Baby steps on the structure

The new rain garden has been put in, after the rains gave us a little break. We used the excavator we rented to dig down about 4 feet and send lots of clay offsite with George. We brought in 7 yards of compost and stirred it in with the excavator, and put in overflow drainage for the garden. The sand path runs through the middle of the rain garden. G-Pa (Bob Barnes) below is fastening track to the ground that will form the base of our walls.






G-Ma (Carol Barnes) above uses her cutting torch skills to cut and bend rebar for the start of the wall reinforcement. Adele starts the first of many walks around the site with rebar. Ken and Bob put in the first corner of Quadlock.
The Quadlock is an Insulating Concrete Form (ICF) system that is both the concrete form system as well as the exterior and interior insulation and vapor barrier. Another manufacturer listed "bulletproof" as a selling point for this type of system, since it is solid concrete poured between the two foam layers, reinforced by concrete. There is virtually no air infiltration with this type of construction (except around doors and windows) so the thermal performance is much better than a typical wood frame building. Plus, Ken's crane requires structural ties to a masonry wall that could not be achieved with stick framing.