Walls, concrete, and bolts, Oh MY!

Wall stacking has begun!

Here is the North side of the house, stacked to about 90% of the final height.

This is the view looking in through the garage toward the South.

Looking from the South end of the house, you can see the North wall stacked about half way.

Here is the front of the house... Pay no attention to the fingers or the garbage, just focus on the window and door openings.

WOW! The stacking of the walls is complete! Or at least, the South and East walls...

This is the West wall of the house, almost fully stacked. Note the three large openings. They are actually very big, sized for double french doors with sidelights and transoms. The "posts" in the middle of the openings are just holding up the top course of forms.

Here you can see a window "bucked" and with some extra support materials. The builder builds a box for inside each window/door with 2x12s along the top and sides and 2x4s along the bottom. This gives the structural support to the windows/doors, allows concrete to be poured in, and gives you a surface to screw the window/door to when installing them.

Here you can see the 2x4s at the bottom of a window opening with concrete

poured inside the wall.

OOPS!!! No matter how much you plan, accidents happen. This was just a small breach, not a "real doozie" that my contractor says he has seen...

To get this shot, I had to climb up on the scaffolding and look down the concrete walls. You can see that they are about 12-14 feet high. That is some stability!

Close up of a J-bolt. There will be a 2x12 pressure-treated header course, then an untreated 2x12 on top of that. The trusses will attach to these boards.

Speaking of the PT and untreated headers...

Note to self: Duck head when walking into the house through the garage door opening... OUCH!!