Backfilling the frost footings

With the front wall surface bonded, core filled and insulated we were ready to backfill.

Here you get a good view of the two layers of 2" extruded foam that was used to insulate the front wall. You also can see the sill plate anchors sticking out of the blocks. The anchors are tied to rebar that go all the way down into the footing.

We wanted to backfill the inside and the outside of the foundation equally to avoid excess pressure on the wall. You can see here the taller rebar that will continue to the top of the 8' walls. I wanted to protect the foam from sun and damage, so I attempted to stick ice and water shield to it. The theroy was good but it ended up being a waste of money and time (boondogle).

Here you can see the 8" blocks stacked on top of the 12" blocks. This creates a 4" ledge the concrete slab will rest on.

I had some problem with the outer layer of foam wanting to get pulled down with the weight of the dirt.

We did not fill the inside to final grade because this dirt was mostly clay. Once the clay is packed it is very hard and the floor will need to be leveled for the slab. So later we will haul in some sand to finishg filling the inside to 2" below the ledge that you see. It is filled 2" low to allow for a layer of 2" high density (250) foam insulation.

I did not take any pictures of me stacking the back wall. As you can see here I had to leave the side walls unstacked to allow room for vern to backfill.

About to fill in the pumping pits.

Gradeing the South. If you look between the two layers of foam you can see some blue foam glue that I used to hold the sheets of foam together. This glue did not hold at all, allowing the sheets to sag when we back filled.

First shot at S.B.C. (Surface bonding cement)

Once we had dry stacked all the 12" blocks that made up the front frost footings I needed to surface bond them together. The surface bonding process is not a new technique and studies have shown that it is stronger than a mortared wall. I was mostly attracted to the fact that I did not need to be a brick layer to dry stack cement blocks, and with the use of SBC I could make a wall that was stronger than mortar with no prior experience.

The process is started by mixing a product called surface bonding cement and water. I used Quickbond (a Quickcrete product) and it worked well. Be sure you do not get it on your hands. I got big time chemical burns from it in a real short time. After mixing the batch to my desired consistency I would fill a pail and trawl the SBC to the wall. It was fast and was not to difficult. Since the coating is only about an 1/8 - 1/4" thick you need to presoak the wall, and also keep the SBC wet down for as long as practical to let it dry slower. The SBC needs to be applied to both sides of the wall to be effective. I should also mention that it is water proof once it is set.

This is how you get running water with no electricity to the build site.

The SBC is applied to full thickness in one coat.

Hear you can see that I presoaked the wall ahead of applying the SBC.

See how the SBC is drying. I tryed to keep it damp for 4 hours or so after application.