FIRST FLOOR!

We have a first floor!
The pour happened on Thursday, but I didn't get to watch it happen.  As it was explained to me, the whole floor was poured starting with the beams.  That concrete was mixed in with the helix fibers to increase the tensile strength of the floor.  While the beams were still wet, they poured the slab, sans helix mix in.  We got a chance to swing by on Sunday, right after a nice rain.

 The front and back porch wasn't poured at the same time.  I think they sill need to put forms on, maybe determine the thickness.  The span isn't as great, so top hats might not be necessary.  Here's a shot standing in the foyer, looking at the rotunda, sitting room, great room and guest bedroom.

 Standing in the foyer looking right, you can see the dining room, mudroom, kitchen, bathroom and butlers pantry.  You can see they built up the elevator shaft a bit for the pour.  That's the interior ICF wall.  They'll need to  remove some where the door is and add the exterior ICF layer for the first floor shaft.

 Standing at the stairwell into the basement.  The door is on the far side, but the stairs up will start near where I'm standing.  I didn't see any HVAC pass through, nor anything for plumbing or electrical.  I guess we'll be cutting those out.

 Standing in the greatroom, looking at the garage.  The view out the back from up here is amazing.

 Standing somewhere near the kitchen looking at the great room.  We'll be removing some of those trees to improve the view to the lake.

 Here's a piece of the helix fiber.  Most of it was inaccessible since it's poured under the slab, but at the front porch, some of the  concrete made it under the form board.

 Front porch.  You can see where the helix mix oozed through.   The rebar grid is in place so that means no top hat here.  The front and back porch will be about 2" lower than the level of the first floor.

Basement elevator shaft.  You can see that the weight of the concrete pushed out the ICF blocking they installed around the beams.  I guess more bracing is required to hold back that weight.  It should be an easy clean up and reinsertion of the ICF.

We heard back from the HOA about our proposed landscaping plans for this year.  They approved the installation of the driveway and associated retaining walls, pool design, and tree removal.  They haven't approved the design of the pool fence.  They said that it would compartmentalize too large a space in our back yard and requested that the fence only surround to pool.  I countered with aerial shot of another house that had their whole back yard enclosed by a fence, and ours is much less intrusive.  I'm hoping that I can appeal to their sense of fairness and logic, but I'm not sure I'll be able to sway their thinking.  After sending the email, I've since found two or three more examples of relatively expansive fenced in areas surrounding pools.  I'll use it as my second wave of rebuttal if they refuse my request.

So the first floor is walkable, but requires 21 days to reach full strength.  In the mean time, the framer will be building the ICF for the first floor and installing all the required rebar.  It's going to be crazy seeing first floor walls!  There's a bit of engineering that needs to be figured out for the second floor beams, at the rotunda.  The basement has the advantage of supporting the whole rotunda floor on a beam that extends to the elevator shaft.  The first floor won't have that since the rotunda is open to the second floor.  I'm interested in seeing how they accomplish this feat.

Maximum Prep!

Well, I had a little chance to swing by the property and it looks like all the prep is completed for the ICF litedeck.  HVAC will be coming in this week to mark where they need holes for air supply and returns so they can be blocked off from the concrete pour.  A pumper truck is scheduled for this Thursday so we'll finally have a first floor!

 You can see a bit of the curved form under the plywood cover.  I think they put it there to block out some of the rain we've been getting.

 Another layer of ICF was added to the elevator shaft and a frame was built to hold this inner layer together.  There's gotta be a door in there, so I think it's just to protect from over spray or something.  Nice that there's a "beam" right at the exit of the elevator.

 I didn't get a chance to see what they did under the gazebo before they capped it off with the Lite deck.  You can see some of the dirt they displaced from the backyard, so I think they backfilled and leveled off the retaining wall inside.  I was hoping to get some pea gravel in there, but that might be a future project for me.  I think they still need to put a "halo" of ICF or some kind of form on the perimeter to contain the pour.

 Inside shot of the curved form.  It's attached right to the steel wall studs.  Looks like the concrete is going to be poured right on the curved steel wall.

 Another shot of the stairwell forms.  You can get a better idea of how the concrete will flow on the floor above.  It's really going to be amazing to walk around on the first floor this weekend!

 Looking up the elevator shaft.  The floor is higher than the level of the first floor, so it's not there for move in. Sometimes when people have elevator shafts, they don't install the elevator right away so they install a "temporary" floor and use the shaft as a closet or storage space.  We're still working out the financial aspect of having the elevator right away.

One last shot of the stairwell.

So we're meeting with an interior designer this Wednesday for our first meeting.  We'll go over initial design ideas.  I'll give more details when we get the ball rolling.

I've also contacted an entertainment installer for AV/sound/data install and lighting automation in addition to security.  We're planning lighting controls for the kitchen, great room, foyer, master bedroom and bath, dining room, and gazebo with house sound running to those same rooms.  If you don't know, standard lighting has a line running from the circuit breaker panel in the basement to a switch on the wall in the room you want to control.  A line goes from the switch to all the lights in the room in series, one switch per series of lights.  In a room like the kitchen, you could have three or four switches controlling as many lighting series (over head, under cabinet, pendant, eating).  A lighting control system replaces the bank of switches with a low voltage, multi button switch that runs to a controller  in the basement.  The power then runs from the controller to the lights.  That way, you can program any switch to control any light.  From there's it a simple matter to connect the lighting controller to an automation controller so you can control lights from a remote or smart phone.  Every room isn't going to be wired this way as only the more complex rooms require it.   The audio distribution will allow us to pipe music to any wired room.  The quote also includes surround sound for the great room.  The initial quote has a soundbar for the front channels, individual in ceiling loudspeakers for the rear left and right and an wall subwoofer.  I'm pretty sure these will also be connected to the house distributed audio.

Maybe things will start picking up?  We're at the end of August now!

First floor prep completed (almost)

We had a meeting with the home owners association and our Great Oaks Landscaping team to review tree removal and provide information for a preliminary approval for our landscaping plan.  It gave me a chance to take a look at the progress to the first floor prep.

 Looks like the excavated some of the back yard to use as fill for the garage.  This works out fine because we'll just use the sand excavated for the pool and fill this back in.  It's a closer location and will save some time.

 Not sure how much more sand they're going to add underneath the gazebo .  They have to backfill the retaining wall, speaking of which, is now filled.  I was hoping they would just scrape down some of the dirt that's in the gazebo, giving us more height, but I imagine they need to at least backfill to the height of the retaining wall.  Maybe I can get them to get some fabric and pea gravel up in there.  When that's complete, they can finish installing the Litedeck over the gazebo and finish the prep for the back porch.  It should pour all at the same time.

 Here's the first floor, all prepped with top hats and mesh grid.  The board marks the location of the front door.  I think the front porch slab will be thinner since it's not really the primary support.  There will be Azek on the front porch, which will sit over this area of the slab.  That's probably also why there's no top hat foam, since it doesn't have to be as structurally strong as the other parts of the floor.  It's also a shorter run, requiring less structure.

 Here's what will be the study.  HVAC and other utilities still need to come in and mark pass throughs.  It's a balancing act since we're still confirming our interior designer and data/av installer.  They'll have their own design on where pass throughs need to be.  The interior designer might want to have the air return in a different location than an HVAC installer for aesthetic reasons.  We'll finalize who our interior designer will be and see if we can't get HVAC design rushed through.  Data/AV installer is finalizing the quote so I should know the plan for that soon.  The pre-wire quote was provided and seems to be fair.  The bulk of the cost will be in the equipment.

 Final prep for the dining room, mudroom, and kitchen in the back ground.  I'm hoping this time next week, I'll finally be able to walk on my first floor.

Here's the basement stairwell.  You can see how the rebar will tie into the pour.  I think all that's needed is some kind of curved form that will somehow sit on the wall below.  It will be interesting to see how they pull this off.  I believe the beam will be cut after the floor is poured.  This tricky area is the last to be prepped.  I'll talk to the framer to see what the schedule is for next week.

There's an HOA meeting on Monday to determine the status of our landscaping plan.  There are a few points of contention that I'm hoping will be discussed in a reasonable manner.  I believe we're adhering to all the rules, and think there's some odd interpretations going on, but we'll see.  I need to provide a plan for what we would like to implement this year as far as landscaping.  Ideally, we'll finish all the tree removal, rough driveway with all the required retaining walls, and the pool shell made from ICF.  Next year, we can implement some more retaining walls, grass, finish the pool and start the plantings.  There's so much cost associated with this plan that we'll need to implement it over the course of 5 or 6 years.

More first floor prep

This week saw some more preparation for the first floor pour.  Rebar in the beam pockets were doubled up as per spec and some of the wire mesh grid was placed on the areas that had the tophats installed.  I haven't talked to the framer, but I think there was a delay on finishing because they needed more foam for the top hats.  Looks like a delivery was made.

Here's the dining room, mud room, butlers pantry, and kitchen, fully prepped with double rebar and wire mesh.  The "halo" is installed in most of the garage.

 Standing on the front porch, you can see in the background that the greatroom has the wire mesh.  All beam pockets have been prepped with the second layer of rebar.

 A shot of the whole first floor from the edge of the gazebo.  The retaining wall inside the unconditioned storage beneath the back porch needs to be poured, so I think they'll leave this open until then.  The entire back porch will be lite deck and stone tile finished.

Here's a shot of how they're doing the secondary rebar.  Short lengths are embedded in the lite deck and used to support the beam pocket rebar.  On the right, you can see the top hat height, which places the upper rebar nicely in the beam.  I saw a wire twisting hook near by so I'd imagine that the rebar will be secured with wire. too.

More top hat material.  I think they should be able to finish prep this week.  The other subs still need to come in and mark pass through.  We have a meeting with the HOA and landscaper this week to get approval from the HOA for our plans, especially tree removal.  Great Oaks placed stakes in locations where the HOA required markers for hardscapes.  They needed something more to visualize our plans and Great Oaks was quick to oblige.  I'm hoping that there will be some pass through marks ready this week so I can take a look without having to make another trip out.  Maybe the first floor will be poured soon!

Stairs and supports

Lots of progress to report this week.  The framer is busy prepping the first floor for the concrete pour and there's lots of work to be done.  The basement is full of temporary supports made of 2x6, there steel 2x6 studs are in place for the basement stairs and the stairwell is cut from the first floor lite deck.

 Here's the view of the stairwell from the first floor.  There's a screw in the litedeck that marks the center of the rotunda.  They used this to mark the curve of the stairs.  The stairs will be just a hair under 4' wide.  You can see they cut out the foam without cutting out the 2x6 joist.  The whole first floor deck is walkable now if you stay on top of the wood joist locations.  They're easily marked by the retaining screws.  It's nice to finally be able to walk on the first floor.

Here's a shot of how the 5/8" rebar is suspended in the beam channel.  You can see in the foreground how one of them extends into the wall.  This ties the floor supports into the wall structure. You can see in the background how the level of the floor is different.  More about this in the next picture.

Litedeck sells a "tophat" that sits on the decking with the sole purpose of making a deeper beam pocket.  From the manufacture, they're more expensive than cutting your own, so we're cutting our own with 3" foam, as seen on the right.  This increases the height of the beam.  On top of this will also be a 3" slab, so it's a pretty thick floor.  Our floor pour will be in two parts.  All the beam pockets will be poured with concrete containing helix steel fibers.  These fibers are short twisted steel that is added to the mix, and adds to the tensile strength of the beam.  Since we don't want them sticking up in the slab, and since they add some cost to the pour, we'll pour the slab with standard concrete after the beams have been poured.  I think this will be done on the same day.  I think this should be done on the same day.  I'll have to ask.

 Here's the side basement walkout with a nice shot of all the temporary structure for the lite-deck pour, French bulldog for scale.  The metal stud you see is the high part of the stairs coming down.  The slab is nice and smooth and expansion cracks have been cut.

 Here's the inside radius of the stairwell coming down.  There's another center point in the basement used to mark the radii of the stairs.  I asked about the post construction and was reassured that we won't have to have a post that transfers up to the second floor.  That would really ruin the rotunda stairs, having a post in the middle of the open railing.  I'll be interested in seeing how they pull off this engineering feat.

 Looking from the basement storage towards the stairs.  The elevator is on the right of the frame.  They've blocked and sealed the gaps around the beams so the concrete will fill down into the beam pocket, but not ooze out.  Great way of doing it.  In our current house, the beam pocket was formed in the concrete, the beam was placed, then the space around the beam was filled and mortared with cinder block.

 Front to back of the house.  You can barely see the rear walkout through all the structure.  The 2x6's are placed about 14" apart and are not secured to the floor, but are nailed four times, two on each side, to the footer and header.  It needs to be strong to support all the concrete on the first floor.

 Closer shot of the stairwell cutout.  You can see the chalk lines that mark the opening.  In the background, you'll notice what I'm calling a "halo" of exterior ICF.  When the floor is poured, it will become one with the wall.  On this wall section, there are metal plates that pierce the ICF from the outside with an angled blade that has a hole in it.  I think this is to tie the ICF that runs parallel to the direction of the beams.  Otherwise it could just peel away.

Looking down into the stairwell.  You can see how the floor will be integrated into the walls below.  The next course of ICF will just sit on the slab, tied together with the rebar spikes in the walls.

We have one more meeting with an interior designer and we'll be able to make a decision who to pick.  I've been in contact with A/V installers for data, security, central lighting and audio.  Still trying to figure out numbers for that one.