The Pour part deux

First couple of pickup trucks arrived around 7:30ish.  They carried workers hauling trailers loaded with the hand held floats and power floats that are used to make the surface of the slab nice and smooth.  Not slick smooth, that comes after its stained which is away down the road. 

The workers needed to finish putting up the drip ledge for the rock that will be installed on the bottom 3-4ft. of the walls.  The outside wall siding is something called Corten steel.  It's a steel that has a thin coating of something on it that rusts.  But it only goes so far and stops.  So in a matter of a couple of weeks you have a building that looks like it has been in place for years.  

So it will look similar to this but we will have red sandstone that comes up to and a little above the bottoms of the windows.  Bob and I think its aesthetically pleasing and looks like it belongs in the country setting.  IN OUR OPINION people build houses that dont look like they belong in the environment in which they are built, rather they looked like they are dropped from the sky and landed.  I understand you like what you like but building to suit your surroundings makes much more sense to both of us.  

There were a total of six trucks that carry 10 yards apiece and they used every bit..there was almost zero amount of waste...that's what a great GC will be able to do.  That way you get every bit that you need but not anymore that you dont and still have to pay for.  

That yellow box on the tripod stand is a laser level.  Once they get a fairly large area covered in concrete a guy has the corresponding unit on a stick.  He places the stick on top of the concrete and used a small handheld float to read whether he is high or low.  He continues to add or take away concrete from about a foot by 1 foot area until he gets it exactly correct and then mark's it with an X.  They use this area to level the concrete in an area.  This goes on all over the slab until they are finished and the slab is level in its entirety.  

If you blow up this picture and look at the guy in the plaid shirt you will see the corresponding laser unit on a stick.

You can see the guy in the foreground using a power float and further back a bull float.  

Here's the finished slab.  Typically it " cures" for a couple of days.  Our framing steel doesn't arrive till next week sometime so I dont think there will be any work going on till then if our GC has things scheduled correctly.  That's all till the next update. 

The pour

On friday morning I got this text from our General Contractor.

Whoopie!  Time was set for 7am.  Pretty excited.

Then later on that afternoon I got the following text.

Like I said before, I think the General Contractor has the hardest job.  He does this ballet of sorts with all the subs, keeping a schedule that is probably just one step away from total catastrophe.  And heres just an example of what can happen in a moment's notice.

Pour is currently scheduled for Monday morning at 9:30.

Slab Talk

So I heard the trucks before I saw them and was thrilled when they turned into our place.

This is the concrete crew.  They smoothed out all the dug up places and have begun to lay plastic and rebar.  

This is just a couple of hours later and they have made a lot of progress.  What happens next is that they reinforce the wooden forms, shoot it for level, make any adjustments and then they will pour.

This is end of day, they are finished.  Pour next but no date for that.  

This is stub out for guest bathroom.  The square frame is part of the shower.

Here you can see the rebar in the trenches.

This is stub up for Master bathroom...another type of frame for another style of shower.

Pour is next and I might have a date for that tomorrow.  But this is complete until we pour. 

Progress made

Plumber has been here since Monday working on all the stub ups, peatraps and drains.  Lots of progress has been made and hes a great guy.

If you look close at this picture you can see 4 pieces of rebar.  Those represent the drain lines for the guest bath.  We had a meeting yesterday about this bathroom.  I had just enough architecture classes in college to make me dangerous!  So even though I thought I'd drawn things to scale I hadn't and because I want a particular shower and a separate tub in here we had to draw it all out on paper several times to get it right.  And we did and I'm very happy.  But for the life of me now I cannot tell you how it all goes.  

This is mud room where washer, dryer, small utility sink, water heater, water conditioner, breaker box, spare fridge and spare freezer goes.  Seems like a lot in this room but breaker box goes recessed in the wall.  Water heater is an on demand system so it's a small unit mounted on the wall.  Water Conditioner fits under the water heater, washer, dryer and utility sink on a wall and other wall is for fridge and freezer.  

Looking from the back wall of the house past the kitchen and toward the master bedroom bath at the corner.

Drain in master shower.

Front left corner of the house where our bedroom will be, then master closet and master bath.

Right corner of house where 2 bedrooms, a guest bath, a fly tying room for Bob, the pantry and mud room will be.  

Just another shot from right front angle to back left of house.

Plumber thinks he will finish up today provided he gets the specs for the water conditioner.  Hopefully sometime this morning.  After he does that then he can smooth top, and put on plastic.  After that the concrete guys come and place and tie rebar and then pour.  No date on that yet we have to wait until plumber is finished.

Good help is so hard to find!

Today is Wednesday, plumber was supposed to be here on Monday but got held up by another job.  No biggie...it happens.  And then Tuesday but was held up again but I did meet with the electrician who has to run a line to the island in the kitchen for plugs and the freezer/ refrigerator drawers.  And to mark where breaker box will be in the mud room.  

Electrician was back this morning to do his thing and plumbers helper did not show up so tomorrow.....is what I'm being told.  I think after that is plastic, re-bar and pour but dont quote me...

This is for island in the kitchen.

This is stub up for breaker box in the mud room.  

Trenches, trenches and more trenches.

As you can see we have a couple more trenches.

This is for the plumbing...grey and black water lines.  Grey water is water from showers, sinks and washing machine.  Black water is from toilets usually combined with one sink line to help everything go into the septic tank.

While we wait for the plumber to return we (Bob and I got busy with the last of the water line from temp quarters to new house and electric from meter to down to where new house will be built.  

The black and white wires are the power.  The smaller green wire is the ground wire.  

All three wires are taped together along with the end of the muletape that was already pulled through and I'll stay up here and make sure that when Bob starts pulling at the other end the spools don't over roll.  It went really smoothly.  But we are not done yet, we need to pull from this end over to where the wire will hook into the existing power.  We wont do the actual hooking up...that's for the electrician but we need to get it over there.

So if you look closely and enlarge the picture just a bit you can see just to the right of the Bobcat where this wire needs to go.  And if you look down at the bottom of this picture you can see the pipe on the right...that's what this wire needs to go in in order to reach that spot on the other side.  

So this little black piece of foam is called a " mouse".  Tied onto it is a piece of string.  We will use a vacuum cleaner on blow to blow the mouse with the string through to the power grid.  Then onto to string we will tie the muletape and taped on the muletape will be the wires....got that!  

TaDa!  Just like that...took about 10 seconds.  

And there's the wire.  

And this is muletape.  It's a flat nylon rope.  Bob used it in the phone company and we bought a couple spools of it when we found it on line.  The stuff is great.  We always have some in every vehicle that we own as well as the Kawasaki Mule and of course it's in the shop and well house.  You never know when you are gonna need it and it lasts forever...well maybe not forever but certainly a long time.  

Here we go!

The crew came out and placed these stakes for the corners.

So they dig the parameter first and the shoot a string line to find what is level.  We thought this area was fairly level but theres about 2 feet difference from one side to the other.

So heres what it looks like before they start framing it out.

And here it is framed.  You can see on the left side there are more boards than on the right side.  Looks caddiewompus but that absolutely level from side to side, front to back.  

There is a trench that spans the length of the house and there are 2 trenches that intersect this trench.  The trenches have several jobs.  This is where some plumbing will run in conduit and also electric lines in conduit also.  The electric in this particular home is not much because I only have one line that needs to go in the middle of the floor.  It's actually for some plugs in my island in the kitchen.  It's also for a dedicated plug for my freezer drawers that are also in the island.  The rest of the electric will be strung through the walls.  

That's it for today.  I met with the plumber this morning to go over the rough in.  Hes supposed to be back on friday to start the rough in.  Then I think maybe the electrician comes to do his small part just for this stage.  Then comes I believe the plastic and rebar.