ICF Walls Happening

The wall pouring was so very intense! We had gone the Friday before our pour on Monday, to Dave and Pams home to help them pour. Keith had met them in Lubbock at the class Poly sTeel gave as a how to. Keith and Dave really hit it off and have been calling back and forth and following each others progress, and promised to trade off ‘help’. Pam and Dave ‘got to’ pour first.

There were some issues in their pour. The slump was too thick then too soupy, the pumper was not ‘pumping’ as efficiently as they expected. The pump hose was an inch wider than the wall. So thy had to walk around and holding a couple of board together to funnel the cement into the house walls. We left with lots of ideas of what we were not going to have happen. Most of it did not. But other did.

First pour of slump was perfect! Second x around was a bit soupy and started urping out of the window holes. The window holes are meant to use when you need to pump the cement under windows in case the cement does not flow under them. That was not a problem!

So as the soup pumped through the windows, plopping on the ground and my floor, I crammed my hands in the holes and screamed up to the guys, who could hear nothing. ‘MOVE’. Seriously all they needed to do is figure out this by the second window urping, and scan the window areas and save my hands from later rotting off from cement contact.

Then comes the 3rd x around , we waited a bit so the soup would harden up some. We were thinking ahead. NOT. We thought after the window fiasco, that was our biggest problem. NOT.

Half way around, in an area in between two windows, Keith and Lee are pumping and pumping and pumping the supposed last two feet of cement– NOT. Keith realized at the last moment, or past the last moment, the 8 ft of cement that was suppose to be there was NOT, it had pumped under and out the windows on the other pour. So they pumped almost 8 ft into the walls- a BIG NO NO. Just as he figured it out he yelled MOVE. They started to then ‘ CRACK” BLOWOUT. But God is gracious, it was on the outside of the wall!! I ran out and tried to hold the hole closed as the other guys found the emergency peices of patch wood that we had set up for maybe blowouts. We survived it, the house survived it, Dave and Rex patched the hole. We used the amazingly long screws the guy from Garden City gave us, just in case.

So now here we are walls, no more wondering if the braces will hold our styrofoam walls together till we pour. We have walls! Ordered our windows. Our roof/trusses are being built and designed. Our floor grinder made it in!– The day is coming, we will have a house!