Dad finished up the forms earlier in the week so we were able pour the footer today. A footer is the surface on which the building rests. In stick frame structures typically use a concrete footer. A footer serves a couple of purposes:
1) It helps distribute the weight of the building. In a stick frame house the walls are around six inches wide. A concrete footer will be 12+ inches wide. The footer will spread the weight of the building over a larger surface area.
2) It creates a level surface for building the wall system.
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| For this footer I’m using the soil I made the test bricks with combined with gravel aggregate and lime. |
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| We’re made the mix pretty soupy so we the footer will self level so we can have a nice surface to start building on. |
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| It took us a couple of batches to get the consistency down but it’s looking good. |
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| The artist at work |
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| The finished footer. Unfortunately, it won’t harden as fast as concrete so we won’t be able to do any more on it for at least a week. |
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| Slaking a new batch of lime. Calcium hydroxide will try to cure into calcium carbonate if exposed to the air. Covering it with water prevents that from happening |
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| Thanks a lot chickens! |
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| About an hour after we finished it started pouring with rain. |
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