April 2017 – 3800 Balcones

Week 10 – Walls are finished!

Lots of progress since I went by on Sunday. We now have all the retaining walls poured. The walls around the storage shed slab are complete.

The north wall is also poured and connected to the wall on the west side.

I honestly wasn’t expecting these to get done so quickly but I’m not complaining. Next steps will most likely be backfilling behind the walls on the west side of the property and then starting excavating for the house foundation.

Week 10 – Continued progress on retaining walls

It is a gorgeous day in Austin so I swung by early to see if the forms had been removed after the walls were poured on Thursday. Sure enough, we now have a nice concrete wall.

In addition to that, the north wall forms appear to be completed.

They have also started the walls around the storage shed.

Here is a video showing the progress on the back side of the lot.

Week 9 – Concrete poured in retaining walls

We’ve made some progress with the retaining walls and storage area foundation.

Here is a close-up of the storage area slab.

It appears that the wall on the north side of the property did not get poured, but it at least is formed up.

Here is a shot of the steel inside.

While it would have been nice to get the north wall poured as well, the west wall and the storage shed slab were the main gating factors for getting the foundation of the house started. Any progress is good progress and I’m glad this was done as rain is in the forecast for the next few days.

Week 9 – Walls getting closer

It appears the rain last week prevented the walls from being poured. There is now a large trench from the back of the lot which I’m assuming is there to help the water drain.

Here is the north wall with the water proofing and drainage system.
Here is the west wall with the final form on meaning the steel was inspected. This will be the storage room foundation that ties into the retaining wall. The trench leads up to this area so I’m assuming this back area was too wet to get formed up for the pour. Another shot of the west wall. Shot of trench from storage area looking toward the front of the lot.

Week 8 – Even more retaining wall steel

Today I met our architect and the concrete contractor to discuss the retaining walls on the site. Our site presented some interesting challenges with the retaining walls so our architect wanted to meet with the contractor to understand how these challengers were met.

The steel work is mostly done on the west most wall and is waiting inspection before the wall is enclosed for the concrete pour.

Here is a shot of all the steel in the west wall.

The space behind the wall will be filled back in with dirt once the concrete is poured and cured. All the giant piles of giant on the site will be put back so we don’t have to bring in any special fill material.

Another angle showing the length of the wall.

This is a shot of the north retaining wall that shares a side with the neighboring lot. Since the owners of the lot next door was not willing to allow our equipment on the other side to essentially setup the same type of form as the west retaining wall, a different solution was needed to setup the form for this wall. A water proof material will also be applied to this wall to allow water from the other lot flow down the back of the wall and down the slope.

They also have a lot of the materials on site for the foundation pour. These are the void forms that will be used for the foundation itself.

It was an excellent meeting, and I was very impressed at the level of detail our concrete contractor went into. While rain is in the forecast next Monday through Wednesday, if it is not a complete washout, they are planning on pouring the walls and the foundation for the storage unit next to the west retaining wall next Thursday April 13th. Once the walls are down, the foundation itself should proceed quickly as the walls and site access were the main challenges.

Week 8 – Retaining Wall Steel

I drove by the house at lunch today to see if things had dried out enough from the thunderstorms on Sunday to continue work. The site is mostly dry now and additional steel is being added into the forms for the retaining walls.