THE SLAB

21 July was a big day for us ... they poured the slab for the house and casita!  We delayed the pour for a week in order to avoid the record temperatures of the previous week.  This worked out in our favor as the temperatures on the morning of the pour were only in the high 70's F (25 C), the monsoons have kind of sort of started so the humidity was a little higher and there was a high overcast layer of clouds which kept us out of the sun until late morning.  Since this was the important pour, they also started much earlier.  The first truck rumbled up the hill just before 6:00 AM.

 The first truck of the day!


Unlike the pour for the footers, a lot people were required for this pour as this is going to be our actual floors.  So a crew of finishers were brought in to assist. The foreman for the finishing crew was Jesus (plaid shirt and straw hat).  He ran a tight ship but it helped that everybody knew their part in the process.

The first pour of the day

A busy crew

A lot more concrete to pour


We ran out of parking spots up at the house site, so Nancy and I had to park down below.  At least we know we have enough parking for the next Canada Day Party!

The parking lot is full!


This pour went much quicker than the footer pour last week.  At one point we had truck #2 ready to pour and #3 turned around and waiting on-deck.  

#2 pouring and #3 on-deck

It was fascinating to watch the finishers work the concrete.  Once the concrete is poured into the forms it is spread around to roughly fill the forms.  Then what looks like a long 2 x 4, but is actually a long, hollow aluminum box, is used to initially level the concrete.  This is called a screed.  In the below video you can see them spreading the concrete as it fills the form and then using the screed on the left side of the video.

Spreading the concrete and screeding


The next step in the process is the jitterbug.  They used a 1" aggregate on this final pour and you don't want to see too much of the aggregate in the floor, so the jitterbug is used to bring the 'cream' to the top of the slab.

Doing the jitterbug


Following the jitterbug, the bull float is used to get the first rough finish on the slab.  This is probably, no it is, the longest handled tool I have ever seen!

The longest handled tool ever!
  

While all this is going on, they were also putting a slight slope, about a 1/4 inch drop, on the outside 18" of the slab.  This will ensure all the water drains off the slab and not into the house or casita.

Sloping the edges

After the bull float, they used a power trowel to refine the finisher even more.  Jesus took command of this task.  With the knobs on the handle he could change the pitch on the blades, thus controlling the type of finish he was putting on the slab.

Jesus working his magic

A close up of the blades


The final refining of the slab was done with hand trowels.  In order to get to the parts of the slab they couldn't reach from the sides, the finishers used knee sleds to skim across the surface of the slab.  These are true artisans!

Artisans at work



Throughout all this the "Boss" was doing what she does best ... documenting it all with photographs and videos.  Nancy was excited to see the pour as she had to work during the footer pour last week.

 Making sure the measurement for the southern
windows is correct

"We picked a good color for the floors!"

"Is that concrete thick enough?"


While the finishers were working their magic, the other members of the concrete team were busy putting in the bolts (used to hold down the wooden plank that the straw bales will sit on) and the all threads (one on each side of the bale walls) that will be used to cinch down the bales.  Each of them have a 90 degree bend at one end.  The bent end is inserted into the wet concrete so that when the concrete dries you can't pull it out.

Lots and lots of bolts (brown) and all threads (silver)


And just like that we had finished slabs!

The house

The casita


Since these will be exposed concrete floors, we were concerned about cracking.  One way to limit the cracking is to cut joints into the concrete.  This basically gives the concrete somewhere to crack so that you won't notice the cracks as much.  We had to wait a couple of hours for the concrete to set up enough to safely cut the joints.  Doug, head concrete guru, did the majority of the cutting with a walk behind saw. You can see the guide arm on the front of the saw.  By keeping the little wheel on the front of the arm on the chalk lines they had snapped, he was able to cut a straight line. In the area he couldn't reach with the saw, like around the bolts and all thread, one of his assistants used a hand grinder to cut the joints.  

Doug cutting the joints

Where one joint bisected another, Doug had a trick up his sleeve to prevent excess spalling (concrete chipping off the edges of the joints).  He ripped off a section of a case of Coke box, folded it over and stuck it in the joint at the planned intersection point.  It worked great!

The Coke box trick!



The joints area complete!

 The house looking east

The casita looking east



Now the waiting begins.  Before the concrete polisher can begin work on the slabs, we have to wait for the concrete to completely harden.  This will take about 28 days.  While we are waiting Evan will be back to excavate for and install the septic system.

Pouring the Footers

We forgot to mention in the last blog post that we had a little excitement out at the property.  There must have been a small microburst come through as our porta-johns were knocked over and some of the mesh used to delineate the parking spots was wrapped around one of the juniper snags.

Porta-johns on their sides

Mother Nature's attempt at tree decorating

TEP (power company) came by last Friday and finished hooking up the electricity.  We now have a working meter, which means we don't need to use a generator to run the power tools or our water pump.  We haven't given up on solar power, it has just been pushed back to a later phase of the build.

A working meter!

  The concrete guys have been hard at work getting all the forms and rebar in place.  They finished up on Friday and Tom (construction foreman) completed his inspection.

House is ready for the concrete

Casita all set!

Now onto the good stuff!  Today was the next big milestone for the build.  The concrete for the foundation footers was poured.  They planned for 50 yards of concrete spread between five trucks.   

The first truck showed up right on time.

The first concrete truck arrives

There isn't a lot of room on the pad, so the driver's skills were put to the test.  No three point turns here.  Try six or even eight point!

It takes skill and teamwork to get the trucks turned around

Once the truck was in place everything happened pretty fast.    They started in the main bathroom area and worked their way east along the southern footer of the house.

The first pour!

We were a little worried about the trucks being able to negotiate the road up to the house site, but our fears never materialized.  I was a little worried when I was watching the first truck cross the wash on its way out, but the driver did his magic and made it out with no issue.

No problem!

One truck down

The second truck was definitely one to catch your eye! Grammie Annie would have loved this truck too! These next two videos give you an idea of how tight the road was for the drivers.  It took some skill.

A tight squeeze through the lower gate

Around the 'sacred' juniper and up the hill

To make the pour easier and faster they brought in a pump trailer.  The concrete trucks would back up and lower their chutes over the intake screen of the pump trailer.  Then the concrete truck driver would control the flow rate of the concrete into the pump trailer.  The concrete would then flow through a hose that was controlled by the pump trailer operator.  He had a wireless controller on his belt that he used to turn the pump on and off.  This was a very efficient system.

The set-up

How the process works

To make the house as energy efficient as possible, we had foam board installed around the outside of the foundation.  So while they were pumping / pouring the concrete, they also had to make sure the foam board didn't crack and allow the concrete to flow out of the forms.  The concrete team did a great job as we only had one blow-out during the entire pour.

Ensuring there are no foam blow-outs.

We didn't think it was possible but they did it!  The third truck showed up before the second one was finished off-loading and instead of waiting out on the road he drove right up to the build site.  We watched in awe as he performed a perfect many point turn and backed in right next to the other truck.

"Why wait on the road, there's plenty of space!"

Once they were done off-loading their loads, the drivers had to clean out their chutes.  

Cleaning the chutes

The fourth truck was right on the heels of the third.

Many point turn complete and waiting his turn.  Almost finished with the house footers.

Once the house footers were poured they shifted to the casita.  

The casita pour begins

We thought the fifth truck might have gotten lost since after 45 minutes he still hadn't arrived.  We took advantage of the time to eat lunch and take a break in the shade as the temperature was over 107 F (41 C).  But just when we were about to call out the search and rescue team he came rambling up the road.  

Up close and personal with truck #5

In five short hours the footers for the house and casita were poured.  

The house footers are done!

Casita is compete

In a week, they will be back to pour the main slab.  They decided to do two separate pours since we are having a colored concrete floor.  It would have been considerably more expensive to do the entire pour with colored concrete. Also, the footer could be poured with 3/8" aggregate which allowed us to use the pump and hose.  Next week they will be tail-gating straight from the trucks.

Stay tuned!

Pad Prep Work Continues

Throughout the month of June work continued on preparing the pad for the pouring of the concrete for the foundation.  

Things out at the site are not always build related.  One day while we were out there we heard what sounded like a lawn mower above us.  When we looked up the Goodyear Blimp was flying east right over the top of us!

The Goodyear Blimp doing a fly-by


The last of the utilities to go in were the water lines and electrical conduit connecting for the house and casita.  Jeff got in on the action also when he installed conduit for our future solar system, a conduit between the house and casita (in case we need to run some type of wire between the two buildings in the future), and then also the pipes for our rain water harvesting system.

Water lines going to the east end of the house


Once all the underground pipes and conduits were installed, the next step was back filling all the trenches.  As you are now aware, we have a plethora of rocks, so to ensure the pipes and conduits wouldn't be damaged during the backfill process we had to first do some "shading". To accomplish this, Jason built a couple of screens using chainlink fence.  We laid the screen over the trench and the skid-steer would dump a bucket full of dirt and rock onto the screen.  Then we would lift the screen and shake off the rocks.  The system worked really well and the trenches were backfilled in a couple of hours. 

In Jeff's job he rarely hears how the patients he flies end up.  Well he now knows how one patient did.  When he showed up to help with the trench backfill the driver of the skid-steer got out, looked at him and said, "You flew me to the hospital."  Jeff asked him if he was sure it was him. He said, "It was my first helicopter ride, you said it would be a scenic flight and I sat right next to you."  What a small world!

Skid-steer screening process

Everyone hard at working during the trench backfill


You look at the plans and then you look at them again to make sure you didn't forget anything but sometimes you do. This was the case with the trench for the water harvesting pipe for the garage.  The excavator missed this short section of trench so they had to do a little manual jackhammering.

Luis earns his money today!

Backfill complete.  The white pipes sticking out of the dirt are for the water harvesting.  The black pipes are for the septic/sewer.

With the utility preparation complete the concrete team was back at it.  A dump truck load of AB (aggregate base) was delivered and they went to work spreading and compacting a 5 inch layer of it as base for the foundation.  It was impressive to see them work as a team.  Everyone knew their role and they were done in a only a couple of hours. 

Concrete team hard at work

AB spread and compacted for the house

We still don't have electricity at the site but we are getting close.  TEP came out and inspected the trench, gave their approval and the trench was backfilled.  The only concern they had was regarding the stability of the panel.  So Tom reinforced it with some concrete and they gave us the thumbs-up.  Now we are just waiting on a line-crew to actually run the wires from the transformer box to the panel and then we will finally have power and then no more generators!

Tom's concrete reinforcement

Since it will be awhile before we install the water control wall in the house, Tom rigged up a water pump system using the pressure tank and pump that were included when we purchased the property back in 2013.  This system will allow us to have pressurized water during the build.  Once TEP wires the panel we won't have to use a generator to power the water pump.

Tom's water pump/pressure tank system.  Blue pump will eventually be installed in the house.