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!