10 / 08 / 2020
Pour concrete to fill the ICF stem walls. This marks our Final Countdown to containers! Queue some Europe music right about now...Oh yeah, we love our '80s music.
Once the stem wall concrete is poured, we have to wait a minimum of two weeks until the walls can support the containers' load. These two weeks allow us to get the waterproofing and footing drains installed and the majority of back-filling completed.
Waterproofing the walls used a self-adhesive membrane (sort of like a large sticky wallpaper) installed over the ICFs. To help adhere the membrane to the ICFs, we used a primer that made the ICFs sticky…once that membrane met the wall, they were mated for life! Plus, it was fun to stick random sh*t to the walls, like David's ruler and pencils. David enjoyed leaving graffiti on the walls while Jason and Gretchen worked.
The footing drains, and back-filling allows groundwater to be drained from around our stem walls rather than push its way into our crawl spaces. The membrane provides additional protection from water intrusion.
