Kitchen Renovation - Days 1 and 2

All of this work was done by Chris and Bernard of Mural and Son. (Brookpark, OH).

Footing

holes for 
	footings

Chris and Bernard dug holes for the footings...and struck water! I thought this was a problem, so later I asked them about it and they said it happens all the time. They weren't worried about it. The concrete itself makes a watertight seal, so they were mostly worried about finding good, stable soil. They were satisfied with what they found.

Oberlin has a very high water table and everyone in the area has wet basements. We don't, but I suspect this is more because our basement floor is watertight than because our house is intrinsically dry. Some day I'm going to have to deal with the water issue, because the water is eating the foundation.

holes for footings

Here's the north footing hole. You can see brick spalling off the brick wall behind the footer hole. That's due to water infiltration from both outside and, in the past, inside—the house's dryer used to vent directly into the basement! The lint build-up wasn't attractive either. Don't try this at home.

poured concrete footing

South footing after pour. The footing is reinforced with steel rebar.

poured concrete footing

North footing after pouring concrete.

On to day 3.

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