CONCRETE!!

We placed the concrete today! Adam and I got out to our house a little before 6:30 am. We secured our plumbing lines and then the concrete crew arrived around 6:45 am. The first concrete truck rolled in around 7:15 am - time for me to roll camera and watch the magic. It took 8 concrete trucks - each carrying 10.5 yards - to complete our slab. They worked at least 5 hours - Adam and I left before they were completely finished, so we could get back to work. I captured a lot of it on our video camera. So, if you ever come visit us after we're moved it . . . we'll show the whole thing to you! (You really should visit us, we can always fast forward through the slow parts) Here's some pictures from the pour.

Here's the first concrete truck, pouring footings around the garage. They did this first, so the concrete can set while they work and then they can remove the form boards to pour the rest of the garage (they did the same thing for the porches).

The second concrete truck is on the left - it poured the exterior footings around the master bed, bath, and back porch. The third concrete truck, on the right, poured the hall bath and bedroom.

Here is the third truck - with the crew pushing the concrete in place.

This is the fourth truck placing concrete in the dining room and stairs - Adam's trying to stay our of the concrete, while getting our pipes in the right spot.

The fifth truck placed the master bath and bedroom. Here are the guys smoothing the concrete out.

Here they are smoothing out the concrete in the back bedroom. You can see the guy in the back using the bull float to get the smooth part to the top.

The completed front porch.

Finishing up the back porch.

Removing the form boards around the garage.

I don't remember what this thing is called, but they used it to go over the slab to make it smooth.

The last pour - the garage!

Here's some of the trucks doing clean out - they have to rinse all the remaining concrete from the truck and dump it on your property. So, we had quite a pile after eight trucks - this was only the sixth or something.

So, there you have it - our slab!

We left before they completed the garage, finished the surfaces, and removed all the form boards. But, they were practically done it was already 11:30 am. They are going to come back this afternoon to cut the control joints. After that, we will put visqueen over the top and run a sprinkler for a week. This is called wet curing. It's the best way to cure concrete, but isn't typically done on a house. However, we want to build our house on a firm foundation! I'll take some more pictures of our set up. After the week's over, we start framing!!

Horray for being out of the dirt! :)