Day 25/26 - Concrete Evidence

Friday, February 8, 2013 was a perfect Hill Country day.  Mild temperature, low humidity, little wind, clear skies - all the things you need to successfully pour 200 cubic yards of concrete.  Our day started early with the concrete pump truck arriving around 6:00am.  The arm silhouetted in the sky was used most of the day to carry the cement from the trucks to various locations on the foundations of the house and pool house.

First Cement Truck

There were nine of these bright orange cement trucks making runs back and forth from Ingram Redimix in San Marcos.  The drivers performed an amazing ballet of moving in and out of tight spaces and queuing up in a very orderly manner to keep the concrete flowing to the pump truck.  When they finished pumping their load of concrete, they moved over to a cleaning area to hose down their trucks and then drove back to pick up another load.

Pedro

Ranger Concrete Contractors provided the crew to work the cement as it was poured.  On the left is Pedro in his gear before he started to work.  These guys used all kind of tools on the job - from a sophisticated laser to measure the surface levels to hand trowels and polishers to finish the job.  The first concrete was poured to form the pool house foundation, then the body of the house and porches were filled, and finally, the garage was poured.






Here are some shots of the work in progress.

Cement moving from truck to pumper

First concrete poured - at pool house

Pumper reaching across house to pour pool house

Cement from pumper filling in beams in house

Working on filled beams to remove air pockets

Remote Controller totally controlled the arm activities

Bruce and Randy w/Ingram "supervising"

Cleaning truck before getting another load

Laser to measure level

Smoothing the kitchen floor

Happy Homeowners

Neighbor Dave talking to workers at the Pool/Mechanical House

View across the back porch

Nancy with Kyle & Keith from Mattern & Fitzgerald Builders

Pump truck folding up for the day 

Setting anchor bolts in foundation 

View across house to garage being poured

We decided to have a salt finish on the front, back, and pool house porches.  After the concrete was smoothed, a bag of salt was spread over the surface.  After a hour or so, a worker used a hammer to break up the larger chunks of salt into the surface.

Creating salt finish

Using a machine to finish the slab

THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!

We were lucky to have many friends (including furry friends) come by to watch this important milestone be accomplished.  Many thanks to Melinda for bringing dozens of kolaches for friends and crew to enjoy!  And thanks for all the advice we received from friends who have lots of experience in building houses.

End of the day visit
From left: Sydney, Hoyt, Bruce, Melinda, Dave

It was a great day and the crews did excellent work building the foundation.  We are ready for the next steps!!!!!!!

Furry Friends of the Day

These two good looking guys are Little T and Clyde.  They split their time between their home in Virginia and their home next door to us.  They are inseparable friends and so well trained that they stayed in the back of their Dad Dave's ATV during their entire visit to the big concrete pour.  We are so glad they came to visit us on this important day.