Update on the Foundation Redesign and Other Things

After what's felt like a horribly long time of getting nowhere, things are finally coming together. We've had a break in the rain. The trench was cleaned out, the sides have been mostly repaired, and we're just about ready to have another inspection.

After talking with the inspector, he had a suggestion that would speed things up and make it a bit easier on us. Instead of pouring our footings 10 inches thick, we're pouring it up to 24 inches and laying a cinder block stem wall on that. It's costing us a little more and requires us to do a bit more rebar than the original plans. I've been a bit stressed out about that because I've never done rebar like this nor did I have a lot of time to go over the code. I really hope I got it right, because there's not much time left before cold weather sets in. No pressure, right?

This required three pieces of rebar running horizontally and vertical rebar placed every four feet. The verticals had to be placed just so since they will be running through the cavities of the cinder blocks. To make sure I was on the mark I ran the lines on the batter boards and checked my placement with a template of the cinder blocks.

Jack decided that cats are more interesting than rebar. I agree.

So here's more Jack:

Beyond the rebar, we've just been enjoying a quiet summer on the prairie. Our garden has done pretty well for the first year. We have a tiny black cat that has been hanging around. We're calling her Beyonce. She loves to sing, and since all our cats are boys she is the single lady.

No photos of her yet. She's still very skittish.

We have some prairie sunflowers that have grown on the property. Normally, I dislike sunflowers. A lot. Sunflowers are what interior decorators use when they want a place to be Kansas-y. I always associate them with truck stops, gas station bathrooms, kitschy gift shops, and the girls locker room all throughout the 90s. OK, that last one was just Elizabeth Arden's Sunflowers, but it still sucks.

These sunflowers, however, are MY sunflowers, so they're totally different. I love them. The bees really seem to like them too so they are definitely staying.

Edgar is still doing well.

I put up our mailbox and started decorating it. I'm painting mushrooms from my favorite 1970s enamelware set, and yes, the stems look like dicks. Ha ha, dicks.

diiiiiiiiiiicks

The farmer that owns the surrounding land came through and hayed. Now we have large hay bales.

Yeah, they're really not that interesting.

Not us though. We don't really want the grasses cut and hauled away. We're letting it grow wild for now and will be mulching it so we can help restore the top soil.

Damn long-grassed hippies.

I've done some work down in the tree line. There's flat spot that I want to turn into a meditation garden. It sits under a huge oak tree and next to our little stream. Right now it's full of flowers...

Awwwww.

... and a giant honking orb spider.

EEEEEEEEEEEE

That's pretty much it for now. I've had some new stuff happen as far as the trenches go since I started this post, but that will wait for now. Hopefully I'll be sharing some concrete pouring in the next week or so.

DIY Wire Dobies for Embedding Rebar in Concrete

While the rain has kept us from doing any excavations, we have kept busy doing a little prep work. We cut some posts and cross beams for the batter boards. Those will be going up as soon as the ground dries a little more. We've also been creating some wire dobies for when we lay the rebar for the footings.

For this project we needed:
Quickcrete
16g galvanized wire
Modeling clay
Disposable cups (get cups that will lift the rebar to the appropriate height ie. if you need the rebar three inches off the ground, get cups that are three inches tall)
A scrap wooden board
Wire cutters
An x-acto knife

All total, these materials cost me about $14. There are 50 cups in the package so this will make 50 dobies. For comparison, the big box stores sell a pack of 100 plastic rebar chairs for $60. Add one more package of cups, and you can have 100 dobies for a quarter of the cost of the rebar chairs. Not too shabby.

We experimented with a couple ways of doing this. For the first method, we started by cutting a hole in the top of the cups.

Place the cups upside down on the wooden board and sealed the bottoms with modeling clay.

The wire is bent into a long narrow "U" shape.

Mix a small batch of concrete in the wheelbarrow. I placed the board across the wheel barrow to make filling them easier.

Fill them from the top. Gently tap the board to tamp the cement down and release any large air bubbles. It's not necessary to get all the air out, just any big pockets. They just have to be strong enough to hold your rebar in place; they don't have to be pretty. You want them to be completely full and level with the top. Press the wires into the cement, making sure they are centered.

They're like little volcanoes, except they're not

This is what happens if you tamp it too hard. The seal can and will break and concrete will go everywhere. Don't do it. It's messy and not the good kind of messy.

After the concrete has cured just peel off the cup and you have a dobie. Congratulations.

This method worked well, but we have a lot of dobies to make. After several batches the clay began to get cement in it and it became hard to work with. So we got lazy, er, creative. Yeah, that's it.

We just stuck the wire through the bottom of the cup and poured the cement in. So long as you keep the holes small and the cement thick, it works very well. You also need something to set the cups on that will allow the wires to hang down. A mesh grate or a wooden pallet may work for you. We used the side tray on my husband's gas grill. He may or may not approve of this use.

Bwa ha ha, he doesn't have a choice

There you have it. Dobies.

Finally, if you really love your dobies and they have served you well, you can present them with an item of clothing.

#justharrypotterthings