Distressed Team Players

The Fourteenth of June, 2010 should be remembered as the day that I finally "lost" it in front of family, my superintendent and especially the president of the concrete company. The previous Friday (prior to the weekend) I received a new change order from the concrete subcontractors that noted additional footing and concrete work. While that might be expected, it wasn't really! Actually it was basically a bill for services not performed - or what I deemed already paid for. The funny, weird thing was that I had just the day before signed a pay voucher for the latest phase of work per the contract. Nobody had mentioned anything "additional" was coming. Nobody had picked up a phone, written an email, or spoken to me about this additional change order. Nobody thought that I would actually question this stupid piece of paper requesting a change order! So - as a result, I did the most natural thing and had a tizzy. And it worked - the concrete chief walked off during our Monday morning bull session after telling me that my feelings didn't matter - and that my importantly - that I could rip up his change order. You betcha. Thanks for not "feeling" bad about it...

In the course of this meeting, not only did my superintendent, Mr. Builder, get accused of not knowing anything, blah blah blah - but the only regular concrete worker, Mr. Skoal, got "rolled under the bus" by his boss for working too slowly...sheesh. And this was directed to the only person who I actually like and trust at their company - despite the spitting and chewing.

So, even though the concrete foundations for the house are done, it's been a downright battle to get them to this point without providing a outright charity to the concrete company.

Also, sorry out there to my structural engineer father-in-law and his designer/architect brother for that display! Thanks for visiting and lending me some support!

Now BACK TO WORK and STOP SNIVELING, you so and so.....Ain't it grand?!

What's Taking So Long?

All these darn forms. Concrete is great - except for the basic fact that it has to be molded into shape. And that means you have to watch the concrete guys working at building wood-framed forms. In some sense, the concrete subcontractors should be be considered framers. Here's a photograph for all to see the craft that went into building the forms. This photo is taken looking northwest at the future deck.

Here's another photo of the forms looking southeast.















And here's the latest - the concrete was poured into place today!

Yay for More Footings

The day finally came when all the new house footings are in and placed! I mean this is just the house, there's still the garage footings. Anyways - we're thrilled! The spouse and son went to the lot today and took photographs. I'm still boycotting the job during work hours so as to not create a distraction. Maybe?

Actually I've been stalking the site in the off hours waiting to see this day come more than anything. I mean it's great and all to see the intermediate steps of the reinforcing bar getting set and such within the formwork and boards - but come on! I like the concrete! And what's even better is getting news that the framer is going to be starting after Memorial Day!

There's still more concrete work to be done: stem walls and then the cantilever deck....

More Footings

It's time for more footings. The concrete contractors are building forms for the east walls. All's good. I've come to the conclusion that the less talk, the better. We're all in a safe zone of doing our jobs...My job is to stay off site and just dare anybody to call me with "issues."

A Retaining Wall

It's been a while since the slurry and soils solution was hatched for the east portion of the foundations. That whole episode basically drained me for excitement. I just wanted the contractors to get on with the work already and stop quibbling about the height of the slopes!




Fortunately, more action was taking place with the west side of the lot. Within a week of the slurry job, the concrete blocks for the retaining were stacked and set. Now we have a permanent wall. And at long last, the project is taking shape upwards - giving us some volume!

Foundation Walls

Well, despite my reservations about the concrete subcontractor's bid, I still like their finished work to date. Here's a sample of their work in photos.

Digging and Filling

So all the excitement over the change order had us back up and re-evaluate the concrete subcontractor's method for building our concrete footings.

The foundation plan at the east walls was to build deepened footings with tall cast in place walls in places. However, the height of the cast concrete wouldn't exactly be known until we had dug down to an area of natural soil called "formational." This formational soil is the base of where the house footings sit per our soils consultant information and recommendations. Granted, we had some idea of the depth of this - but the depth actually exceeded our assumptions by about 36". In the end, we had dug a 36" wide by 60" deep trench along the eastern edge of foundations to get to good dirt, but the cost of those extra three feet far exceeded what we expected.

When we got the change order, the concrete subcontractors gave us a blanket statement that a cost increase was due because of heightened cast concrete and larger footings. Yeah, but how did they get to that cost increase?

It became clear that our concrete subcontractors had overlooked the plans and the soils report which indicated a footing depth that was required to be at least 7' measured horizontally to "daylight" of the existing slope face. In talking with them, they at times said the soils report "didn't matter" or that they anticipated the footing would be typically 18" below grade... a total denial of reality. This kind of talk was mind blowing to me. That basically meant that overlooked not just three feet high of additional concrete - but something more like six feet! In volume, that meant about 200 cubic yards of pure high strength concrete that needed to be accounted for. In the subcontractor's mind, that meant 30% additional cost to their bid.

After settling down and talking with Mr. Builder, we both determined that the change order wasn't going to be agreed to at all. The only problem was finding a cheaper solution to our trench problem.

Fortunately for us, Mr. Builder is resourceful and remembered some earlier discussions about using slurry concrete to "connect" with the solid formational soil that our footings are supposed to rest on. Slurry concrete is cheap, rough and gravely - not pretty or attractive, but it gets the job done of acting like compacted soil which most footings typically sit on. In addition, slurry can excavated in a manner similar to compacted soils. Our soils engineer likes it too.

Within a week of getting hit with show stopping change order, we have poured slurry and are making new progress.