progress report: concrete

last week björn and i kept ourselves busy, just organizing all of the work to be done was a full time job.  luckily we had some great help, jack baer joined us again thursday and friday to work on the foundation.  on thursday björn and jack squared the entire foundation and tied all of the rebar.  i also tied a ton of rebar and my legs and knees are still paying for it.  it wasn't until we were finished setting up and tying all of that #5 rebar that we realized our foundation could probably hold a skyscraper, thats how beefy the slab foundation was going to be.  thursday night björn and jack worked late into the evening to make sure the forms were square- my grandfather warned us against having a trapezoid for a foundation.


thursday night i couldn't sleep- neither could björn, i felt like the next day was christmas, the thought of pouring the concrete on friday was making us both really nervous, and excited too.  so much could go wrong, did we have the right crew, would it be too cold to pour, would everything go as planned, did we plan enough?  well, friday came and thank goodness everything went well.

the schwing truck- this pumps the concrete

nichols concrete was awesome to work with and their trucks were impressively clean

the arm on the schwing truck is huge (and this is the small one)

look how beautiful our rebar looks- in order to have the rebar sit in the middle of the
8" slab we set the rebar on "chairs"  this brings the grid up 4"

here comes the concrete truck - sandco inc concrete (now im really nervous)

rob our concrete pumper was great- here the boys are getting ready for the first pump

there it goes- no turning back now

the guys worked in quadrants starting in the "main" house.  jack and petey work
at leveling the pour

rob is bull floating- which makes a very smooth surface, jack and petey are screeting
and björn is helping to move the concrete around

things are going well, the main house is poured- now working on the great
room side of the house

my job- while the concrete is wet i am sticking in the pre-bent #4 rebar you saw here

these vertical pieces of rebar will be what ties the stem wall and the slab together
eventually- don't you love my sparkly headband and concrete attire

my finished vertical rebar- these had to be placed 24" on center around the
entire perimeter, we also roughed up the area around the uprights so that
the stem wall blocks can get a good grip on the slab

björn using a specialty float to create a beautiful smooth finish

the concrete is poured and setting up- we covered this with plastic and concrete blankets
to keep it nice and warm so that the curing process continues

good thing we poured on friday because this is what happened saturday

our winter wonderland

we couldn't have asked for a better crew- jack was instrumental in making sure the pour went smoothly, and his expertise was invaluable.  petey was also a great person to have on site- he has a ton of concrete experience and worked well with the team.  we were all amazed at how well the pour went, it was a very chill job site and at the end of the day everyone was eating bbq and drinking beer.   i was so proud of how we handled the whole job, everyone worked so well together and i think we all had fun too!  we are looking forward to pouring the stem walls this week!