pier-and-beam foundation because of the expansive soils deep in my land. I did have the option of doing an overdig to remove some of the expansive soils and replace with non-expansive soils. This would allow me to construct a more traditional foundation with footers, and eliminate the need for drilling all those caissons. I did a careful study of the costs associated with both approaches, and decided to go with the stronger, and more solid, pier and beam foundation.

The reasoning is that with the overdig, I would have had the additional excavation expenses of digging down deeper into the soil to remove all that dirt. Once all that dirt was dug out, I would then had to have paid to have it all hauled out and away from the property. I would then had to bring in a bunch of new dirt, which would had to have been dumped into the foundation hole and compacted tight for the footings to be placed on it. After all was said and done, I really would not have saved any money going this route. The engineer also told me that the overdig, while minimizing any movement of the foundation, would not have eliminated it. He said that with the pier-and-beam foundation there would be no chance of any movement.

On the day when the drilling of the caissons started, two large drilling rigs were brought in to drill the holes for the concrete piers. Two drilling rigs were required because all the holes had to be drilled and poured in one day to eliminate the chance of the holes caving in or filling up with water overnight. Steel rebar reinforcements, which were tied together the day before, were placed into each caisson hole after being drilled. Each pier hole was drilled down 28 feet on average - 26' to get to the solid bedrock, and another 2' into the rock. Once the rebar was in place, the pier holes were filled with concrete from cement trucks that were standing by. All in all, it took almost 12 hours to drill, reinforce, and pour all 48 holes. This included the use of two drilling rigs and 20 men to get the job done. It was a very long day, but in the end I will have a very strong and solid foundation for my house.

Photos

Long shot of the pad area

Rebar in the pier holes

Excavation begins

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 8/7/2010

It's been a little while since I last posted, and quite a few things have been accomplished during that time. First off, we received financing for our project from a local bank in Pueblo. The process went very smoothly and quickly... about two weeks from the time we first met with our loan officer, to the day we closed on the loan. The loan officer from the bank was very knowledgable and helpful, and was a pleasure to deal with.

With the house designs and drawings completed and engineered, we broke ground on the new house on July 6th. After staking out the footprint and orientation of the house, and setting the grade with the lasers, the topsoil was stripped and the construction officially began. We set the grade at 5', meaning that five feet of the 10-foot foundation walls will be below grade and five feet will be above. This proved to be the most optimal for the degree of slope on the land, and for daylighting the back of the house for the walkout basement. Excavation took a full three days to complete and a LOT of dirt was moved in the process.

Once the hole for the foundation was completed, the surveyors were called in to "pin" the corners of the house. The surveyors used a GPS system to mark the true corners of the building, a process that only took them about thirty minutes to complete.

The day after the surveyors pinned the corners of the house, the foundation workers came in and made the outlines of the foundation walls, as well as the location of the 48 reinforced-concrete piers that would be supporting the foundation walls. Once these locations were measured and marked, the big drill machines were called in and the work began...

Photos

Removing the topsoil	The start of the foundation excavation	Drilling the caissons for the concrete piers
Engineer inspecting one of the drilled caissons	The concrete boss supervising the operation

Mary's Forum Posts: 90 Journal Entries: 34 Interview Answers: 15 Average Forum Rating: 4.12 Image from Mary's blog 8/8/2010	Mike, Congrats on starting your new home. It is a lovely spot. I appreciate your taking the time to post the photos of the foundation work. Those expansive soils sure make things difficult. But then maybe the expansive soils go with the expansive sky. ;-) Great views!
Mike's Forum Posts: 24 Journal Entries: 10 Interview Answers: 61 Average Forum Rating: 3.92 Mike's Selected Image 8/8/2010	Thank you. The views really are great from our location. I'm fortunate to have views of both the Wet Mountains and the St. Charles River canyon that cuts through this area. I only wish that I had a better camera than the cheap digital that I have to really show off the views. They really are much nicer in person :)

The well is in.

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 5/9/2010

Well, we have the well installed ;). The whole process went pretty smoothly, except for a two-week period where the driller's rig broke down and he had to wait for a part to be installed. The well driller eventually had to go down to 460 feet, which is about average for the area I've been told. At $20 a foot plus casings, the total cost was $10K. We have a static water level of 276 feet, which is very good, but we will probably still have a cistern installed.

We also received the soils report back from the geologist who did the soils and perc testing on the land. Unfortunately, I have expansive soils on my lot, which will require a non-standard type of foundation to be built. The geologist drilled two twenty-foot bore holes within the staked-out perimeter of the house's footprint. The report states I have 2.8% potential swelling soils down to 10 feet, and 7% potential swelling soils from 10 feet down to 20 feet. These percentages fall within the moderate to high levels for potential swelling soils. Not the best news to receive from the geologist, but expansive soils is something we have to deal with here in the West along the Colorado Plateau.  

Based on the geologist's report, the foundation engineer is recommending a concrete pier and beam foundation to mitigate, or eliminate, the potential problems the expansive soil would have on the foundation. He's calling for 44 caissons to be drilled to a depth of 24 feet. The concrete piers will rest upon the bedrock, which will in turn support the foundation walls. I haven't bid out the foundation job yet, but I expect to pay a bit more for this type of foundation than I would for a regular foundation with footers.

Photos

Goodpasture

Posted to Goodpasture by Mike in Westminster, CO on 4/25/2010

In Sept. of 2007, my wife and I bought a plot of land in southern Pueblo County off of Hwy 78, about 6 miles northwest of the town of Beulah. This area is known locally as "Goodpasture" and is located at the foot of the scenic Wet Mountains, which are a southern subrange of the Rocky Mountains. The lot is located in a gated subdivision of 94 lots that range in size from 3 acres to 35 acres. We picked a 6.8-acre lot that had a great view of the mountains, and also had a gentle slope that would allow for the walkout basement that we wanted. The lot is at an elevation of 6,100 feet, but the area experiences fairly mild winters. Now, two and half years later, we have decided to begin construction on what will eventually be our retirement home.

Photos