Progress

I need to get the pics up, but I am happy to report that I have completed construction of the concrete wall in the back. No more leaks! I feel victorious. I actually poured the wall in two pours, one a few weeks ago, and the second this past weekend. There is literally more than a ton of concrete in the wall, which is at least 9 inches thick, someplaces thicker. I haven't removed the form yet, as I have been waiting for the concrete to harden up. I will get some pictures taken before and after I take the form off. The form itself was quite a job to construct. Luckily, I was able to recycle nearly all of the material from the former war to use in construction of the form.

I nearly had a disaster during the construction. As I was filling the forms with concrete, and the weight increased, part of the form started to bow out, creating a seam from which some concrete was starting to leak out. As the pressure increased, the bowing grew larger. I was afraid the form would collapse and I would have an avalanche of concrete on my hands. What a huge mess that would have been! I'm afraid if that had happened, I may have taken dynamite to the whole project. Luckily, my 8-year-old son alerted me to the problem before it got too bad, and we were able to scramble and shore up the form with a couple of two by fours and a bunch of screws . We were able to close the gap and shore up the form, and only lost a couple of handfuls of concrete. As a kind of a cool side benefit, the forms stayed a little bowed out, making the wall have a bit of a rounded shape. That would be terrible if we were building most any other structure, but for a hobbit-hole, roundness is a good thing!