Preparing the mezzanine and tower forms for shotcrete

Before we started on the first day, I worked out the dimensions on the back of a pizza box… Here you can see the 4th window that we didn’t end up actually putting into the wall.

A cross section thru the tower and mezzanine

Plan view with more detail then you need right now

Michael using a heat gun to soften the PVC pipe so we could curve it. The heat gun came from HarborFreight and cost about 10$

Curved pipe slipped thru the holes in the steel studs.

Setting up the steel arches so they would be embedded in the wall… The ends were trimmed to fit the bracket on the outside wall.

End of the first day…

John showed up and helped us with the kitchen wall. We figured this was a good time to add this to the task list even if it wasn’t really part of the tower or mezz.

We reused the PVC pipe template to check the rebar curves for that wall.

Sherri overcoming her fear of heights in order to get the Electrical done.

We placed the steel arches on steel angle iron sitting in a pocket on a ledge. The tapcon keeps the bracket from moving left or right until the concrete is in place. The ledge keeps it from moving downward.

We welded the steel arch to the bracket to keep it from twisting, etc.

Steel arches in place will eventually form the structure of this roof section.

To install the windows, we first drilled holes in the steel studs using self tapping screws because they actually work better than drill bits for this application. Once there was a hole, we could back out the self tapping screw and drill another with it. I only used two screws to drill all the holes and that was just because I dropped one. After all the holes were ready, we lifted the wood bucks into place and put wood screws thru the holes into the wood.

While we were working, the turtles in this area were all digging holes and lying eggs. This one was about 1 ft from the house, right outside the window.

Before working on the wall, we tried different things Here I was putting the screws thru some chunks of insulation to see how well they would hold, etc.

On the flip side of the practice piece, you can see that I was originally using bottle caps to catch the screws. We eventually decide they didn’t grip strongly enough and switched to treated wood.

Here the mezz is wrapped in 4 inches of insulation. The gaps with no screws will be cut open to reveal the windows. We did it this way because it made it much easier to get a constant smooth curve.

On the back of the wall, you can see all the little wood blocks that hold the screws on. These were put on the ends of the screws as they came thru…

A closeup of the screws coming thru the wall. After concrete is added, they will also be embedded in the concrete.

Sherri working away on electrical…

At this point, the mezz is mostly done and we are ready to turn our attention to the tower. The original plan was to attach the formwork to these steel studs, but we decided to cut them out and attach directly to the heavy steel columns.

Here we cut the first window out of the insulation

First window in the Mezz

Electrical conduit in the corner of the Mezz. These pics will come in handy when we are trying to remember where these tubes are.

Plastic over doors and windows is just to keep the concrete out of those areas.

In this scene, i am using the AdirPro laser to mark the top level of the wall. The insulation actually goes higher than I want the shotcrete to go, so I used the laser to mark the studs and then ran a red wire around the perimeter at the right height. My plan was to ask the shotcrete guys to level it off at that height so I would have room for the quad deck above that… It actually worked out better than I hoped 😉

David in the shop. Often, while moving the time lapse camera around it will catch something interesting. This was one of those times.

This was the final design for the portholes. Basically, an ellipse with a 45 degree champher glued to two circles for 6 inches of total thickness.

We “glued” the XPS layers together with a paint primer called Gliden Gripper. Special effects artists swear it is the best glue for XPS and also happens to be the cheapest and easiest to use.

I made a master ellipse and circle template out of thin plywood and then we traced these out and cut all the pieces out with a band saw…

Sherri showing her latest scratch to the camera.

Michael Jig Sawing out some smaller shelves for the gaps between the concrete ribs.

Our formwork for the tower was utility OSB, but we didn’t actually buy many new pieces. The majority was recycled from the previous job.

Taking a short break between panels

Here the tower is mostly done

This is the best way to make pex connections, by far… The only downside is the initial outlay for the tool, so I got a used one. Don’t worry, I still test the connections and can say the tool still works perfectly.

Inside the tower

All these steel beams are there to keep the loads off the front windows that will line the south side of this building

A boy and his dog borrowed my camera

Our new puppy on site… We named her Sandy.

Lots of building together means lots of time to chat… Even if it is >10 ft off the ground.

A view back toward the mezz from the tower.

I used a laser to line up the heights of all the porthole windows. Instead of a tripod, I stacked wood blocks to get the assembly to exactly the right height.

Porthole windows in place

The portholes were screwed to the walls. THe hole in the middle of the circle was because my screws were only 5 inches long and wouldn’t have reached thru all 6 inches.

Window Forms in place

Eventually it was all done

Our structural inspection sheet is very much longer than usual. Our new inspector said it was longer than the Bible.

Our shotcrete guy (who didn’t actually ever come out) said my tower needed bracing. I tried showing him pics of the steel skeleton, but he didn’t understand how rock solid it was and insisted that I also add 2×4 bracing. Waste of time and wood, but I did it anyway.

In prep for our electrical inspection, we setup the boxes, connected with ENT conduit and also had to to run the wires.

Here are two types of rebar. The top bar is half inch steel rebar. The lower bar is 3/8ths inch basalt rebar.

Our electrical inspection sheet is also much longer than usual. Good job Sherri.

For the last mezz wall, we started with the rebar and attached the rigid XPS to that. This is how…

I used the bits I had been cutting out of the boards to form the tower to form these ribs for the ceiling over the stairs.

Then I ran stringers

Then I placed wood over the assembly… Note that I didn’t do too fancy of a job. This is just for the ceiling above the basement stairs and I can stucco over any irregularities it caused.