Stripping the Forms off the Garage Walls

The North Wall with forms...

... and, at the end of the day, without.

The West Wall

with outside forms stripped off and inside forms still there.

Star (with his duct tape collar made by Angela)

and the west wall after the forms were all stripped off.

The South Wall

looking east, with most forms still in place.

Dad had already dug the concrete away from one of the 5 foot forms

and took it out.

Lee cleaning up the bottom of the hold outside the south wall.

(after all the forms had been removed)





Lee, using a grubbing hoe to break up the concrete
that had flowed around to the back of the form.
This was a 5 foot form but the bottom foot has concrete setting up.
If Lee doesn't break up the concrete, the form will be here permanently.






Lee is standing where the form was that Dad dug out.

Lee dug on the outside form while Rick and Mike stripped the inside forms.

Lee took a much needed "texting break".

The hole Lee is standing in and digging in was dug by Mike a few minutes earlier.

(before, the dirt went from the back door almost all the way to the forms)

Lee has got some big chunks of concrete out

and we think the form is almost ready to come out...

...so we called Mike over to help remove the form.

Mike knew just how to remove a stuck form...

You need to hit it with a sledge hammer

and work some 2 x 4's down in.

So you can pry the form off with the leveredge from the 2 x 4.

The concrete is still holding the bottom of the form in place from the outside of the form.

But Lee and Mike working together got it pulled away.

The sledge hammer moved it the last bit.

Now, they have to lift the 5 foot form

with the bottom foot of it filled with concrete
out of the hole.

This is a picture of the bottom of the back of the form.

They took it out the back door

and knocked the concrete out of the form

before it finished hardening.

Then Mike started trying to get the next form off.

After the other forms were off,

Lee went back and cleaned the plywood and wood braces out of the hole.

(the plywood was supposed to keep the concrete from getting behind the form)

(we don't know how it actually got back there)

Mike said that he was amazed at how fast the concrete hardened.

He had seen concrete walls that had sat 12 more hours that were less cured than this was.

They removed the pieces of 2 x 4 that were screwed down to the footing

which held the bottom of the forms in place.

There was enough pressure on the bottom of the forms to bend the bolts.

They removed all the braces and waylers and started removing the forms.

It is getting to be the end of the day. See how sweaty Mike is.

He worked so hard all day long.

Mike was there to help in every tough situation.

Mike always seemed to know what to do to get the tough forms off.

It was cooling off...

... the sun was going down.

We were so happy to be getting the last forms off.

Tomorrow they will haul most of the forms away and ...

...then it won't look like such a construction zone.

Pouring the Garage Walls (in 3 parts)

The Cement truck drove in as close to the garage door as possible

and extended his chutes as far into the garage as possible.

The cement would go into the wall midway

between the front and the back corner.

It should flow toward both the front and the back and fill the walls.

Lee called his friend Josh to help because Ron and Mike had not arrived yet.

(Josh came even though he "doesn't even like the smell of projects")




The concrete flowed to the front of the Garage very well....

but not toward the back of the garage.

We heard cracking and popping noises.

Mike went down to see what was happening.

What do you think, Mike?

The Braces were sinking into the soft clay dirt.

We needed more braces to hold the wall upright.

We should pour concrete directly into the front wall.

Lee and Josh worked on the front wall while.....

everyone else discussed what to do with the side wall that was leaning over.

Rick and Glen wondered if it was safe to continue to add concrete ...

...to a wall that is already leaning and ....

...we don't know if the additional bracing will be enough to hold it upright.

They decided to try again.

But the concrete would not flow around this back corner.

They would have to drag the concrete around the corner to the back wall.

Dragging concrete is so much work.

With a little creativity (and using our plank to the front door)

we could send the concrete directly to the back wall.

They braced the end of the plank and the end of the chute.

Yes, that is the tow rope holding the whole thing together.

The long chute and plank was not very sloped ...

and the sides were not very high so they had to drag the concrete into the wall.

So they added 2 x 4 sides to funnel the concrete to the wall.

We got Glen off the ladder and had Mike tend the chute.

They were able to pour all the walls full.

There was barely enough concrete to finish the walls.

We did not have a disaster.

The walls did not come tumbling down.