Buliding Forms

The next step was to build the the forms for the footings. We started by placing the Batter Boards, streching stringlines and squaring it all up.

Once we had our corners marked and the footing height esstablished we went to building the forms. Three of the walls of the house will be burmed 6' however the front will be like a walkout so we had to build a step footing. The books say that you should have a max step of 2' but hey lets live life on the edge (my step is 61"). We had some extra challenge working down in the pit because the bottom was hardpan and it was not possible to drive stakes. So we ended up just burming the forms to keep them in possition. We got the forms built but the burming did not hold the forms well and I don't recomend doing it this way.

Levi screwing together the lower portion of the step form.

After we stacked and burmed all the footings we started to place the re bar.

The re bar seen sticking up is what will tie the dry stacked walls to the footing.

By adding two pieces of #5 re bar it raises the strength of the concrete from 12,000 lb. per sq. foot to 64,000 lb. per sq. foot.

Trace made this jig to place the re bar so that it would line up with the cores of the block (it worked every one lined up).