A Second Point of View

By way of introduction, I am the other half of Ferret & Hound, the hitherto silent entity in the goings-on of this blog about building a home in the rolling hills of Northwest CT. Now that F&H is up and going things have gotten very busy, both in the design and construction of our house, but with outside projects as well. Because of this my industrious spouse has been working the blog whenever she can. I have vowed to pick up my share and will be contributing whenever time permits. My angle will attempt to explain the more "nuts n' bolts" (ie. material selections, environmental/market reasons for choices, and how it all is put together) aspect of the project and their place in the grand scheme of things. In addition I will often explain decisions so as to try and demostrate how we made our decisions along the way. I hope this dicotomy will prove interesting.

Demolition--the ugly step-sister of construction. Up to now we have shown some phases of demolition from a macro standpoint. Now for some details. Cutting concrete.

BILCO DOOR FOUNDATION

Bilco doors, for those of you who have never seen one, are metal doors that cover a steep flight of steps into a basement. This one has already had the doors removed with only the stairs and foundation left.....the foundation is the hard part. Concrete is really tough....seriously. We take it for granted. Its terrible under stress but it is very strong in other ways. This one was attached to our existing foundation. As we are extending out from the house we need to remove it so that the opening from the basement will become the pass-through to the new foundation. Demolition is fun for the first day and then becomes just a dirty and miserable requirement. This however is the worst. To cut the Bilco door foundation (8"/20.32cm concrete walls) away from the existing foundation you need one of these....

MASONRY ROTARY CUTOFF SAW (with operator)

To those of you have never seen one of these....you don't want to. Those who have....well they do not want to either. No one wanted to do this no matter who I asked. So....I did it. This thing weighs about 30lbs/13.6kgs and screams like a chainsaw. It is hooked to a hose to cool it and keep the dust down. Anyone who has used one without a hose looks like they have wandered through nuclear fallout. However, the water makes its own mess and you are drenched in water and concrete slurry after about 45 exhausting minutes of cutting through two 7'/2.15 meters high walls. Next comes knocking it down.....

EXCAVATOR (note Bilco foundation at right center near the green shingles)

Break it down Ron!

It took about five minutes of smashing to get first piece to crack away but finally a stress fracture occurred and the first piece crashed aside.

From inside the basement, note the stress fracture occuring on the bottom left of the wall next to the bucket on the excavator.

BREAKING IT FREE

(note the cut along the foundation wall where the Bilco foundation attaches to the house foundation)

Finally we broke it away. Next up we will get into some materials and the choices we made. More on the foundation will follow when the pour begins. In the meantime we are waiting on a replacement part for the excavator.