The Wall: Phase 1 Block

Part of wall including beginning of the buttress.

Once again, this is more of a photo blog than one with many words, but I'll explain what you're seeing in each.

This section of wall is from the existing driveway downhill towards the house (behind you from this vantage point).  In reality the crew has been building from the lowest footing point towards this, so quite a bit of block has been layed. 

One thing you might notice though is that thinner row of block on the left, two rows below the top.  The crew actually hand saws these blocks to that height.  They've made calculations in their head about what thickness is needed so the wall joins level where you see them connect.  At this point, wall is about half built.

Beginning of T leading to wall under the stair. 

In this photo, much of that wall in the photo above is close to final height; and the crew begins on the T wall that intersects.  They are criss crossing block so that the wall sections are integrated as a single unit for strength. 

This is critical at this point since earthquakes are relatively frequent, and this wall at end will hold up a lot of earth and vehicles. 

Wall leading up to the T going under stair

This is another view of that T intersect wall, now of course looking towards the existing structure.  The three steel galvanized posts you see will be the main roof supports for the roof that will eventually cover this space. 

Photo perspective makes it appear that the post on the right is to the right of the bedroom window you see on the house.  In fact, it lines up several CM to the left of that window when viewed square to the house. 

Tallest part of wall mostly done

This photo shows the wall in the original photo above virtually completed.  As is always the case with photos on this blog series, you can double-left-click on the photo to see it in full sized view.  Take a look now and you can see the series of weep holes from the bottom to about the midpoint on the wall.

These weep holes are another device that ensures this wall is holding just earth (and vehicles) and not becoming a big heavy swimming pool.  They are essential to the stability of the wall.

Note also that while the block appears hollow on top, the crew is filling in every level with cement to the top of the bock before the put on another layer.  So at end, it is a solid concrete wall with rebar through it. 

This is showing the emerging entry retaining wall.  The photo angle is deceiving.  The level in the center is equal to the level at the bottom of the stairs.  Alvarro is working on his calculations to integrate this next section to this wall. 

Behind his left foot is the upper most roof support post, and in future blogs there will be a new wall, I'll refer to as the "J wall" that connects to this wall.  So as part o Alvarro's calculations he is putting in place interconnects so that the J wall is an integral part of the emerging wall system. 

Overall this project was projected to take 6 - 7 weeks.  In fact they were done in about 3 weeks, well ahead of schedule. 

More to come, thanks for reading!

Jim and Dick