Welcome to another installment of our house building story. :) Once again I did not get to the journal entry as soon as I wanted. I guess I feel like I have to accomplish enough that is worthy to discuss so in this entry we completed the wrap around porch and the courtyard footings.

The main purpose of the wrap around porch is to provide a nice 8 feet of protection from the driving rains that we can get here in the winter as well as the sun in the summer. All around its a great idea because the more overhang you have the less you have to worry about your walls getting damaged by weather. So if its a matter of putting energy into something, a porch is a great value. Not to mention we will be able to put a ping pong table on it and play all year around! ;)

So first things first, since we are planning on using our own clay/dirt for the exterior plasters we needed to excavate enough for the job. We also wanted to dig a pond at some point in time and decided we might as well do them both at the same time. So we did, and here is the result...



It is not a huge pond and will be stocked every year by a natural watershed off the 2 hills on our property where they form a gully. The overflow is directed back into the small seasonal creek that drains into Thomes Creek and eventually into the Sacramento River. Here is another shot looking up at the house area over the damn. It has already brought a lot of wildlife to the area such as more deer, birds and dragonflys. We had these great guys Furtado Engineering do the work and design. Here is another shot looking toward the house area.



While they were out there with their heavy equipment we also had them level the area around the house for the porch slab and grade the gravel bed that we needed below the slab. Once that was completed, Alfred and I setup the formwork for the slab. Since we still had our trusty center stake, that was pretty easy running string lines down the angles.



Here is a picture with all the forms setup.



Next we needed to dig the 1'x1' footings that would support the porch roof columns. We rented a 12" auger from Corning Rentals and went to work. Here is a picture of my friend topher workin the machine like a real man!



hah! that picture is hilarious. Can you see the straw hangin from his mouth? Anyway, it took a good 2-3 hours to get all the post holes dug and cleaned out. It would have taken a month to do it by hand as the ground here is rock hard in the summer. Here is what they looked like:



And a cool picture of the courtyard with all the column footings dug out.



And another shot on the exterior porch which will be a monolithic pour to integrate the footings into the slab. The edge of the slab is also thickened to provide for more strength along the edge and assist the slab from shifting.



Next we laid rebar all around the exterior 3" from the form board and 3" below the slab as well as Steel Reinforcing Mesh. The mesh is used to keep the concrete from pulling apart. Before the pour we also needed to attach expanded metal lathe or diamond lathe to the edge of the main house against the rigid EPS insulation. This will then later be covered with 3 coats of stucco to protect the EPS from the sun and physical damage. This was tricky because I was not sure exactly how to handle the EPS, there were no books or websites to give me an idea. In order to secure the lathe, since you cannot attach it directly to the EPS, we set it to be cast into the porch slab, about 6" into the slab area. Then we bent it over the edge of the EPS and eventually it will be stapled to the Bottom Wood Sill plate of the walls. This should provide enough strucure for the lathe to be secure. Here is a close up.



Here is a shot before the pour with the forms setup to break the pour into sections. We will be scoring the slab at all the corners as well as in the middle.



Ok. Now we were ready for the pour. It was done in 3 separate pours to minimize the amount of finishing work we had to do at one time. Since the actual square footage of the porch was more than the house slab and the heat was unbearable after noon this was the best thing. We actually had to use an additive to slow the curing process down as well as a curing coat to keep the slab from getting too dry too soon. Here is a picture of Scott Azevedo, Paul , Micah and Alfred on the pour.



Here is a shot of the corner edge finished and scored. You can see how it embedded the lathe into the slab. Later we will just stucco over it down to the slab surface.



And the final shot after all sections were completed.



Next we put the asphalt emulsion under where all the bale walls will be to prevent moisture from wicking up from the slab into the wall area. The asphalt emulsion is water based rather than the more toxic VOC formula they use on roof patching. Essentially this stuff is clay, asphalt and water.



Next we needed to setup sonotubes inside the courtyard to prepare them for the courtyard footing pour. They needed to be leveled and centered then we mixed our own concrete and poured them in a day.





Thats it for this installment. Next one will be super fast as weve already completed the work. You will get to see the brickwork we did in the courtyard and the courtyard drain. Then after that, the Steel Hardy Frame Panels go up. No more groundwork. It's all vertical from here on out and the real fun begins! :) woo hoo!