Cajun Siding

Have you ever had blackened catfish?  Its good - blackened siding is too.

Typical of Bramel's approach to innovation and anything but production methods, the siding at ground level is cedar that has been charred with a torch.  Excess char will be wire brushed or power washed off which leaves a raised grain and hardened surface that will be extremely durable.

The shiplap boards are torched before being fastening on the wall, as doing it in place would be just asking for trouble - the objective is blacked, not flambé.  The guys were joking about bringing hot dogs for lunch tomorrow though.

Wednesday's Pour

Yesterday was a big day on the Parkview project.  The street was closed to allow a big concrete pump truck to set up to place concrete in the next two foundations and floors in unit 3.  The floors will be heated by hot water circulating through a series of looped plastic embedded in the concrete.  yesterday the pumper delivered concrete through a window on each level where it was spread, levelled and then power trowelled.  In a couple of weeks it will be honed, but even today they look fantastic.

The next operation was placing the concrete in the Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF)  forms for unit 2 and 5's foundations.  This was a little nerve-wracking as they are at least 10 feet high and if done to quickly could potentially burst open.  They were well braced and by placing a 4 foot lift first and letting it set a little, the forms were able to accept the second, top-up lift.

Windows at Parkview !

The window frames arrived last week are installed in the first unit.  There is plastic sheeting on the outside as with these high quality commercial steel frames the glass is installed in place.  This, at least made lifting the large sizes them up along the outside wall practical. These rooms will look east towards PArliament.  There is a great view of the city skyline and Peace Tower through the enormous sliding doors up in the penthouse.

Drywall is mostly complete, except for some interior walls.  The first floor, which will be the kitchen and living space is not yet primed, but with windows across the entire end wall and 10 foot high ceilings it will be a very bright space.

The next stage will be to install the heating pipes and pour the concrete floors. Then interior walls, cabinets and such can be installed.

Decking the Penthouse Floor

The penthouse on the rear of this first semi-detached building at Parkview was finished last week.  I was able to position myself there and view across to the guys working on the front side facing Stirling-Carruthers Park across the street.  These homes will enjoy calming tree house type views into the upper branches of the trees.

The penthouse walls step in from the first three floors and will sit on steel beams to carry that load.  All the joists are web trusses, which not only results in higher ceilings, as they are just 10" deep are spaced on 1 foot centres to provide the stiffness required for the heated concrete floors. The other benefit is that it will be very easy and fast to run the electrical wires as as well the high volume air conditioning ducts and flexible plumbing hose.   It looks like they are a week away from topping off the building and once the framing is inspected, we'll be seeing some other trades on the job.

Oh, and no, the carpenter poking up through the joists on the right isn't really standing on some one's shoulders - he was on a properly secured ladder.

Hanging Steel

These buildings are complex.  They have a hybrid structure of reinforced concrete, steel beams and posts and wood framing.  The steel beams are incredibly heavy so Bramel had to bring in a crane.  They were placed on temporary wood cradles and Fluxworx welded them together.  The carpenters are looking forward to putting up permanent walls after all this temporary false work, forming and bracing.

I stood well back. I don't like being under heavy things swinging through the sky.

Pouring the Walls

Last week the foundations  and ground level of the fist two units were poured at the Parkdale site.  The forms were more than 10 feet tall so a lot of care was taken to reinforce and brace the walls before placing the concrete. The greatest fear with this operation is a blow out due to the weight of the wet concrete.  A 90 degree pipe was put on the pumper hose to slow the rate of  concrete being delivered, so that there would not be a sudden load which might break a weak point in the formwork.  The walls were poured to the 5 foot mark and allowed to set up before topping up the remainder. Accelerator in the concrete mix allowed the first lift to stiffen in just an hour, so that the remainder would not put undue pressure on the formwork.

ICF Foundation Walls

The last couple of weeks have been really really cold - like -30 C in the morning and -20 C through the day so we lost several days to weather.  Luckily the cold spell broke and at a balmy -15C the guys have been able to get back at it.

Bramel is  using a product called Polycrete, which has steel bands embedded in the rigid insulation with metal ties between the panels.  The corners are plumbed and reinforced with steel angles for the pour.  Once the concrete is set, the corners come off, but the insulation remains. The other benefit is that the insulation will slow the cooling of the concrete and give us good strength dispute the cold temperatures.  Polycrete have been very supportive and have sent a technical rep. to show the crew the system and will review the bracing before the concrete is placed.

It took some time just to open the large bundles and sort the various heights and wall width panels, making it hard to move around this compact site, but as the forms are assembled there is more space.

Winter Construction

Construction in cold weather can be slow, or some days impossible. Temperatures have been too cold for the guys to possibly work this week, until Friday.  It was a balmy -15C and more pieces of the ICF (insulated concrete form) product arrived for the foundation walls.  Luckily this work can be done with gloves on. These foundations are complicated.  There are different wall widths on each side of the same building and the reinforcing bar size and spacing changes with height.  There also are several heights of ICF panels and a step for the masonry ledge, so sorting out the pieces is a task in its own right.  By afternoon, the crew was into a rhythm and progressing well.

The wood form in the foreground is a shear wall which will support the rear of the buildings over the carport.  This form is made of differing thicknesses of horizontal plywood 'boards' so as to leave a textured pattern on the exposed walls, rather than flat planes of concrete, like a bridge or civil structure.

Casting the Footings

The long hydraulic boom of the concrete pump allows it to reach well into the excavation and deliver very controlled amounts in the right locations.  The operator stands close to the work with a wireless controller so that he can maneuver the pipe and pump the right amounts of concrete.  Its a brilliant piece of equipment and more than worth the rental fee.

The carpenters watch the forms for blow outs and screed the concrete level, then place the reinforcing bars.

Its sort of like a performance - it's all in the preparation.  A full week with 5 men to construct the forms and then the actual concrete placement happens in just a couple of hours.