Foundation

Back to Work Ending a Long Delay

Ed Building a House , , ,

After 3 weeks of holiday break and over 4 weeks of weather conditions that prevented work at the site, Francisc and his team got back at it. They had some of the rebar columns they had built off-site delivered and they prepared to attach them to the existing rebar.

Here are three photos. Notice the cloudy weather, a dramatic contrast from the beautiful sunny weather in December.

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All images: Copyright © Our Big Italian Adventure

Finishing the Foundation

Ed Building a House , ,

It looks like another beautiful day in Le Marche.

Today’s photos show the concrete being poured on top of the IGLU system and the steel and then the concrete being smoothed and the foundation finished.

Here’s one shot showing the beautiful weather, the crane that distributes the concrete and one section of the foundation — the master bedroom — being smoothed.

More concrete and more smoothing at new house construction in Le Marche
Pouring and Smoothing Foundation

 

All of the pictures are below.

Images
Copyright © Our Big Italian Adventure

Building Our Igloo Protecting the House from Moisture Infliltration

Ed Building a House , ,

When houses with stone or concrete walls are built on a slab, you can have problems with moisture from the earth being sucked up into the walls. This can cause mold and peeling paint.

Fortunately, there is a fairly simple solution to this. Modeled after a system used by the Romans, you provide an air space under the slab and vents in the walls to let the moisture escape.

There are a number of companies who provide a system that serves this purpose. Our house is being built using the IGLU solution.

The heart of this system is an interlocked grid of little plastic “stools” that sit on the ground and have the foundation concrete poured on top of them.

Here’s a picture of the IGLU system being put in place in our house.

Building an IGLU base on a house in Le Marche
IGLU system
 Click image to enlarge

I’ve also included this small photo gallery of the progress on the IGLU construction. You can click to enlarge the photos.

 

If you want to see more about how this all works, here’s a you tube video from the manufacturer that shows more.

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Images: Copyright © Our Big Italian Adventure
Video: IGLU’ ®

The Hole Truth

Ed Building a House , ,

So far, the work on the foundation has been moving along at a rapid clip. They started foundation digging less than a week ago, and today we received pictures of the start of drilling for the foundation pilings.

Notice in particular the photo showing the size of the piling holes relative to the man in the picture. Kevin says that a man could get in the hole with elbows extended.

My apologies for many of the pictures. For some reason, they want to aim the camera at the sun!

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Copyright © Our Big Italian Adventure