Did I ever think I’d be in construction no I definitely thought I could find a better career than this the labour and the intense instruction concretes one of the hardest things you can ever do I mean I think you’re probably last 25 years before your body really starts to break down I was picturing myself like you are you know being a lawyer or something A veterinarian. I think when you start it’s great you learn a lot it’s a great thing to have to fall back on if you going to a different industry and you end up not being able to do it or things crash there’s no business in that market anymore than you can always go back to construction but to have it as a lifelong career is just unless you’ve become a big company and you’re making good money and you’re out on your own it’s just not a great thing to do like foundation is in framing are really hard very labor-intensive people think it’s easy to frame a house but it’s not.

So you want to build a foundation well there’s a lot more to it than I can tell you obviously but I’ll do the best I can yes start with the footing 2 x 6 are you going to want to run those parallel and then put cleats on which are just one by four nail them in with 22 inch nails on each side letting them stick out a little bit so they’re easy to pull after you want to layer footings in your your foundation will be pinned by a survey or once your footings are in I mean there’s a lot more to this site it’s hard to explain then you’re going to go up with plywood or you can use boards which is re-sign basically one by eight you gonna put them on top of each other you want to throw up right to buy fours up and then you know your boards into that they sit on the footings no a lot of people will pour footings first then do your walls on top I’ve mostly done mono poor but some people prefer depending if you’re using plywood you want to pour your footings first if your are using boards then it doesn’t matter you can do a mono the chances of your walls floating is slim as long as you stick down your footings good yeah normally on a foundation like that you’re gonna want to put rebar in depending on how high your walls are I mean if you gonna go over 6 feet you want to put a 1 foot grid in two rows of steel and the footings tied up to the cleats now when you’re putting your footings down you want to make sure that your ground is hard pan otherwise it won’t be approved and your footings of sink later on in life so yeah that’s a huge thing make sure that your ground is hard I’m see if your walls are under for 5 feet he just put one roll of steel on the topJust to keep it from chipping away or breaking put an upright every 4 feet No there’s little tricks you can do you are use finishing nails because when you pull your forms apart are they come out with a 2 x 4’s that you have up right and it makes it a lot easier you live when you’re pulling boards on the nails in the flopping around it’s just not easy no you want to save all the wood from this use it when you’re building your house some people don’t why not why I don’t know I mean it’s a huge waste are you going to want to Greta a good concrete company some companies have different textures different slump different just their concrete is not a good quality it’s got more rock for me I like itPasty it’s good to have a floor bought a 4 inch slump it’s all preferably what you want to much water to get brittle concrete not enough you get brittle concrete There’s obviously a lot more to it but that’s all I can really explain to me and be careful obviously you don’t need a lot of tools you need a level a Skil saw you need to hire wire and lotta labour basically your foundation in your concrete is very labour-intensive so bring the young guys I can’t really explain much more I mean that’s about it from the basics of foundation

So you think you want to be a Carpenter it’s a lot harder than you think you are you U get into it thinking you know how it’s going to be a good job It will be easy it’s construction simple you know I don’t think it is it’s the hardest job in the world especially if you get into concrete concrete Will kill you it’s just brutal everything is big in the burk brackets pilosio panels all the stuff you com across is all heavy I found when I was forming on the commercial site that most people can’t cut it they lasted about three hours most of them and then they go home or some of them make it a day it’s a hard trade you really got a put your head down and just power through the first couple weeks otherwise you’re not gonna make it when I first started I was 18 my boss was an old German guy best guy I could’ve learned from if I could give any advice when you’re learning to do carpentry you want to have a beautiful teacher you can’t have some idiot that doesn’t know what he’s doing at all who slap shit together and doesn’t give a shit about quality square plum that kind of thing all things that are very important your foundation must be perfect or damn close to otherwise it follows you all the way to the roof so your walls are outYour whole house becomes out of square so yeah back to the concrete I am I think I was probably about 30 when I started the commercial concrete I was foreman on that site it took me about a month to move into foreman position I was quite lucky but I was given five guys and told to do all the tabla for the floors so we did a six floor condo it was nothing big it was a good size downtown Vancouver do you know when you’re given all these guys shit and you’re giving them instructions tell him what to do trying to work with the dynamics of all the different personalities different characters you’re really going to have your your head in the game because you need to know the dynamics of all these people so you know one guy might be a whiner one guy might be a family guy one guy doesn’t swear one guys churchgoing one guys a fucking asshole I mean it’s so all walks of life come in and youBe able to discern from what each person is going to need every day so you know but he’s whining he’s in a bad mood is getting nothing done you know I go up I say hey listen buddy take 5 or 10 minutes to go stand off to the side and just gather yourself and then come back to work when you’re ready and that works so good where is another guy you got to tell him to get the hell going And then you got guys with family problems and friggin car problems and it never ends relatives die people are sick guys don’t feel good in them kids are sick there’s so many different excuses why people don’t come to work I’ve heard them all I think I know grandma died three times this year anyway so working with all walks of life is a tough go and you have to know how to manipulate each person and not manipulate but just control them like puppets so they’ll do what you want when you want and listen to what you have to say and the respect you as a foreman for me I always worked as hard as they did or harder I think setting a good example is probably one of the best ways to motivate your crew if you were hard most people will follow suit That job I had as foreman I really enjoyed unfortunately there was a falling out with the owner that I won’t get into right now maybe another timeSo when you find that carpenter that you want to learn from make sure it’s the right guy that’s the biggest piece of advice because you will turn out just like your boss he teaches you to do things shitty you’ll be shitty thank you for reading Any questions or anything you might have just let me know