Of Retaining Wall Curbs…..You Ever Seen a Hungry Man?

Welcome back Free folk of Middle Earth! I’m glad you’re hanging in there with me. We are getting there people, little by little. However insignificant the item may be it is still helping us get to our final destination. Okay I’ll just be honest here it is taking quite a bit longer to get this pour in than I ever expected. I’m sure Frodo and Samwise thought they were going to get to Mordor quicker than they thought, too. Work sure isn’t helping out either. One of the conditions for going back to work after our incident last Saturday was to finish the cocoon dismantle at night. So I worked Thursday night 10 Pm til 9 AM Friday morning and 10 PM Friday night to 530 AM Saturday morning. Needless to say I was pretty dead Saturday. Terence, Ethan, and I went over to the house and worked about 3 hours from 12 to 3 in the afternoon. I’ll go over what we did shortly. That was pretty much all I could handle.

I just remembered something that I forgot to mention in one of the last  posts. I can’t remember which one I should have  put it in but it is significant and should be brought to your attention nonetheless.

We all know Hobbits love their breakfasts. Usually Hobbits have at least two breakfasts (First breakfast and then of course Second  breakfast) and depending on what a Hobbit eats at “Elevensies” one might say some Hobbits are quite capable of having three breakfasts.

Just some background before I go any further. I just want to be clear here. It really is all about culture and where you are from. There is no doubt that we do and eat things here in New York  differently than in the South or in a place like California or Iowa. Not to mention across different parts of the world. So I’m gonna tell you how things are done in New York.

Pay attention because this is important.

So here in New York if you want to go out for breakfast you usually go to place called a diner. Preferably a Greek diner.  Usually, but not all the time, you’ll find on the breakfast menu something called “The Hungry Man”. Need I say more. Put it to you this way, pretty much everything on the menu is included in the “Hungry Man.” It usually includes but is not limited to: sausages, bacon three to four eggs(cooked any way you want), pancakes, french toast, hash browns or potatoes, sometimes both, coffee, orange juice, 4 pieces of toast, and hot oatmeal, or as my friend from Ireland would say, “Porridge.” I weigh in at 196 pounds and it wouldn’t even cross my mind to order a  Hungry Man breakfast.

Jude once got the “Hungry Man” and we took him out of the diner on a stretcher. I’m not joking.

So I know I mentioned that I had to take that Mother in Law of mine on vacation with us. You know where I’m going with this. I’ve never seen anyone pile onto a single breakfast plate as much food since I’ve seen the Hungry Man. I mean this woman needed a waitress to help her carry her plate back to the table that’s how much food she put on her plate. (She says she has a bad arm that’s why she needed the help. Yeah, right.) How could a woman who is only five foot two and in her seventies eat more than my whole family for breakfast????? It really was quite amazing. It was almost as if we were eating with Harry Houdini. It was like a disappearing act. “And for my next feat I will make this stack of 10 pancakes disappear!” And presto!  They were gone. So I’m sitting there watching this spectacle and I’m getting a little concerned. I mean this woman is in her seventies. So I say something like, “That’s quite a bit there don’t you think?” She looks at me like I have two heads and says, “What are you talking about?”

I got my Visa bill for my “all inclusive” vacation. They charged me an extra $250 for excessive overindulgences at breakfast.

Remember Isildur’s bane? Well you know who mine is. Geez. It isn’t easy.

This is supposed to be a construction blog isn’t it Jim???

Let’s get back to our thermal bridging conundrum shall we?

So I wasn’t really sure how to install this Styrofoam for our thermal bridge free Hobbit house. After a little thought and starring at it for a few minutes I came up with a plan. I had previously drawn in the location of my 4 inches of styrofoam way back when. So what I did for starters was drive 16 penny nails into the outer most line every 12 inches on center. This is where the edge of my styrofoam will go and will hold the very bottom of it in the correct location during the pour. A picture might help.

Starter nails to keep styrofoam in the right place.
Starter nails to keep styrofoam in the right place.

 

The seam to the left is where the inner edge of the foam glass insulation will be. The next step was to install the 2 inch styrofoam against these nails. That was easy. I pretty much just laid it down and tacked it in place here and there. Next came the foamglass. The problem with the foamglass is that the pieces are 18 by 24. I had the boys precut them to the curvature of the roof and radially with the centroid of the Hobbit house. (Not really sure if that is geometrically the correct term but it sounds like I know what I’m talking about right?) The pieces they cut were close to the correct shape but they didn’t fit as snugly as I wanted them to. So we had to scribe them to fit. It really wasn’t so bad. Once you installed the first piece you took the next piece and laid it next to the first one. Then using a piece of skew back you scribed a mark into the foam glass with a nail. Then we would bring the scribed piece outside of the roof and cut it. (This way we didn’t make a mess on the roof.)  I know it’s a little confusing but here is Terence working away at it.

Terence installing the foamglass.
Terence installing the foamglass.

Once you scribed the piece you would mark the inside edge with a pencil drive a couple of nails into the deck and this would help lock the whole system in place. We also threw a couple of 16 penny nails into the top of the styrofaom at 45 degrees into the foamglass. This helped lock the tops together.

Terence scribing the foamglass.
Terence scribing the foamglass.

Once all the foamglass was installed I used some spray foam to seal the joint between the top of the styrofoam and the edge of the foamglass.  I’m hoping this will help glue them together a bit and also prevent concrete from getting in between the two. (This is important and we’ll add another layer of safety in there later on.) We don’t want any separation between these two layers. That would reduce the effectiveness of our thermal barrier. Check it out.

Spray foam the two layers at the joint.
Spray foam the two layers at the joint.

Once this was done we were now able to close up the retaining wall curb. Terence and Jude had built these panels during the week. I just had to do some minor adjustments to them and we were ready to go. There was a learning curve here  but everything went in fairly well I thought.

Retaining wall curb installed.
Retaining wall curb installed.
Another view.
Another view.

It’s not all locked up yet but you get the idea. Hopefully we’ll be getting real close by next weekend. Oh yeah I also had Ethan and Terence start a scaffold on the west side for protection purposes and to give us something to stand on while we are pouring the concrete.

Start of the scaffold. West side.
Start of the scaffold. West side.

Well, thanks again for stopping by.

And remember….be wary of people who order the “Hungry Man.”

See you next week!

Jim

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