Head West Young Man

This week we worked on forming the foundation for the West retaining wall. We will be doing something very different on this side.  There will be a root cellar incorporated into the wall. (more about that in a later post).

Jeff also spent two days with the Bucket Barrow moving fill material through the house to level the ground on the East patio area.  There were some really low spots.  Nice Job Jeff!

It Ain’t Pretty, But…

We had quite an adventure this weekend spraying the concrete on our NE retaining wall. We couldn’t have done it without the help of our new friend Ken Waynewright.

First there was the mixing of the concrete. Then there was the filling of the hopper on the sprayer.

The handheld sprayer proved to be a bit of a challenge at first until we got the mix down right. We also had a problem of the concrete not sticking well to the forms.  I think this was due to the flexible nature of the corrugated fiberglass.   We ended up attaching chicken wire to the rebar to help support it. For the other walls we will better support the forms.  Lessons learned!

By the end of a rather grueling day on Saturday, we had only finished about half of the wall.  Sunday proved to be much more expeditious.  We got the sprayer to work better. (different set of jets) and the mix was much more consistent.

Now that the wall is done, we will keep it damp for a couple of days and then remove the forms.  I think I am going to be disappointed at how the wall is going to look. Fortunately is is the least visible of the four walls we are doing.