Pouring the Floors

Well, we can't seem to do ANYTHING the easy way!!  We had the concrete truck scheduled for the day after the rainiest weekend of the summer.  A full concrete truck weighs, I'm told, 86,000 pounds. I wasn't surprised when it sank up to both axels.  In this situation we had two options.  We could just dump the load where it sat and try to get the truck out, or we could unload the truck by wheelbarrow.  Obviously, we chose to unload the truck by hand.. With all of the chute extensions, it was about ten feet away from where we wanted to dump it, but it ws still a long, long day of wheelbarrowing.

With that ordeal out of the way, we were ready to really pour some floors.  The first step is to excavate the area unil it is level.  We shot elevations with a transit to determine the level of the concrete in each room.  We also sank stakes about 8 feet apart, at the right height so that we could tell where the surface of the concrete should be.  We then set up forms-- 2X4's-- to keep the concrete where we wanted it.  Next, we put down a layer of 6mil plastic as a vapor barrier to help keep moisture out of the room. Our groundwater level changes greatly, so this is an important step.

With the plastic down, we were ready to pour the first room. The truck backed up and started pouring.  Some people have the idea that concrete is "self-levelling." It isn't. I watched as our concrete man and his assistant man-handled the stuff into place.

As the concrete fills an area, you scree it level. Essentially, you start at the deepest part of the room and work out using an 8' 2X4 to level.  It helps to have someone else to shovel a little more in low spots or to rake extra out of the way.  If there are several pours on the same day, you have to work fast.  The concrete is going to start to set up wether you're ready or not.

The last step is to finish the concrete. On the inside rooms, we chose a light broom finish, which gives the concrete a texture so that it can take a tile floor later. On our parking pad, we put on a troweled finish, which is a lot more work.

After the concrete in the rooms was poured, we formed the planters in the hallways, and the floor plan really started to take shape.

This pour was on a different day, and was the easiest of three. The first pour- with the stuck concrete truck- was the parking pad and the middle U.  The second pour was the Master Bed U the Greatroom (or living U) and the patio. The second pour was almost as eventful as the first because the first truck was late and the second truck was early.  By the time we poured the patio, the concrete had started to set up, making it very difficult to work with.

Often any extra concrete just gets dumped somewhere.  We actually used the small amount to start packing the spaces between tires.

Overall, the concrete went pretty smoothly.  Probably the smoothest of anything major so far.  I was very glad that I hired someone to do it for us-- there was A LOT more involved than I had thought.  With the floor in and setting up, we were finally ready to start framing.

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