The first truck of concrete showed up at 7.00 on the dot, exactly as scheduled...
... but the pump truck was nowhere to be seen! After some stressful phone calls, it turns out they were stuck in traffic- or so they said. But concrete can't wait forever, or even for 1/2 an hour, so an executive decision was made to go ahead and pour it directly into the footings, without the pump! This necessitated the driver backing up the cement truck into our 'garage'.
This was the first time, but will surely not be the last, that Sam was thrilled he'd decided on extra-high ceilings for the garage- otherwise the truck wouldn't have fit!
Then they started pouring the concrete, and everything started moving very quickly. I just did my darndest to stay out of the way. They began at what will be the back wall of the garage. Everyone wore sunglasses in spite of it being an overcast day, because concrete was spattering everywhere, and hot concrete in the eye is a bad thing.
There was an overwhelming sense of urgency during this whole procedure: although it moves like molten lava as it's poured, concrete apparently starts setting pretty quickly, so it is imperative to make sure that it's going where you want it, just enough, not too much, fill in all the holes, more over here, ok that's good hold it...
Surprisingly, the whole process struck me as rather balletic- the main guy in charge of the directing the chute on the ground (Brian) communicating through a series of hand gestures with the guy who was driving the truck and manipulating the 'pour' dial (do they have a dial? who knows- maybe it's a switch), while all the other men on the ground do their choreographed parts at the right times...
They have a nifty tool called a vibrator, which does what you'd expect it to. What you might not expect is the effect the vibrating has on the concrete: it kind of 're-liquifies' it, so that it sinks and settles in farther, running into crannies it hadn't been in before. It's quite amazing.
The fast pace, the urgency... it all combined to make Sam mistep and sscreech his shin down a length of rebar, giving him a nasty cut (which has since taken on a nasty bruise as well).
So we patched him up good and protected it from future concrete splatter...
(you can see that the cat-food bowl was still full from that morning: I think the big trucks were too much for them!)
And then we sent him merrily on his way to play in the mud again, since the second concrete truck was pulling up. :) Total time elapsed so far: 38 minutes.
Once the second truck was in, they built up the 'chute'...
... and then started pouring in the outside wall:
You can see Sam working the vibrator in that last shot. He was really struck by how well it worked. Good tools make him happy!
Here you can see all seven guys working on the side wall. Everyone was moving very quickly and with purpose, each person had their role. It was impressive.
Towards the end of truck #2, the side of the house looked like this (total time elapsed so far: 1 hour):
Note that just the footings are poured so far- the wooden forms aren't filled up yet- that happens later, once the concrete in the footings has begun to set.
Right around now, our neighbor from down the street (the one who had all the work done to keep his house from falling down the hill) stopped by with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for everybody! Very quickly the once-full box looked like this:
And when he stopped briefly to eat one, Sam looked like this, my warrior:
(That was the 'before' shot: after he ate the doughnut he was smiling!)
They then went around and cleaned off all the wooden supports so that once the concrete was set just enough, the supports could be removed:
And then the pump truck arrived! At 8.30, just in time for the third truck of concrete!
The pump must be amazingly powerful: it shoots concrete through a hose like water! This, of course, makes it quite a bit easier to aim than just using the chute...
Then they filled in and 'made pretty' the first part of the patio...
And this is when I left to go to school, just as the fourth (and last) concrete truck was lining up (2 hours from when we started).
When I got home, all of the inside forms had been removed, and we had a concrete wall around the perimeter of the garage!
Here you can see the triangle of concrete- inside the triangle is where Sam's 'garage bathroom' and the compressor room will go.
First Sam showed me the stuff he was particularly proud of, such as the fact that the footing for the column that will hold up the patio in the back is perfectly level:
Then he showed me the less-than-pefect stuff, none of which is really a problem. Like the places where the wood separators that kept the forms spaced a perfect 8-inches apart weren't removed...
... or the fact that the three parts of the outside stem-wall aren't perfectly straight, because the weight of the concrete caused the forms to bend a bit:
After a stressful-but-satisfying day, Sam's leg was a bit worse for the wear...
...so he took a break on the unpoured half of the patio.
While I noticed a part of our yard that still looks quite pretty:
And that was it for our construction site until Monday! But I guess Sam hadn't had his fill, for after studying the plans all weekend revving up for the framing, he decided to help Michelle begin to lay a path down her hill!
After THAT was done, the three of us went and got a frozen yougurt and relaxed!
And so, dear reader, we have footings and some stem walls! As I left this morning, construction was gearing up again: Sam was planning to remove the outside forms from the concrete, and to start grading the dirt in the 'garage' in preparation for the slab!
Stay tuned!
