House started

[JTD]

Re: House started-update

The first pour on half the house foundation walls is complete with the second scheduled for Tuesday. I've also got a shot of the water membrane they attached to the walls plus the new style "French drain" that doesn't require surrounding rock.

 

[JTD]

Re: House started-update

Pic of the water control membrane.

 

[JTD]

Pic of the "French Drain" pipe.

 

[RobS]

Looking good John. Sure is a boatload of concrete /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Is the frenchdrain you pictured installed as shown, or upside down? Looks like a nice system, it is amazing the new developments in building. We went to a local homebuilders showcase last night, toured four or five homes before dinner. Saw lots of nice stuff, fortunately we're too far gone for most of it /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[JTD]

That section is just on the pickup bumper for scale. I think it's in the correct orientation but I'll find out in the next couple of days. The foundation contractor also ran it on the inside of the footing to minimize any water accumulation from ground under the slab. Nice touch since it wasn't called for in the plans. General contractor is very happy with him since he also waterproofed the walls all the way up rather than just at the base and the footing which is typical. My wife and I haven't been to any building shows recently. We plan to see the big Atlanta show early next year. It takes several days to see everything; so I've heard.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

It would be interesting to see a link on just how that french drain system works. I am having a hard time comprehending how such a small surface area is going to keep from plugging up in clay a lot sooner than the conventional rock construction would.

For folks who don't live around real clay it is an interesting and confounding facet of nature doing her darnedest. Here in norte tejas we have seven varieties of black clay. When it's wet it is comparable to WD 40'd peanut butter. It's slick and sticky at the same time. When it's dry it's harder than a bad girl's heart. And you can have the ground cracking from it being dry and lose a plant to moisture at the same time within a foot or so of each other. I lost three small trees to rot in the summer time because the hole I'd dug wrong for them ended up being a cistern instead of a place for them to take root and spread out from.

Here we have a thriving industry for foundation repair. It's amazing the amount of movement we can have between dry and wet seasons. The only thing comparable to it would be frost heave up north.

French drains are a necessity in some back yards. I put them in mine because I didn't want to have to wait four days for it to dry up enough to walk on the lawn. And it's because of my limited experience with the priniciple of french drain that I find that product so intriguing.

 

[JTD]

I'll ask the contractor for the name of the product. The manufacturer should have a web site or literature available. They pour tomorrow, so he should be at the site. By the way, if you were close, I'd certainly be interested in your gates. Great work. Most of the gates (12 or more) along the property fencing are standard ones available from TSC. The main entrance gate will probably be designed by myself and built with my neighbor's help - probably next year.

 

[JTD]

Harv; The waterproofing system is manufactured by Koch Waterproofing (both the wall membrane collection system and the drain). The drain system on the foundation wall was 18 to 20 inches wide. Details are available at the Koch website for these products. Apparently these are becoming standard for new basements.