Piers

5/10:





Here we see the pier forms with rebar inserted.















The southeast corner pier form over its corresponding hole, rebar inserted, with tie-ins to the concrete skirting that will be placed at a later time. This is not the final position of the form, and the vertical rebar is not in place yet.











5/11:

The rest of the forms are placed, squared, leveled, and in the corners, the 3/8" wall 2" square stock attachment point is centered and clamped into place.


5/13:

We then start mixing the concrete. All told, 6 piers will take 4.5 tons of six-sack concrete (capable of supporting 4000psi)-- slightly more than the container itself. And it is all hand poured. If I never hear a cement mixer again...
Concrete cures to 25% of its hardness every 7 days. This means that the piers will be ready to go right around June 15. This means that until then, we get to work on the interior and exterior of the container itself.

We'll be moving the container into the shop on-site to have easy access to welders, plasma cutters, and all of the tools we'll need in construction. This will run us around $200 to have it professionally moved.

Paint colors have been tentatively chosen for the interior, and doors, windows, fixtures, appliances, sinks and the toilet have been picked out.



























































A very poor panorama of the site.

Foundation

Under the arrows are six 2'x2'x4' holes. Two on each end of the conex, and one in the middle of the long side. The string you see running off in the foreground is not the border of the container, it simply marks the corner of the fence line you see in the corner.



On top of these holes will go the forms to the left.















And into those, 18" diameter rebar reinforcement.







The conex will not simply be resting on these, it will by tied into the structure and rendered, for most values of earthquake, earthquake proof.

The short ends will be facing north and south, with the 'open' end facing north. This allows us to place the front door and most of the windows on the west face of the container, which is sheltered from the direction of the prevailing wind.

This was all accomplished this weekend, and construction is now on hold for the work week. I believe we are pouring concrete on Wednesday, May 11 in the afternoon. I will update with pictures then, and will try to get an update in with our tentative floor plan and design.

One of the challenges that we face is that because of how flexible container building is, no two builds are the same.