Day 18 - Parge parge parge!

The rain has held off for a few days, so the crew is making a lot of headway. Today was parging (the cement based outer coat of the wall used to waterproof it) and filling the holes in the wall with cement. The crew set up a big mixer at the top of the ramp and set to work.


Cherry stump shot. Here you can see that they have completed the walls to the top and covered the entire back wall with the waterproofing. It is about a third to a half of an inch thick. This is what the existing house had as a basement wall as well. In fact, in this shot you can see the existing parging under the short windows of the existing basement. The stairwell went down to the left and was finished in brick, but the rest of the basement was block with this parge coat.


Another view across the back of the basement wall.


Where the wall was not in direct sunlight, the surface coat has taken longer to dry. I imagine that they will want this stuff to set on the wall exposed like this for a couple of days before back filling the hole. This is definitely not a step that you want to rush, so they should take as long as they need.


Near the bottom of the wall, you can see where the parge coat comes all the way down and angles out into the soil. Even though, I have no idea if it is true, that seems like the right way to do it. So good job! (I think)


A view of the awning window opening for the living room.


The exposed block will be in the stairwell. The thinking is that we will either coat this with the same stuff or paint it with cement block water proof paint. Brick would be nice but aside from the cost, we thought it would make the stairwell very dark, so a lighter earth tone is probably the best bet.


They also waterproofed the outside retaining wall of the stairwell. This would be the place where lesser masons might shortcut. Not so with Juan and his crew.


I really have no idea how this blog software chooses to rotate images. This is sideways, but was intended to show the dam that they constructed on the ramp down to the pit to keep the cement overflow from draining down into the pit.


The sun is shining today and that is really helping.


Inside view of the west wall.