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Backfill Pour of Concrete in DAC-ART Dry Stack Modular Block House
Nov 2007--
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| We have been doing tests with various grout products. The next day they were filled with water in the open cavity of the blocks. | |
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| A brass or aluminum register will cover the louvered vents that will be inserted in the vent holes. This is the west side. | The vent openings in the east elevation. |
| The area under the porch was
filled with sand, wet and tamped down. A slab is to be poured on
top.
You can see the window and door openings now. |
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(Right)--The entrance stairs will hug the side of the wall and come down both south and north. Here is the footing for the outside wall of DAC-ART blocks that form the staircase.
Everything had to be inspected before we poured concrete. The inspector came Tues. Nov 13, 2007. The concrete was poured the next day, Wed. Nov 14, 2007. |
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| The joists for the first floor are attached to a band of wood that is bolted into the DAC-ART blocks. We are using Georgia-Pacific manufactured joists from Swift Supply in Orange Beach, AL. | |
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This worker is grouting the block joints on the inside of the garage. The steel is in place for inspection. |
| The area on left is the opening that will have stairs from the garage to the entrance hall. |
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Next day, Wed, Nov 14, 2007 was a beautiful day to pour concrete. The pumper truck arrived and a series of concrete mixers showed up like clockwork. |
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Concrete Mixer trucks lined up to be ready to start filling the pump as soon as the one before it was empty. |
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Workers smoothing the slab concrete that was poured with-in the DAC-ART walls of the garage. |
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The photo above is looking deep into a
stacked dry-stack block wall. You can see the rebar running laterally
and vertically. The wire near the top is the lift handle. This
interior space will be filled with concrete.
The openings for the vents were boxed in so the back-fill concrete would not flow out thru them. The vents will have louvered registers inserted into them and a decorative metal grill on the face of the blocks. |
Thursday , Nov 15, the sub-floor was in place and the temporary stairs from garage to first floor were in built.
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Looking down and to the East, Phase I is now visible from above. It is the first time that the metal roof of Phase I is visible. The typically low angle on the roof and the height fo the building make it almost impossible to see the roof from ground level. Now I am glad we went with the buff colored roof material instead of the aqua that we originally wanted.
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Mike, Don and the team from New Stone Age Builders have done a fine job of cutting blocks where necessary. These blocks were originally poured for a different house, so we have had to adapt them to suit our needs. |
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The rebar sticking our from the first floor porch slab is there to go up into and through the 15 " columns blocks that stack over it. . |
A double row of DAC-ART blocks is here on this wall which runs between the entrance hall facing the front door and the garage. This is necessary to support the custom niche which will be in the entrance hall and crated on top of these blocks. |
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The sub-floor we are using from Swift Supply is a
superior product that will perform better if we ever get a drenching
from a major storm.
I am researching a gypsum board substitute called Magnesium Oxide wallboard. It is imported from Asia by a handful of people in the States. Looks like it might be just what we need. I have contacted the various suppliers about supplying product for Villa Lagoon. The properties of this Sheetrock substitute seem like it would be well suited for this hurricane zone home. We really do not want to include any materials that would 'melt' if the roof ever had damage and water entered. |
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The photos below show the first floor (elevated) looking north towards Fort Morgan Road. |
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This space will be the entrance hall, staircase and guest bedroom/bath. The entrance hall is a generous area that will function as library as well as the hub of the house. |
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