Foundation Filling and Beams

We have used our sawmill and cut the beams that will support the floor downstairs.  For us it was better to cut one solid beam rather than nail 2x12's together.  They range in size from 4x12 up to 8x12 and the longest one is over 26 feet long.

It is hard to find a tree that is big enough to get a solid beam of these sizes, so on some of these beams you may note that there is still a little of the outside edge, not to worry this will be the side that goes down which will leave the flat side up for nailing. 

Another part of the foundation work is going back and filling in all of the blocks with concrete.  Originally we were going to fill every other one, but it is proving to be more difficult to do this so we just decided to fill them all. 

John and I have been mixing concrete nearly every day for over a week, we are about 75% finished with that and we will finish it up on Thursday.

Pouring into small holes is proving difficult, which not only adds to the time that it is taking but also to the amount of wasted concrete mix.

A helpful note, keep the drying concrete mix scraped off of the blocks very good, it will help when installing the rim boards.