Next We Go UP!

Now that the trenches have all been dug for the footings at a depth that will make our house stable on the hillside and through the regular earthquakes that occur, they are filled in and compacted as we mentioned in a previous blog.

Here you can see the dark material that is added with the gravel.

An overview of all the trenches that have been dug.  Although it doesn't look much like a house, we can see where each of the rooms lie and get a better idea of things to come.  After only seeing the plans, it's very exciting!

 All of the work is done by hand with shovels and wheel barrels.  At the end of the day the wheel barrels are turned over for the night waiting to start the process once again in the morning.

This is the compactor  waiting to be put to work!

And here it is being used by one of the workers.

Now that all the compacting and filling is complete, things are about to start moving up!

One last view of the finished fill work.

 Going up starts by laying the  previously created re-bar forms on the bottom of the trench.  It is this base that the vertical structures will be added.

The re-bar forms are set into all of the trenches ready to be secured and used to hold the vertical structures.

Every re-bar from is laid and leveled to make a perfect, secure structure for attaching the vertical forms.

All of the re-bar forms visible here in the rear and right side of the photo are waiting to be included.  The ones already placed where they belong are sitting on small oblong mounds of concrete which help to make everything level and secure.

Here you can see the boards used to traverse the wide trenches by the men, especially if they are pushing a wheel barrel.  The boards that are stuck into the ground with a cross board have string tied to them and these are used for leveling and making sure things are straight.

Making sure every piece of re-bar is positioned perfectly is a team effort.

The amount of re-bar used in this type of construction is huge.  Because Juan Carlos is known for his quality of construction, I'm sure our house will have more than the "norm".

                                                    This man is  cutting the wires used to tie the re-bar together.

This is an overview of the whole project at this juncture.

And the "view" from the other direction!

Little by little the view is changing!

Once the rebar forms are attached with the small metal wires and made secure and level, concrete is poured to hold everything in place.

As you can see things are moving rapidly up.  All of the walls have these structures and the next step will be adding cement blocks and the tubing for electrical, gas and water lines.

Ready for cement blocks! Amazing!