Basement Walls

(This post was started last fall and lay in draft form until now...)

Brad has been driving hard to get the basement dried in before we head south.  He assembled the foam block up to a height of eight and a half feet, installing 5/8" rebar along the way inside each of the six and a half layers of foam block, then he inserted rebar vertically every 16" or so - all this extra rebar since we are in an area where earthquakes occur.  Volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunames, high winds - we're building where all this is possible!    This house should withstand the harshest of conditions.  After the rebar was tied off, I helped him install the window bucks, temporary window frames to prevent the cement from escaping around the windows.  To do this we were both standing on scaffolding inside the basement walls so that over half our bodies were above the top of the walls.  We lifted the window bucks up and then had to slide the frames down through slots in the foam block.  The window frames themselves were 3' tall and 4' wide so we were extended up considerable higher than I was comfortable with.  Then, of course, they wouldn't slide right in because Brad had made them to fit snugly in place, so while I was trying to keep them balanced on a wall of wiggly styrofoam  he was putting force on one side and then the other to get them into place.  I had visions of toppling over the wall after losing my balance so yes, I was petrified.  Heights aren't my thing.  Well, we got the windows to go almost where they needed to be, but not quite, so Brad jumped on the lower part of the frame to use his weight to get the window into place.  More than once since I've been married to this man I have been in precarious situations that totally pushed my comfort zone to the very edge!   He spent days bracing the walls inside and out so that the concrete wouldn't "blow" through a weak spot and did an incredible job of getting it ready.

He had a pump truck out to fill the core with cement and the braces held beautifully.  Whew - what a relief!  The next big push was to cover the top of the basement with 1-1/4" plywood (very heavy!) and cover it with Tyvek and a huge tarp to protect it during the winter months and record snows, we found out later.  Many homes we've seen in Alaska were never finished for one reason or another, and we chuckled at the thought of living in our unfinished tarp covered home that fits in with many others we've seen.  It just goes to show that so many have dreams of living in this pristine "last frontier" but run out of money before they can get their homes finished.  Reality is not so kind sometimes....