Pouring the Concrete Page 2

Pouring Concrete for Basement Walls

This truck is used to pump the concrete from the cement truck to the house frames

Framing the Basement

Almost every house in Israel is framed in concrete (re-inforced with metal rods). Conceptually what the contractor does is create a mold whose width is the width of the wall. Within the mold they add metal rods which re-inforces the concrete. What you see in the pictures is the completed mold of the basement of the house.

Building the Base

After the perimeter of the house was marked, the contractor built footings which will eventually support the ceilings of the basement. Next up was the plumber. The plumber installed a sewer tank on the North side of the house. The sewer tank will be used to pump the sewage from the house to the City sewer mains. The reason we need a pump is that the washrooms in the basement are below the City sewer mains. After the sewer tank was in place the plumber laid out the sewer pipes which will be buried beneath the floor of the basement.

You can see in the photos black pipes sticking up from the ground. These pipes will be used to remove the sewege from the basement washrooms. Once the plumbing pipes were in place a rough surface of concrete was poured; forming the base for the house. On top of the base of the house the insulating contractor melted weather stripping . These strips form the barrier between the outside and our house. Hopefully if the contractor did his job correctly we won't have water problems. The big black room in the back is the pool room which will house the pool mechanical equipment.

Marking the House Boundaries

It's been over a month and lots has been happening on the building site. After the site was excavated the builder demarcated the bounderies of the house. Below you can see pictures of the wood rails used to mark off the perimeter of th ehouse

Demolition of house on Mapu

It doesn't take very long to take down a house. As you can see from the photos, all it takes is a big bulldozer. Slowly the bulldozer makes its way through the house until it is all down. The only piece that took extra patience was the security room which due to its construction required a special hammer piece. But in the end it too was broken down and carted a way. A pretty humbling experience.....

Check out the video clip of the demolition.

Taking down the house

It has taken a while, but we finally got the approval to start building.  After hammering out an agreement with my neighbour over the border, we quickly demarkated the border and began the process of taking down the existing house.  The existing house was built in the early 70's.  The house had two stories, without a basement.  It takes over a year to build a house but it takes less than a day to take it down.

The demolition crew came early to take down the house.  They put up fences around the permiter of the house to reduce the collateral mess to the neighbours.