Dad finished up the forms earlier in the week so we were able pour the footer today. A footer is the surface on which the building rests. In stick frame structures typically use a concrete footer. A footer serves a couple of purposes: 1) It helps distribute the weight of the building. In a stick frame house the walls are around six inches wide. A concrete footer will be 12+ inches wide. The footer will spread the weight of the building over a larger surface area. 2) It creates a level surface for building the wall system.   For this footer I'm using the soil I made the test bricks with combined with gravel aggregate and lime. We're made the mix pretty soupy so we the footer will self level so we can have a nice surface to start building on. It took us a couple of batches to get the consistency down but it's looking good. The artist at work The finished footer. Unfortunately, it won't harden as fast as concrete so we won't be able to do an...

The last load of gravel for a grand total of five cubic yards. There are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. The trench is averages around 22" wide X 12" deep X 48 linear feet. I calculate that at 88 cubic feet or 3.25 cubic yards. Maybe it's all that tamping Tampity, tamp, tamp Rakety, rake, rake Shovelty, shove l , shove l The gravel around the entire perimeter is now tamped down and level with the bottom of our guide forms. I built up the low side a couple of inches. Note that the last batch of gravel (red) is smaller than the previous loads (white). This allowed the final layer to be tamped down more compactly.  Here are the test blocks after nine days. No signs of cracking which means the clay is not expansive which is a good thing.

This is what I did during the part of the weekend I wasn't shoveling gravel. Looks like fun huh? Removing a wasp laden Hackberry tree that was way to close to the house. Grading an overflow basin and creating some berms. I wasn't there for the second day but this is how the overflow basin turned out. Ready for some rain.

Finished up the installation of the french drain and went through two and a half cubic yards of gravel today. Getting kind of tired of gravel. Here we are in the process of covering up the perforated tubing. As an aside, Google hasn't been very forthcoming in answering a burning question I have. The french drain is a flexible piece of fairly thin plastic hose. We cover it with gravel. Tamp it down. Cover it more gravel and tamp it down some more. Then we build a 20-30 ton wall system over it not to mention a roof. Why doesn't it collapse? Here's what I conjecture. First, the circular shape of the hose distributes the weight evenly. Second, the footing and wall system are much wider than the 4" hose. Thus, the weight is distributed to the area on either side of the hose. Filled in the bottom of the trench with some large chunks of rock my parents had lying around. This served to save us buying even more gravel and to keep the hose in the center of the trench wh...

The last thing Jean told me before she left for the UK was that I had better finish the shed project before she gets back or else. The trench was a little soggy still but I decided to press on with the french drain installation for fear what that else may be (Although, I'm hoping the "else" will be make me a delicious sandwich). I dug out the high section blocking  the drain outlet and and cleaned up a some edges before putting down landscape fabric and a layer of gravel. Putting down the landscape fabric in the trench. Landscape fabric is water permeable but significantly less sediment permeable. This will help prevent the gravel and french drain from becoming blocked up with silt. Here's my work crew. The tamp/rake tango Release the hose! Uncoiling the perforated tubing. First objective was to fill in the tripping hazard that is the drain outlet. Note how we form a sort of gravel/perforated hose burrito with the landscape fabric. We...

Apparently Great Britain is a corn tortilla desert so Jean is coming prepared.

I had planned on starting installation of the french drain and rubble trench foundation today but unfortunately/fortunately it rained earlier in the week. According to my parents' neighbor it was a real gully washer clocking around 4 inches. So, the formerly rock hard soil has gotten a little squishy, especially the lower end of the trench. On the fortunate side we've haven't had any rain in a month and half. It also served as a test for my foundation drainage plan. It was pretty sloppy in the trench so I made some test blocks. Check out the results below. Who needs a pick up truck when you have a hard working sub compact hatchback? Of course passenger space becomes an issues as does transporting a board longer than 8 feet. Close to the drain outlet but not quite. When it dries up some I'll lower that hump to allow the water to drain off. Fortunately, most of the water went to drainage outlet which is good. After squishing around for about half a...

The Mattock We spend part of the Labor day weekend leveling and widening the foundation trench. I bought a Mattock on Friday which made the work significantly easier. We had planned to pick up gravel today but the supplier was closed for the Labor day holiday so instead we built a form that hopefully make it easier to lay the first course straight and level. The far side is about five inches higher than the near side Not quite level yet but getting there The idea is that gravel will come up to the bottom of the horizontal boards. Then the boards will act as a guide for the block forms to keep the first course level and straight. The cut man Leveling and widening the trench The Peeps