Window Well Problem Solved

I spoke to Elayne (engineer) this morning and she said that the smaller window wells are fine. She is just requesting that the steel be moved to the center and larger rebar being used. From the looks of the web cam the crew is busy making these changes.

On the large 24’ window well she is adding two 4’ high perpendicular walls between the tall wall and the 4’ wall in the middle. This will take care of her concerns.

Kyle also noted that we are taking pressure off the foundation which is a good thing.

I believe the plan is to pour the walls today. Jack said it will be about 7 concrete trucks.

Structural Engineer Doesn't Like The Window Wells

It was a quiet few days since everyone took off work from last Saturday through Tuesday the 4th of July. We did get a little rain, but I asked one of the guys and he said the void forms were fine. Yesterday they continued setting up the forms. Doug is out of town so I called the structural engineer, Elayne, and asked when she was going out to inspect the forms before they pour the concrete and she set it for 12:30 today.

I met Elayne (structural engineer) at 12:30 today and she said all the rebar in the walls of what she designed looked good, but what were all these new window wells [that weren't part of the structural plan]. The original plans called for bolt on or landscape timber window wells, but a week ago Doug and Kyle sketched up a new large (24’) window well on the west and Doug also decided along with Gabe (Foundations) (and my blessing since they are much nicer and larger) to just pour the window wells in place. This was all great until Elayne showed up and was concerned about where the rebar was placed, where the caissons were, support for the long 24' wall (biggest concern). So now she is back at her office running new calculations. It sounds like the crew will need to place more, and larger rebar in the window wells and add two four foot high perpendicular walls to the large west window well. They were planning on pouring the concrete tomorrow at 10:30am, so I’m not sure if this will still happen. Elayne is supposed to call Jack (the foreman) when she is done.

I’m sure this is all over engineered anyway and what is there would have been fine, but it’s nice to know we’re erring on the side of caution. I’m glad that she came out and made the inspection. Hopefully everything will be corrected in a timely manner. The take away here is to check with the structural engineer on any change at all to the foundation to avoid last minute surprises.

I also met Frank, a guy that responded to my Craiglist post, about installing a remote controlled signal to run the well when the cistern is low. It all looks straight forward and he will get back to me with a price on labor. Materials from http://www.remotecontroltech.com/ are about $1300 including a solar panel ($300) for the cistern transmitter since we don’t have power up there.