Second Home 2nd Floor Forming

Our Second Home is moving right along as well. With the first floor walls and columns all formed up, the crew has begun work on the second floor. Rumor has it they will construct a temporary roof over the entire floor (you can see where it has been started) to keep out snow and ice, two variables unacceptable in concrete construction. We are on schedule for our concrete pour, and I will have that posted with a possible steel work post in between.

First Home Complete Drywall

Home One is looking great with the scaffold removed and the siding all wrapped up. Takada-san and the boys have finished hanging drywall in the interior of the home, and have finished the flooring and most of the interior finish work. Another point of interest here in Japanese home construction: performing all finish work before the other interior sub`s have completed their bits. The washitsu (Japanese style room) is progressing nicely, and the boys were installing the tracks for the shoji sliding doors. Really, really nice work.

Second Home Column Forms

Hokkaido styles. 5:30pm, pitch black, -7 degrees Celsius and snowing. This is how we do it here. With the rebar work all wrapped up, the mobile crane was back to start setting forms for the columns that will hold the second floor. I like the way the snow forms perfect little snow pillows on top of the columns. Too cool.

First Home Siding and Flooring

After a fairly large snow fall, our first home has been graced with a nice shade of white. The siding crew was just short on material, but by looking at the left side of the home one can garnish an overall image of the home will look like when complete.
Takada-san whipped his way through the first floor flooring (even though the planks are half the width that he is used to, doubling the amount of time required to lay them), and will install the stairs and start the second floor flooring today. It`s looking like there will be no problem having the home ready for the new owners, with time to spare for moving in and setting up furniture, electronics and the like.

Second Home Column Rebar

After a successful pour yesterday, the steel crew has begun to extend the rebar in the columns while the scaffold guys re-erect the scaffolding. In the video you will see the process utilized to join two pieces of rebar together. After heating the steel, a compressed air is used to squeeze the two bars together. Another extreme measure here in Japanese construction. Why simply tie the bars together with tie wire when you could actually join them? Fascinating.

First Home Siding and Flooring

Our Second Home is seeing great progress. The boy`s have almost wrapped up the siding, and Takada-san and his crew have began the flooring inside the home. I would imagine the siding should be done by tomorrow, and knowing Takada, it wont be long before the flooring is finished.

Second Home 1st Floor Slab Pour

It`s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Furano. The snow refused to let up as we poured another 100 cubic meters into the foundation at Home Number Two. With a thickness of 30 centimeters, the slab should be plenty strong to hold up the rest of the building and to withstand any force that Mother Nature throws at it.
The carpenters and steel crew will be back tomorrow to start forming the columns and exterior walls. Word is the second floor slab will be poured (scheduled for December 29th) in conjunction with the walls and columns, so I expect a fairly large quantity of concrete will run through the proposed two pumps at the job site. By that time, winter will be in full swing, and there is talk of covering the entire job site with a tent. Let it snow, let it snow.

Second Home Slab Backfill/Rebar

Home Two was scheduled for another concrete pour today, but we`ve run two days behind. Apparently, plumbers and electricians didn`t fall into play properly, which through a curve ball at the project. The steel workers were back to finish installing the rebar for the first floor slab, while the boys working for the foundation sub-contractor`s tidied up a bit of back fill (pocket pool 8 ball in the side pocket; watch closely and let me know if you get that joke!). Look for an update on Thursday after the pour, which your`s truly plans on making a guest appearance . Clear cut and concrete, I`ll be a finisher for life!

First Home Drywall Work

Moving right along at our First Home, Takada-san and Okunaga-san have been ripping through sheets of drywall, pausing only long enough to let the dust settle so they can see. With our completion date of mid-December fast approaching, the boys set a fervent pace to ensure the new owners will be able to enjoy their Christmas break stay here in Furano.
Unfortunately, there aren`t many huge changes that jump out at you. But, if you look closely, you`ll see the wiring (obviously) is all wrapped up, insulation is installed in the first floor ceiling, unit baths are in (but unfortunately filled with cardboard, look for a post in the very near future), and, siding arrived at the job site today.
Hey, Okunaga-san, watch those fingers cutting such small pieces of wood in the chop saw! The new owners wont be happy to have one of the boys lose a finger in their new home!

Second Home Stripped Forms

With forms stripped and scaffolding removed, the foundation at our Second Home looks like it could be the frame of the `Millennium Falcon`. The plumbers have arrived to lay pipe, and everything is on schedule for another pour next week Tuesday.

Second Home Foundation Pour

We had a busy day up at the hill yesterday. At Home Number Two, we poured 100 cubic meters of concrete into the wood forms that will support the home. Since Japan (along with the rest of the world except America) uses the metric system, concrete quantities are in cubic meters. Yet, to conform with international standards (except for the US), concrete strengths are measured in Newtons. Regular everyday concrete has a strength of 21N, but for large structures such as this, 24N is the minimum. In kg per cm2 it goes like this. Everyday concrete apparently has a strength of 240kg/cm2 which converts to 3440lb/in2, making average concrete slightly stronger than US concrete at 3000lb/in2. In regard to slump, 18-21cm is the norm, for this foundation we ended up pouring 12cm. Quite stiff, even when thoroughly vibed.
The two meter boxes that make up the actual footing that the columns will sit on were poured first, followed by the grade beam that tied every single footing together. Something that really impressed me was the foundation company actually had a laborer follow the crew with a bucket of water and a brush and scrub any splashed concrete off of rebar that was waiting to be poured. In essence, any mess that was made on the first trip around with the pump was promptly cleaned up, so that concrete would stick to rebar in a portion of the foundation that was waiting to be poured during successive passes of the pump, or any any rebar in the columns that will be poured in conjunction with the second floor.
Everything went smooth, and the carpenters are back today removing forms and preparing the first floor slab, which is scheduled for a pour on Tuesday, the 13th of November.

Second Home Rebar Work

At our Second Home, the boys are hard at `er working on the rebar for the foundation. I have never, in a rather varied career in construction, seen such detailed rebar work. Our site supervisor actually busts out an electronic micrometer and measures the space between bars. I am not kidding, it blows my western mind. I was talking to a friend of mine about it, saying that rebar workers I know back home would be fired for doing such nice work since it takes a little bit longer. His response was these workers live with the work they have done everyday for the rest of their lives, and they wouldn`t be able to sleep knowing they performed any less than perfectly.
The floor of the second story will actually sit just a bit higher than the height of the columns in the first shot. That puts it just a tad higher than the existing retaining wall. After that, there is still two more stories to go, putting the fourth floor way up there. Have a look at the pictures from the First Homes roof, then add in the difference of elevation in the land plus one more story, and lets imagine the view from the fourth floor. I predict it should be nothing less than spectacular.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Insulation/Windows

Up at our first home things have been moving right along since the last blog entry. Exterior insulation has been affixed, and all doors and windows (aside from front entrance door) have been installed. The electricians are also on the scene installing boxes and running wires. And, the roofers came out and applied the waterproof coating to the roof.
The lead carpenter on the job, Takada-san, makes a brief appearance as he works on the framing that will hold the actual floor that will be walked on, which ends up being above the concrete foundation. This style doesn`t make a whole lot of sense to me other than keeping the plumbing and electrical out of the concrete foundation. In the shot of the family room, you will see a pile of plastic tubing that kind of looks like a giant worm. The worm actually unravels across the whole floor and keeps the concrete and wood dry as the house is sided and roofed.
Drywall will be delivered to the jobs site tomorrow, and I promised the carpenters I would help them stock it in the various rooms. Uh oh, here comes that sore back again. I`d better go make my appointment with Abe-san (the local chiropractor) now!
I received requests to mix up the music a bit, so I went with a deep roots reggae vibe for this bit. I`m always open to requests, and if I don`t have something, I`m sure I can find it.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

Second Home Start of Rebar Work

After a ridiculously long wait (by Japan standards anyway), we finally have all permitting in hand and are ready to begin full operations up at the site. The permit book ended up being 800 pages long and would probably take me the rest of my life to read in any detail. The boys poured about 15cm of concrete outlining where the foundation will sit, and have begun to erect scaffold and tie the rebar mats and columns. There is a whole lot of work to go, but it`s going to be nice to finally see steady progress.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Top of Roof

I was just up at the home last night, and this is kind of a nice shot of sunset I thought. This is taken from the roof of the home. I didn`t have time to go one story down to the bedroom, but it doesn`t change much except for the power lines running right through the middle. What to do, what to do.
This is a shot of what the city (er, town) lights look like at night. Not nearly like Tokyo, but for a town of 25,000, still beautiful.
This is another shot from the roof, but shows a lot of crows heading south. I asked one of the carpenters I was with whether or not they actually were heading south, but he had no clue. He kind of thinks he sees them around all winter. I`m not 100% sure what they do either.
This is how we do it in Japan. 6:30, pitch black, minus 1 degree Celsius and still going for it.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Second Floor Framing

First things first. The background noise in this footage was loud enough, so I didn`t add music to this one. The lovely highs of 2 stroke motors and diamond blades sawing through concrete combined with the mids and bass of pounding hammers was good enough.
This is an overall look at the interior of the building. The first shot is taken from where the fireplace will sit and moves across the family room to the lofted ceiling. The second shot looks back towards the dining area and out the back doors. Next, we move up stairs and stand in the study nook looking back down the vault and pan across the hallway ending at the door to the veranda. The next shots all move around the veranda.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Framing

The first floor walls and second story floor framing are complete at Home One. After the prefabbed walls are dropped at the site, a portable crane drives to the job and lifts everything into place. This time around, the completed garage and overhead power lines provided a bit of a challenge for the crane driver. Yet, as always, the Japanese pulled for the team and good progress is being made. Nobody even got electrocuted!
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Garage Wall Pour

We had a little break in the weather today, and were finally able to pour the concrete walls that will make up the garage of the home today. Once the wooden forms are taken off, the concrete that is contained within them (with hopefully only a small amount of grinding and polishing) will create the exterior finish of the garage. It`s a fairly labor intensive process, but once complete, gives a building a sleek, modern appearance.
The carpenters will come in tomorrow to bolt 4x4`s to the concrete slab which will hold the floor joists. It`s a different style of construction than I`m used to but does make sense. Rather than bury the plumbing and electrical in the concrete slab, everything runs through the void created by raising the actual floor you walk on above the concrete slab. We lost a couple days to rain, and the walls are now scheduled to arrive at the job next week Monday.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Garage Form Work

Again, foreboding rain in the works tomorrow, so our garage wall concrete pour is uncertain. But, the form and steel work is pretty much complete and ready to go. Looking forward to being covered in concrete on more time.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

Second Home Dig Complette

Here is the completed dig up at Furano-jo(castle). It`s hard to imagine what the place will actually be like when completed, but standing in that ditch is quite impressive. Obviously, the white lines represent the layout of the footings, with the larger squares indicating where steel pillars will sit. The boys will pour about 15cm of concrete within the white lines, then start the forms for the more substantial footings that the building will actually sit on. Since the dig is below the footings of the existing retaining walls, notice the steel piles driven about 5 meters deep to hold the walls from sliding.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

Second Home Foundation Dig

Over at the Second Home, we`ve begun to dig the cavernous pits that will house the foundation the building sits on. There are no `Hito-bashira` planned for this home!:) A quick Google search of `Hito-bashira` will confirm the ancient Japanese tradition of placing a living human in the recesses of a building`s foundation and, of course, leaving him there forever. Obviously, the Japanese don`t actually perform this ritual anymore. The coolest thing I have seen them do though, is after performing the traditional ground breaking ceremony, the wooden stakes that mark the four corners of the lot (and also represent the four points of a compass) are actually buried under the home`s foundation.
Still no permits here, but there is again talk of them being printed this week.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Garage Wall Rebar Work

Yet another wet day in Furano, but still great progress up at the job site. The rebar workers were out in force today, tying the steel that will reinforce the concrete walls of the garage. True to steel worker (and cement finisher, for that matter) personality traits, the expletives were flying around the job site faster than I could even come close to understanding them. Quite a rough bunch. But hey, they can definitely slap up sticks of rebar. Rebar work should be done tomorrow, and if all goes well with the rest of the forming, mixers are scheduled for another pour on the 17th. The 2x4 walls are scheduled to arrive at the job site on the 18th.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Garage Wall Form Work

Just got back from the job site now, and we`ve had great progress on the garage wall forming already. This will be the front of the home as you head into the garage. With the concrete garage and black siding, the home should have a nice presence in the neighborhood. Just need to trim that tree a wee little bit!
Here is the slab all finished up. That big rectangular hole in the front of the picture will be the `hori kotatsu`, or sunken dining area. The step down will be the rear porch.
This would be the view looking off right. Don`t make me chop those power lines!!
I am pretty much standing on what will be the level of the veranda floor, and this is the view looking off left.
Since the walls will be poured in place concrete, once the forms are removed, that`s it. The finish at that point will be `what you see is what you get`. Therefore, the boys brought out nice, new clean sheets of plywood. The white sheets affixed to the plywood will help to keep rough spots in the concrete further in control.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Slab Pour

Last week Friday we poured the slab that our First Home will sit on. The day started off super misty and was foreboding rain, but the Shinto priest stopped by the job and asked the rain gods to go away. Nah, seriously, the day turned out to be beautiful and the job ended as planned without incident. Oh yeah, that`s me, the skinny white guy in the blue jumper with the spanky new helmet on. Haven`t slung concrete in a while. My back was actually quite sore Saturday morning!!
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

Second Home Grading

Over at Home #2, we are still waiting for permits. The boys have begun to cut the lot down to a more reasonable grade. At present, there is almost a meter and a half rise from the low side of the street to the middle of the lot. Bringing the whole lot down will provide an easier grade, and even though the driveway will be heated, cars will have less of a chance slipping on all that ice and snow.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Scaffold and Rebar Work

At our first home, we began erecting scaffolding and finishing up the rebar work for the concrete pad. If it doesn`t rain tomorrow, we are scheduled to pour at 8:00am. If it is just lite rain there won`t be a problem, but heavy rain is not conducive to concrete pours.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

Second Home Wall Demolition

We brought out the big guns and finished off the remaining pieces of retaining wall. Final permitting is apparently to be out this week, so I look forward to big progress in the very near future.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Stem Wall Pour

Today we poured the stem walls for the actual house to sit on. While the walls and roof of the garage will be concrete, the home itself will be 2x4 wood framed sided with insulated steel siding. I`m not sure why we made two separate pours for the garage and house, but we did. Again, it was an incident free pour, and in an hour and a half we had three mixers (Japan size) back on the road for their next delivery. Next comes garage wall and roof forming. Since the finish of the concrete inside the forms will remain once they are removed, care is required to make sure the job is done once. I imagine forming and steel work alone will take us through the end of next week. Until then...
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

Second Home Wall Demolition

One half of this wall is inconveniently in the way of the owner`s new home. No match for the Komatsu 50,000 pounder, we easily remove it. Well, maybe not easily, some beatings were involved. You`ll notice in the video the boys inserting steel pipes into the dirt behind the wall, and then laying a sheet of plywood over them. This keeps the fill from behind the wall that remains from falling out.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Garage Stem Pour

After the base footings, this was the second concrete pour at this site. All went well, no blow outs. It was a good day!
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Garage Form Work

Garage form and steel work close to completion at our company`s first home.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Steel and Base Form Work

This video shows the amount of rebar delivered to the job site and form work for the footings.
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Footings All Dug Out

This is the completed dig. Not much to say, just a lot of holes!
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Footings Being Dug

This is a shot of the foundation being dug at the Schmidt residence. Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp

First Home Batter Boards

A quick shot of the boards used to layout elevations and the lines for the concrete foundation form work. The weather wasn`t to great this day in Furano!
Furano, Hokkaido, Japan. Ski, snowboard, enjoy.
www.furanorealestate.jp