Concrete day is always high-anxiety. You're basically ready. Just have to get a few tools out, and mark a couple lines to show where the anchor bolts get pressed into the wet concrete, and maybe knock a little foam out of the wall so the concrete can go all the way up to the stem wall. None of these things should take very long, and yet ... there is a truck with 20,000 pounds of concrete barreling down the interstate, due to arrive at 1pm. Ready, or not!
Our weekend started the usual way, with a few errands.
I said I needed to get a little foam knocked out before the concrete arrived. Being in a hurry with power tools is never a good idea. In this case, I had a tough time keeping the cord out of trouble while cutting on a vertical surface. It's like running over the cord with the vacuum, except it stops instantly...
1pm, Marvin showed up in the truck. As we had hoped, the chute was long enough to reach over the wall and dump concrete into the footer forms, where most of the concrete was going to be used. We still had to scoop the concrete along the forms end to end, but it sure beat having to lift it!
Here Eliot is loading a wheelbarrow to take concrete to the post support, the one spot we couldn't reach with the chute. Siggy's doing a great job smoothing the surface with a trowel.
We were done with the truck in about an hour and a half. It took another forty minutes to put on the finishing touches: stuffing in the anchor bolts and smoothing everything out one last time.
It felt great to get it done. All three of us were exhausted We changed our clothes and headed into town to pick up supplies at the lumberyard. While we were there, a train came by! Eliot took Siggy to enjoy it up close.
Back at the lot, Siggy found some swallow eggs. Cute! We're hoping the birdies hatch and have a delicious time devouring the local mosquitoes.
We pulled the forms off in the evening, and got the rest of the foam out to make room for some posts that will bolt to the wall. We loaded up the truck with trash to take to the dump in the morning.
Good night!
Our weekend started the usual way, with a few errands.
I said I needed to get a little foam knocked out before the concrete arrived. Being in a hurry with power tools is never a good idea. In this case, I had a tough time keeping the cord out of trouble while cutting on a vertical surface. It's like running over the cord with the vacuum, except it stops instantly...
1pm, Marvin showed up in the truck. As we had hoped, the chute was long enough to reach over the wall and dump concrete into the footer forms, where most of the concrete was going to be used. We still had to scoop the concrete along the forms end to end, but it sure beat having to lift it!
Here Eliot is loading a wheelbarrow to take concrete to the post support, the one spot we couldn't reach with the chute. Siggy's doing a great job smoothing the surface with a trowel.
Besides the footers and post base we poured two pads for the heat pump, one inside and one outside. We wrote everybody's names in the concrete on the outside pad. Woo!
We were done with the truck in about an hour and a half. It took another forty minutes to put on the finishing touches: stuffing in the anchor bolts and smoothing everything out one last time.
It felt great to get it done. All three of us were exhausted We changed our clothes and headed into town to pick up supplies at the lumberyard. While we were there, a train came by! Eliot took Siggy to enjoy it up close.
Back at the lot, Siggy found some swallow eggs. Cute! We're hoping the birdies hatch and have a delicious time devouring the local mosquitoes.
We pulled the forms off in the evening, and got the rest of the foam out to make room for some posts that will bolt to the wall. We loaded up the truck with trash to take to the dump in the morning.
Good night!
Yikes! Looks like an electrocution hazard to me! Glad the cement day went well.
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