Pump House Walls

The Walls - 2012 ~ by Griz (aka Steve Stovner) ~
The lower portion of the west wall needed to be completely finished before put in position because of the proximity to the big tank. So I built a 16 x 12 foot "platform" out of 2 x 6's on which to construct the wall.

I used the man-lift (max 1,000 pound bucket load) as a crane to lift the west wall into position.

Robby went home for a dental appointment the week I did the west and east walls so I was all by myself. The main problem was positioning the wall over the anchor bolts. The man-lift controls in the bucket are proportional and allow smooth and small movements (very important when you are in the bucket at max boom extension). However, the ground level controls are simple on-off switches and with extended boom 3" is about the finest resolution I could achieve with short jogs of the control switches. With me at the man-lift controls (over 30' from the action) it was a bit of a pain to position the 5/8" holes in the wall sill over the 1/2" anchor bolts set in the concrete. In the end I offset the rigging rope so the wall was tilted, lowered it so that one end was resting on the end bolt and positioned it by hand over the first bolt. Then I could lower again and lineup the next bolt, etc.

The East wall went a bit smoother than the West.

2 walls do not a building make. But with all the shoveling, form work and concrete cost/hassle we went though, its feels good to be making progress on the actual structure.