ICF Walls Completed!

For a chronological listing of our building projects with ICF (or insulated concrete forms), be sure to look through the ICF Building Index. I am so thankful for coffee and this morning was certainly no exception... I always feel like a new woman after my first cup of the day! We worked until after dark last night and then came home to eat so we had a late night. But, today, the cement truck is coming at 1:00 pm and we have a lot to finish! As you can see, we had just begun the sixth course of our ICF walls and this course involves a lot of cutting and fitting the forms around the windows and doors. We are having 5 windows and 1 door but 3 of the windows will eventually be doors. So, we are framing them now and John will frame the bottoms of the doors to support the windows. Once the main floor is constructed, there will be rooms around the lower level for a wine cellar, cheese cave and root cellar. The windows will be removed and doors installed for access to these areas. If you remember my analogy to legos, the ICF has the tabs that snap together and these must be cut off around the top course for an even wall. The walls looked much like a castle if you can imagine the tabs as crenelations. But, although I am still queen, my crenelations were cut off! The result, a nice level wall ready to pour.  You can see the wood bracing added to the door to support the weight of the concrete as well as, the wood brace over the door. This is to prevent a break out at the cut above the door. For the pour, we had 3 cement trucks and a pumper truck. I had never seen a pumper truck in action and it was amazing. The cement truck poured concrete into a hopper at the back of the pumper truck. It was then pumped about 40 feet into the air through a hose. Have you ever had a remote control car? Well, a man stood with what appeared to be a remote control car controller and controlled the hose. John guided the hose around the top of the ICF's filling the walls with concrete. Three rounds were made to fill a third of the wall at a time. We will be taking the bracing down Saturday, cleaning the slab and popping chalk lines for the interior walls.