Nearing the end of foundation work

The foundation has taken a lot of work and time. I didn’t realize how much before I started on the root cellar and crawl space walls. We’re nearing the end of this phase of the construction, though.

With the footers poured for the kitchen crawl space wall and the porch piers, we were able to get blocks laid last week. The kitchen wall was dry stacked. We should be able to coat it with surface bonding cement this week. There has been a delay in obtaining a few bags of SBC because the local place no longer keeps it in stock. Dry stacking does seem to go fairly quickly, and it’s easy to do, including surfacing the walls.

I mortared the blocks for the porch piers. I was going to dry stack them, too, but I wanted to try mortaring them. They turned out pretty well, I think. We took time to make sure the outer edges were in line and that the piers were level and plumb.

On Friday we added some thinner blocks to the top of the piers (which were constructed with 12” x 16” blocks) to bring them to the proper height all the way around. The solid blocks in 2”, 2.5”, and 4” are 8”x16”. So, we scored and broke them to 12” to fit on the outside edges of the 12” blocks. Then, we mortared them in place.

I want the piers to match the foundation walls, but I didn’t want to pay for surface bonding cement (Quickwall costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $23 per bag). So, I bought some mortar/stucco mix to coat them with. We started stuccoing them on Friday.

The stucco mix works a little differently than surface bonding cement. I think the SBC is easier to apply. But, after a couple of piers, Jon and I were beginning to get the hang of it. We have only a few more to do on one side and the back of the house. These are the shortest piers. So, they shouldn’t take too long to finish on Monday.

We also added a few more j-bolts to anchor the sill plate to the foundation wall. We ought to be able to mill the plates to the right thicknesses this week and get them put on. Then, we’ll progress to framing the porch.

We’re looking forward to beginning a new phase in the construction.