Old View From The Perch

As is always the case with the photos I display on this blog, they are fully enlargable for easier viewing and to optimize detail recognition. To enlarge any image on this site, hover over the photo with your mouse pointer until a hand appears in the place of the pointer. This hand is like a magic wand that will, when clicked, enlarge the photo you are viewing.

Once the photo is enlarged on your PC, you will notice a popup display in the upper right of the photo - ignore it, and, if you hover the pointer over the enlarged photo, an icon appears in the lower right of the photo that resembles a cheesburger with arrows pointing in four different directions. Don't ask me what the icon is supposed to signify, or resemble, just clik on it, and bingo - (presto?) the photo will enlarge to the largest scale, in most cases covering your screen. Use it as a desktop background, or just to get a closer look, whatever. JUST DO IT!

click any images to enlarge

This photo was taken months ago, and shows the footings as they were poured (cast) around the perimeter of our house. Notice the folding chair in the left foreground, we bought this chair, and three others like it, for $4.00 apiece. I call this Debbie's view, from the women's tee (a little golf humor there). Anyway, this view has changed considerably since this photo was taken, as you will see in this next shot, taken yesterday!

To enlarge photo, clik on image.

This is the stage we are at presently at, with the plywood forms, in view around the entire perimeter of the house for casting the "Bond Beam" in concrete! The "bond beam" as the locals call it is actually a multipurpose structural component of the building.

The plywood forms, with 2 X 4's run laterally (side to side) for rigidity, are set up and nailed directly to the cement block wall below. If you blow up the photo above and, by looking over the first rooms in the foreground, you can see the back side of the plywood forms. This is the plywood casting form for the bond beam that surrounds the great room. If you look closely, you can see the steel members of the bond beam exposed inside the laundry-bath pod, this will also be formed and cast.

The purpose of the bond beam is multifold, as I mentioned. To understand this you have to rely on a few "givens" in weight-bearing load situations. Since we have a roof system for each pod (we have four pods) each pod has a bond beam around it's entire perimeter; since the roof will rest on these partitions, they are all weight-bearing walls.

Before being deemed ready to accept the roof rafters, the entire form system will have to be shot with a transit, or a laser tool used for this purpose, to ensure a straight and level resting place for the roof rafters. Ah, the roof rafters! ......but I'm getting a head of myself........