March 19
We poured the perimeter footing and stem wall yesterday and began stripping the forms today. It never ceases to amaze me- you spend a week making the mold, suspend steel bars in it, fill it with a liquid, next day pull off the mold and you have a monolithic cultured stone box onto which a house will stand for a century or more.
Too much fun........terry
Editor's note: Narrator is Terry Nordbye, West Marin contractor for over 30 years, who is newly fired up about reducing our carbon footprint in buildings with passive house renovation and construction.
Tuesday, March 16th- begin outside of forms

Friday, March 19th- foundation poured, forms partially taken off.

The house surrounded by the outside boards of the foundation boards with a ready pile of steel. The boards on the saw horses used for the forms will later be used for the roof rafters. The rest of the form boards we used were from the foundation of the Blue House.

Typically one uses Portland cement as the hardening agent in mixed concrete. Portland cement, derived mostly from heating limestone in a kiln is mined all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico. We used a 30% fly ash content to replace Portland cement in our cement mixture. The fly ash is a waste product from coal generated electricity plants. Turns out our fly ash comes from a coal fired generation plant in South Dakota, it is then trained down to a distribution plant in the bay area where it is then trucked to point reyes. Is fly ash more green than Portland cement? Depends on where the Portland cement was mined and manufactured and how it was delivered. Keep in mind the fly ash is waste where the Portland cement has to be made.

North east corner of foundation after forms are stripped off. Concrete will be back filled to just above line in concrete- 8" above finished grade. Bolts sticking up will attach to key wood members to anchor the house framing onto the concrete footing. Rock pile will be graded out flat as a bed for the next step- foam insulation for the slab.