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Post date: May 16, 2015 2:08:24 PM
We poured concrete Friday - or rather pumped. Started at 7am and put two loads of concrete in the foundations plus two more in the slab. By 9 the rain started and we had barely floated the concrete. We quickly covered the wet concrete with plastic sheet to keep the rain from washing the cement off the aggregate (which would leave a rough surface). At 9:30 I took the entire crew (9 of us) to breakfast at Michael’s Kitchen because it was raining hard and we couldn’t work. We were (or at least I was) also getting wet and cold.After breakfast the rain had stopped so we went back to the site and troweled the concrete with the machine and by hand. But it started to rain again, so we covered the concrete with the plastic sheet again and hid in our trucks for siesta. My sweatshirt was wet and, as the temperature was 46 all day, I walked home to get a rain jacket. Stupidly I took the light one, and was already chilled from the wet sweatshirt.This crew was a huge help. Everyone contributed ideas as to how to get the job done under very difficult conditions. One of the concrete finishers is as old as I am, but still active. Another has to teach (substitute) in the public schools to get enough income. They pick up work where they can. It is not for lack of intelligence or skills - there just has not been enough work in this area. All very polite and kind - and all of the concrete guys were smokers, including the two running the concrete pump.
At about 2pm we emerged from the cars and pickups where we had taken refuge and constructed a tent by tying a rope to a tree - extended with a cargo strap, stretching it to the bucket loader, and draping the plastic sheet over the rope. Then the crew stretched the garden hose from another tree to the other side of the loader, making a wider tent. In the photo at left you see the ladder where we climbed up to tie the rope and the collapsed plastic 'tent' on the garage slab.That allowed another hour of troweling the concrete in the garage. The rest of the house we had to let go — but it is to be covered with flooring, so need not be perfectly smooth.
By 3:30 I decided to give up for the day but the crew hung on for one more troweling of the garage floor.
Eli had to return Saturday morning to cut the control joints, which had to be sawn 1 1/2” deep, before the concrete hardens too much. The regular tool only goes 3/4” down. He was done before 7am, when my time lapse camera turns on, so I didn't get pictures of him.
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