Foundation
Next phase: Cinder blocks
I had roughly 60 cinder blocks laying around my yard in various places that I planned to use for this build. I ended up buying 15 new blocks to finish out an extra course that I had not planned on. I used Quickwall surface bonding cement to secure the blocks in place. It is a fiber reinforced portland cement product that is waterproof and when applied at 1/8" thick provides greater strength than traditional mortar joint construction. The blocks are dry stacked and then covered with the product. But before all that I needed to level up the blocks . I ended up with a corner being about 1" low compared to my highest point (can't go down, so all others must come up!). I used a 4 ft level with an 8ft piece of angle steel that was good and straight to level up the blocks on the corners and then I adjusted all of the blocks in between them. I used pieces of 2x8 that I could precisely cut to get the blocks as close to level as possible. After shims were placed, I mixed up mortar and filled the gap. This prevented me from using an excessive amount of quikwall, but also ensured that the block would not be subject to a load that was unsupported between the shims.
Just when everything was going smoothly, surprise surprise! A tree fell down right through where my coop would have been standing if I had built it in the fall when I was originally planning to. Thankfully God delayed my schedule and the only casualty was the grill (which still works despite the dent). It took a couple months to get back on track because life happens.
Once all the blocks were dry stacked and mortar was placed in any gaps as needed, it was time for the Quickwall. There was some learning curve for me because I have applied joint compound for drywall before and this was similar. Once the quickwall was applied and cured, I leveled out the soil inside the foundation and it was conveniently about 8" from the top, which will allow me to have 8" of bedding before even reaching the bottom of the walls, much less the doors. Following this, I then used the extra concrete that was leftover from pouring the footer to fill in several portions of the cinder block walls to give a place to secure the sill plate to. I also topped the blocks that would be in the doorway. Next I ran the electrical line. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have done that BEFORE I applied the quickwall, but I patched it up with hydraulic cement and called it a day. Electrical service consists of a 20 amp circuit that I dropped off the panel in my shed, which has a 50 amp, 240V circuit run to it. I ran underground wire instead of burying conduit the entire length. I ended up burying some conduit because of some of the things that were buried in the ground like sinks, ceramics, and other sharp edges that I did not want to cut the wire after it was in the ground. Once the the wire cleared those items it was buried directly. All the wire inside the coop was run inside of conduit to protect it from pecking beaks or chewing rodents that might gain access.
I had roughly 60 cinder blocks laying around my yard in various places that I planned to use for this build. I ended up buying 15 new blocks to finish out an extra course that I had not planned on. I used Quickwall surface bonding cement to secure the blocks in place. It is a fiber reinforced portland cement product that is waterproof and when applied at 1/8" thick provides greater strength than traditional mortar joint construction. The blocks are dry stacked and then covered with the product. But before all that I needed to level up the blocks . I ended up with a corner being about 1" low compared to my highest point (can't go down, so all others must come up!). I used a 4 ft level with an 8ft piece of angle steel that was good and straight to level up the blocks on the corners and then I adjusted all of the blocks in between them. I used pieces of 2x8 that I could precisely cut to get the blocks as close to level as possible. After shims were placed, I mixed up mortar and filled the gap. This prevented me from using an excessive amount of quikwall, but also ensured that the block would not be subject to a load that was unsupported between the shims.
Just when everything was going smoothly, surprise surprise! A tree fell down right through where my coop would have been standing if I had built it in the fall when I was originally planning to. Thankfully God delayed my schedule and the only casualty was the grill (which still works despite the dent). It took a couple months to get back on track because life happens.
Once all the blocks were dry stacked and mortar was placed in any gaps as needed, it was time for the Quickwall. There was some learning curve for me because I have applied joint compound for drywall before and this was similar. Once the quickwall was applied and cured, I leveled out the soil inside the foundation and it was conveniently about 8" from the top, which will allow me to have 8" of bedding before even reaching the bottom of the walls, much less the doors. Following this, I then used the extra concrete that was leftover from pouring the footer to fill in several portions of the cinder block walls to give a place to secure the sill plate to. I also topped the blocks that would be in the doorway. Next I ran the electrical line. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have done that BEFORE I applied the quickwall, but I patched it up with hydraulic cement and called it a day. Electrical service consists of a 20 amp circuit that I dropped off the panel in my shed, which has a 50 amp, 240V circuit run to it. I ran underground wire instead of burying conduit the entire length. I ended up burying some conduit because of some of the things that were buried in the ground like sinks, ceramics, and other sharp edges that I did not want to cut the wire after it was in the ground. Once the the wire cleared those items it was buried directly. All the wire inside the coop was run inside of conduit to protect it from pecking beaks or chewing rodents that might gain access.
