ICF Day Pour

Well, to start the day off, I think I mentioned in my last blog about "forgetting" something... Yes, to say the least...  After about 36 hours with very little sleep, I am in bed at about 1AM thinking about the next day, when I realize something, I have forgotten to put in any penetrations for all the GFI outlets that are around the house.  Also, the penetrations for the outdoor kitchen sink water supply, and the outdoor kitchen propane supply... 

This guy is an idiot, you are saying...  Well, hmmm...  yup...

So that certainly doesn't make me sleep any better.  Even though I know it's not a really big deal to drill holes for these things through the concrete.  It's something that's really not that hard to fix. 

So, despite the lack of sleep, 30 degree temp, extreme darkness, and the mountain lion spottings I have heard so much about...  Off to the lot at 4 AM. 

This is, of course, after I try to fashion a piece of 3/4 inch schedule 40 into a drillbit, by creating teeth in one end, and gluing an endcap on the other with a 1/4 inch bolt drilled through the endcap.  My thinking I can hook my cordless drill up and pop holes through the styrofoam nice and easy...  Well, what I end up doing was somehow slicing the top of my thumb down across my fingernail with a drillbit... Ouch...  Blood...  What does this do to attract mountain lions??

Ok, screwed that thing up because the bolt wasn't centered in my haste, and that was the only 3/4 end cap I had in my garage... 

So it's cold, dark, lonely, things are blowing around in the darkness, I am hunched over my bloody pipe with my back to the woods (mountain lion).  I figure at any second he is going to take a bite out of my ass...  It's just like my childhood fear of the "Deeps," which in my child's mind was your basic standard PO'ed buffalo... who had figured out a way to get under my bed.

I think you get the picture...

Oh, I ran my skillsaw every once in a while to keep the critters at bay...  Do not EVER walk up behind a guy on a cold moring at a jobsite who has a skillsaw in his hand, you have no idea what he is thinking...

Anyway.  I am done by 6 AM so I head back home to roust the kids out of bed so they can head to school...  I am much braver when I am a Dad, and even braver with the sun up...

Yes, another pumper truck.  Here he is stretching out to make sure he can reach the back walls.  Actually the other side walls in this case.  He is about 2 foot short on the master bedroom walls.  So the ICF crew gameplan is to attach a long rubber feeder hose to the pumper outlet, then they can pull that out to close the gap while they pour that wall.  In addition, they have attached an S shaped piece and a flow restrictor above that to help slow down the concrete as it comes down the pipe.

I had thought that the far walls would be the most problematic.  But in fact, nothing is easy in the concrete business.  Illustrated here is when they are pouring fairly close to the pumper.  Over 135 feet of boom, 70 feet up, and 70 feet down..  Yes, fairly soupy concrete falling down a 70 foot slope into a relatively flimsy foam form (even though the foam is pretty dang tough).  To make matters worse.  They are filling fairly little spaces, like maybe only a few feet above the top of a window.  So what happens is that you are fast running out of places to put the concrete, and yet you have 70 feet of it still to come...  This can make for a mess. 

They poured the forms in basically two passes.  1/2 of the wall at a time.  There are lots of reasons to do this.  The most important is that the pressure of concrete is tremendous, so the bottom of the forms are under a lot of stress.  Also, the bottoms of the windows have an access channel in them that can allow the concrete to bubble out.  By letting the bottom half of concrete set somewhat, these issues are greatly reduced. 

This is the bottom of the window.  The channel is there so they can make sure the forms get full of concrete underneath the window itself.  You can see a little 2x4 sitting there.  I was wondering what these were for until I saw them in action.  As the concrete comes roaring in, and eventually up and out of these channels, they shove the 2x4 down into the channel between the webs to stop the flow.  Sometimes they do this in time, and sometimes not.  What you see here is a minor mess compared to others...  Don't worry, though, the concrete that gets spilled all gets cleaned up...  The ICF crew brought some extra guys that day.  There is a lot to do behind the scenes, and everybody played a part.  Matt was manning the pump hose and directing things (it was loud everywhere, so there is shouting in at least 2 different languages, and sometimes choice words are spoken).  Matt's right hand man was relief pitcher on the hose, and scanning ahead and behind for obstacles.  The other full time ICF guys were behind the operation adjusting the bracing to get the walls plumb and straight.  Yes, you can move a 20,000 pound wall.  More crew behind them constantly cleaning and working the windows.  The pumper truck guy is right there with his remote control unit, and very precise I might add.  The concrete truck driver is adjusting the flow of concrete from his truck to keep the hopper full.

It's like a concrete orchestra...  Directed in a working man's style, and accented with a Spanish cuss word or two...

OH, my part was to worry about stuff.  So I worried about the road, worried about the weather, worried about the guys falling off the platform, worried about blowouts... All the while I held a shovel (OK, sometimes I helped clean up concrete spills).

There was absolutely no chance that mountain lion was going to approach this operation...

Wait... This pumper boom looks different, you say... Yes, a very precise observation.  Indeed, our first pumper truck had a boo boo and had to go home.  Leaving me an extra 1/2 yard of concrete in my washout to deal with, and the ICF crew an extra 2 hour day while waiting for the new pumper to be flown in from Houston.  The second pumper, also a German, worked sooooo much better.  Here, you can see the little arrangement of S, restrictor, and hose at the end.  They are between trucks here and pouring the first round of the Master Bath, which was the 14 footer.

Here I am standing in the same spot.  Just moved the camera down so you can see where all this is coming from.  The wall in the distance is the 10 footer that seperates the garage from house.  Pretty much blocks the view of concrete pumper and truck.  Thus the reason for the pumper operator to be on remote control so he can see the action on this end... As well as have nice polite discussions with the crew about things ;-)

So, I am of course obsessed about my road.  Why?? Because it is the supply line for everything that happens here.  The second pumper truck was an additional 2x pass at 100,000 pounds, plus the 7 concrete trucks at 10 cubic yards each.  The road held up pretty good.  At the end of the day, I was able to move the stiff concrete from the washout into the ruts, which will further support them for whatever happens next (lumber and hungry carpenters).  Then, when the 2nd pumper left he dumped his hopper right in the center of my road, which allowed me to shovel that around here and there.  By tonight (I write this a day later) I could move things around with a shovel and get them pretty flat again, as we are expecting mucho rain tomorrow, I would rather it didn't pool in those tracks...

Matt and crew came back today bright and early and worked all day to remove bracing.  They left at the end of the day almost finished, and will be back Saturday to do some final touchups... The conrete walls by my eye appear extremely straight, and I could even put a level on them and check them for plumb, but neither matters, for these walls can only be moved by whatever lies below... 

A special thanks to Matt and his ENTIRE crew.  Proactive, thinking, problem solving, professional, hard working, I could go on... 

How about a picture of that mountain lion...  Here he is... disguised as a gypsy..  He is hungry, though, and for any future contractors that litter on the job...  Know that this attracts mountain lions for sure...  Mountain lions can't roar like other big cats, they kill in complete silence ;-)

ICF Pour Tomorrrow

Well, actually today, because I am staying up too late as usual...

So, here are a few pictures, and off to bed for me.

Concrete at 0830, and I am worried about my road as usual.

I haven't posted current pictures in a few days, but they have mounted a wooden walkway all around the outside bracing.  This will allow them to walk the pumper snout around up there.

Yesterday, they finished bracing everything.  They installed wooden end caps where the height changed or ICF stopped, foam adhesive in all the cracks or holes, and squared and glued in all the bucks.  Today I spent some time just verifying that everything was in place and square.  Also, they had cut a few penetrations for me for a fireplace vent and a bathroom vent fan.

I know I am forgetting something, but we pour anyway....

ICF Day 7

On top of the 12 foot wall looking down into bedroom 2.  Matt my ICF guy is the coolest guy (and crew for that matter).  When I showed up yesterday, they had already fixed the area over at the Master Bath (lucky catch on that one).  Anyway, he casually mentions that he "moved" the windows you see in this picture.  "They looked like crap, because they weren't centered on the gable peak".  Sure enough...  My thanks to him for being proactive and just making that decision.   

Oh, now I know why they haven't glued all that stuff in place yet...

Looking down into the distance, across the Rec room, Kitchen, and in the distance the Guest room.  The larger windows on the left are 4 feet wide by 6 feet tall, and will be picture windows out the back.

Down into Bedroom 3.  That is a 10 foot plate height there, and where you see it drop on the right hand side of the picture is the shortest plate, an 8 foot plate over Bathroom 2.  The door in the left of the picture goes out to the garage, and my wife is concerned it looks short (6'8"), but I am holding my ground.  Matt did convince me to make it a 36 inch wide door, another good catch on his part...

Looking immediately over the Dining room, Foyer, courtyard, and then the 14 foot high Master Bath (which is exceptionally cool).  That's Matt off in the distance standing on the scafolding, for perspective... You can wave at him if you like, and see if he waves back. 

Study on left with windows, Living room to the right of that...

I forgot to ask Matt why there is a chunk of foam missing from the peak, but there is probably a reason.  Also, you can see how the ICF gable ends higher than the wall beside it.  That is because the extended line of the gable will go down over the outside wall, and then extend out over the soffit. 

I tried helping them yesterday by carrying some boards that were delivered.  Picked up a very green, wet 2 x 10  16 footer and promptly tripped over the concrete going into the garge.  Me and the board fell all at the same time... Fortunately, the board beat me to the ground.  Wounded my pride big time in from of the ICF crew.  So the joke was that I had done my part by carrying "part" of a board partway.  Of course they carried the other 28 and then lifted them up onto the scaffolding...  I am the weakest link...  But, since I am also paying for things, I stepped back and watched the professionals handle things. 

Except, I did bore some holes into the ICF where things need to pass through.  Hose bibs, electrical, etc. 

Last night we got dumped on with rain, so the ICF guys called it off for today.  I am headed out to check on the status of the road, and some misc. stuff. 

Looks like they will finish tomorrow, and the pour is scheduled for Monday AM... I think Matt said he had a 45 Meter pump truck coming...  5 axles, 2 to steer...  Yikes.

ICF Progress

ICF Progress, looking through the house from the rear.  Off in the distance is bedroom 2 windows, and the small window to the left will be a QUATRAFOIL window, which is a fancy way for an architect to torture an unsuspecting owner/builder into thinking such a window exists that normal people can buy.  Probably if I was a Hollywood celebrity, someone would just whip one out for me and bring it on over...  But I have resorted to finding a guy on the internet that will have to CNC machine the window frame out of a material called AZEK.  Then they have to fit the frame with tempered, insulated glass (since it lives in a shower).  Then, we have to figure out a way to fasten into the frame, and then the stucco guys have to return the stucco and blend it all together and make it look good...  hmmmm...

This is a pic from the front.  Much harder to see what is going on there because of the trees and brush.  Precisely why they are still there.    They are anywhere from 2 to 4 more feet from the top on most of this, depending on what room you are looking at.

Another shot from the front...  The wall that has no windows in it will eventually have windows, 7 arched windows around the top of that room will allow light down into the master bathroom, but those windows sills are 10 feet off the ground, and the ICF isn't that high yet...   The large buck to the right is the entry door, which is a rough opening of about 6 feet wide by about 9 feet tall.  The iron doors will go there.  Speaking of which, the iron door guy sneaked up on me the other day and scared the crap out of me.  He made it to within about 1 foot of me, on the other side of a wall I was poking around, pulled up my head, and there he was...  The door really looks good on CAD, and we are ready to get that ordered.  One of the tough things about ICF is figuring out what to do with all the extra depth of wall.  In this case, we are using a 12 inch thick door jamb, which will have a drywall return on one side for about an inch, and the jamb will extend outside about 2 inches, and the stone will come up to the jamb.  Another issue was that the arched door sits inside an archway over two interior columns, so we had to use some Kinematics (just kidding, had a college flashback) to figure out how high to make everything so they don't collide... 

Courtyard windows on left, then entry door in center, and then dining room windows (6 windows mulled together) will sit to the right.  From this angle, when the house is done, you won't be able to see the front door from here much, because it will sit in behind stone archways that go way up about 16 feet in the air.  So to see the door, you will have to look through the arch.  The courtyard windows are spread pretty far in appearance from the outside, but they will actually be centered inside along the gallery and flanked by columns.  We are contemplating a fountain in the courtyard between the windows... Just a small wall type...

Rear of the house now.  ICF has another foot or so to go on top of windows.  These aren't centered because in the right corner there will be a built in of some sort, so the windows get shifted over. 

Finally, a shot from the road.  To you, this shot means nothing.  To  me, I see the repair to the road that was forced upon us after it was torn up by all the concrete trucks.  We decided on concrete "washout" as it was cheaper than some of the other alternatives, but supposed to set up really hard.  Washout comes from the concrete plant and is basically the junk they wash out of the plant and trucks that runs into a pit.  It waits there all wet and nasty until they dig it out.  So, what you get is rocks, sand, cement, and water.  It was very wet, and about the consistency of concrete when it showed up.  The dirt guys played around with it trying to get it smoothed out for a couple of hours...  Anyway, after almost a week it is mostly dry, and seems to be supporting the weight of little trucks pretty well.  I am very nervous about it and more concrete pumpers and trucks.  To make matters worse, we have a weather front that is supposed to completely dump on us Thursday night.  Friday is when they would like to pour....  The good news about the "washout" is that it can be reshaped and moved around, eventually it will be moved around and provide a stable base for the concrete driveway. 

I am still surprised that you can't see much of the house from the street.  Eventually, we will clear out some more of the brush. 

So far, though, it is looking good.

ICF Day 2

Window Buck

No, not Uncle Buck, a window buck.

Don't ask me why they call them that, but this is what one looks like.  Actually, since we are doing the 3 inch recess the 2x4 section on the top and bottom plus a sliver of extra wood on the sides will come off after they pour.  This particular window is in the Master Toilet, and will be a 20 inch wide by 30 inch tall window (smallest window I could get that made sense for this space).  The largest buck is on the dining room window, which is now a mulled unit at 7 feet wide by 8 feet tall.  It has an awful lot of bracing in that unit to withstand the pressure of the concrete that will be above it coming down from the header across that window.  The opening at the bottom of the buck allows them to shovel in concrete in case it doesn't get filled from the sides, as well as get their "consolidator" concrete vibrator in there to make sure there are no voids in the concrete.  Pretty cool, eh.

The ICF guys spent most of the day again with more layout issues, positioning all the ICF over the slab and then measuring out where all the windows and doors will be.  I heard a rumor that their form braces are on another job waiting for a pour, so we may not go too far beyond what you see for a while.  Today they actually glued down the bottom course with a foam adhesive to the slab.  In some places they have placed the ICF forms slightly past the slab to allow for things not perfectly square, or in other cases to make things come out to an even inch increment.  I am hoping this won't cause too much trouble for the framers??  We have a lot of critical dimensions inside the house, primarily where all the columns get arches and groin ceilings on top of them.  But, in that area I think the ICF is sitting pretty much where it should be. 

A closeup of a corner form.  Every little square you see is 1 inch square.  There are lines right on the block so they can measure things and mark out things right on the block.  This block has had it's corner clipped so we could study the angle web that is in place (evidently a newer version of Reward block).  This is there so you can attach an interior wall right to it with screws.  Otherwise, you would screw into the foam and grab nothing.  The interior wall really isn't acting on the ICF wall much in terms of force, as it is really held in place by the bottom and top plates.  But, attaching at the mid point keeps the wall from bowing in and out, so this is a nice touch by Reward to include this feature.

Finally, I finished the electric plugs I promised just as the sun was going over the hill.  I had to wait till everybody was gone and not dependent on the electric.  Reworked the temp pole putting a strain releif tie where the romex entered the box, and then wired up both outlets, one on a pole, and the other on a portable stake that can be moved around.  The light you see I wired into a day/night sensor and then on top a 12 watt outdoor CFL bulb.  Puts off quite a bit of light for that wattage.  My iphone didn't like taking pictures in light like this, as it lit up the work area better than I thought.  Working with 10 gage wire is not what I am used to, and stuffing all that into a shallow box was pretty tough.  Wifey let me buy a new lithium powered drill before Christmas, though, and it was happy to screw all that stuff down lickety split...  he he he...

In this picture, you can see how the ICF terminates on top of the slab.  Also you can see the bottoms of where the windows will be in Bedroom 3.  At some point, they have to take off the corners of course 2 and weave rebar into place under that.  I think that will slow them down quite a bit tomorrow.  There was quite a bit of that already cut out there and laid in place all around the perimeter.

I am noticing more visitors at this stage.  I can't tell you the last ICF house I know of that was built in this area.  You don't normally hear about them because they aren't "mainstream" houses.  Talking to builders before we chose our path, maybe 2/3 of them had even heard of ICF, but none had used it.  That would be the 10 or so builders in town that are typically chosen for these types of projects.  They are used to a different set of challenges, and with the things we chose to depart the "norm" with on our project, I just couldn't justify paying them their fees for what they do when I would have been on site most of the time anyway.   They do make pretty houses, though.

I always want to be clear about how I view these "popular" builders.  I see houses made that basically suck in terms of different particular things, insulation, HVAC, electrical, plumbing... to just get me going.  It is funny to hear stories about "good" builders and "bad" builders.  Normally, the definition of these builders is more based on how they interacted with their clients rather than what was actually built.  Most of their customers have very little idea what the meat of a house is or should be, so you can't only blame the builders for their shortcomings in the areas I mentioned above.  Most of them know exactly how to do a lot of things better, it just isn't in the budget that drives the marketplace.  Although I am a strict advocate of capitalismn, I think that there are some areas here that would be better served by everybody if there was more stringent requirements on the "bones" of residential and commercial construction.   The popular builders get continually driven to make things prettier and not always better. 

One certain exception to this trend, however, has been the expansion of use of foam for insulation systems.  Spray foam in attic and sometimes (hopefully) walls has become much more popular with these upper end builders.  Interestingly, this trend has been driven by consumers rather than the builders themselves, of which most had to be practically begged into it.  Regardless, this change is triggering other positive things to happen as well, and more customers are asking hard questions like properly sizing HVAC systems and better designed pluming systems.  Our local MLS is even listing the "type" of insulation on home listings.... Even though the realators don't have even a slight clue what this means, not to mention the accuracy of the information (wet blown fiberglass or cellulose does not make spray foam).  But it indicates a finger of change.

So, in the end, the best builders may actually be saved by their own clients....rather than the other way around.  It is funny now to hear the sales pitch from the builder to clients on spray foam systems...  A complete 180...  Hmmm

And, I have to get one more cut in on ONE particular builder, who after hearing my explanation of the reasons for GEO over Air Source, asked me the question, "Why would I pay 2500 dollars per ton installed when I could pay 1500 dollars per ton for a traditional unit??"

My answer......   "Because, Sir, you don't pay for a single utility bill after your client moves in"

Rant Over...

OH, for Danny a a few others here in town, if you are reading this...  it doesn't apply to you.  Keep up the good work.

The Igloo Has Arrived

Straight ICF by Reward Walls

These are corner pieces

Standing in the Bedroom Looking West

Master Wing looking SSW

Corner pieces laid out on what will be the front of the house as it zigs and zags in and out.  The dropped area is the courtyard and front entry just beyond it.  Notice the mud on the slab is from the removal of the forms the other day. 

The big Igloo is here.

Tons to report on today, and a lot happened, but it is late and I am tired...  Here are the highlights

ICF guys were there and ICF was on site when I arrived this morning.  Passed the semi on the way out so I was as giddy as a schoolchild when I arrived to find all kinds of activity.

They had to hand carry all the ICF (light), wood for window frames (heavy) and rebar (really heavy) down through the mud, as neither trucks could risk getting into the driveway.

ICF guys worked through the day cutting the window frames (called bucks).  Which is a more complicated process than normal because I have asked them to allow me to "recess" the windows into the ICF 3 inches.  So they are building an 8 inch box, and another box that attaches to fill in the remainder of space during the pour.  After the pour the little box will be removed, and then the windows will be set 3 inches behind the face of the outside wall.  Cool eh...

They also did a lot of layout and even stacked some blocks, but I think what they stacked didn't have any rebar or ties in it yet.  They have red lines all around the perimeter where everything will go...  A large task in itself...  My wife says they look like somebody was playing around in their garage after Christmas with those plastic things Christmas lights come wrapped around, and hooked some up to an old styrofoam cooler.  Perhaps she is right...

We decided the dining window arrangement of 6 windows would not work as independent windows (too close for ICF) and I don't want to add a bunch of wood framing, so I headed to the window place to find out if they could all be "mulled" together and the whole unit set as one...  YES.    So with new rough opening dimensions in hand I headed back to the lot.

Also met with my dirt/bulldozer guy to look at the road.  Ouch, more than I thought to repair (materials), but it has to be done.  He wants to get in tomorrow for his schedule, so I had a huge pile of concrete chunks I wanted to throw into the driveway tracks (costs by the ton to have them hauled as trash, might as well use them for this task).... Hey, I think I did something green...  Actually, about 4000 pounds of green, through the muck.  Kind of stupid for an old man to be lugging around that weight in the mud.

Also hooked up some temporary electrical outlets down by the slab.  Actually just got one partially done.  Had to wire into the temp pole while it was hot, as there is no way to shut the power down inside the box itself.  Something I shouldn't do, but had to be done anyway.  The 10/2 wire I provided was way better than long extension cords, which have quite a voltage drop on that distance (in excess of 200 feet).  Not good for their tools, and it keeps everybody from having to walk through the trees and bushes.  Only got one little baby zap...  Insulated pliers on an insulated wire...  Got me anyway...  I lived.

OH, I had one pressure manifold that was losing about a pound a day.  2 days ago I messed with the manifold trying to find if it was leaking there... Well, today the pressure was still stable at 58 PSI... Good.

OH, almost forgot.  When I got there this morning the concrete guys were back and they had a wacky hydraulic thing that tensioned all the cables.  I was so busy with the ICF stuff that I never got over to talk to them, and they were gone lickety split.  Anyway, they tensioned the post tension cables.  Each cable came out of the slab easily 10 to 12 inches.... Crap.... That is a lot of force...  I guess somebody sometime will come out and cut those off and then mortar over the concrete and dress it up?  I never asked.

OH, stop starting your paragraphs with OH's.  My old English teacher wouldn't like that.  Well, she never liked me anyway, which is why I just called her old.

OK, off to bed.  More electrical work for me tomorrow. 

Dirt guy isn't coming till the following day now.  Good chance of rain that day.  I think the ICF guys will be here all week except Friday.  They have a lot to do.

Done...

Just kidding....

Actually, I spent the last few days resting and planning in my small mind what needs to happen next.  There is a lot of phone calls to be made. 

The picture above was taken from a Parade of Homes in San Antonio a few years back.  That particular Parade of Homes was really neat, and we have tried to incorporate a lot of their ideas into our design... 

A Cantera fountain in front of a home in Phoenix... Love the classic design...

Ok, so enough screwing around on here... 

My project for the day is to figure out what kind of penetration to make in the ICF for the following items..

1.  Direct Vent Fireplace

2.  Master Shower Vent fan (this has to vent sideways out into the courtyard)

3.  Geothermal lines.

4.  Hose bibs.

5.  Gun Turrets (just kidding)

OH, I tried breaking up some of the loose concrete here and there yesterday with my sledge hammer.  Also tried breaking up some of the "Washout".  I was able to break some of it up, but anything very large in diameter was futile. 

Also talked to my dozer guy and he has a different plan than I envisioned, and I like it.  He is going to bring in some "bull rock", or what he called 4 x 6, and then spread that into the existing tracks.  Then dress the driveway back up over the top of that.  He says the bull rock will provide much better footing and distribute the weight out better.  Hope it works. 

1.2 Million Pounds of Chunky Liquid Gray

At least that's what my little sister said, at 4000 pounds per cubic yard. 

To put yesterday in words would be impossible.  Crew showed up at 0700, and then spent the better part of 3 hours getting things ready... closing off the drainage trenches, shoring things up, moving my precious orange fence around...   It was pretty cold still so I was happy to wait a few hours so we wouldn't be pouring sub 40 degree concrete.  By the time the pumper showed up, and then finally the concrete behind him, it was approaching 11 AM and mid 50 degree temps under a beautiful purple/blue sky... Perfect everything...

Let me say that I don't think you can run an operation this big (and don't get me wrong, I'm not running it, I was a spectator for this one...) and not have problems.  Nothing in the concrete business appears to be small or light.  Everything you can touch is heavy, sharp, wet, or nasty.  The guys that do this work amaze me.  It's one thing to see a 24 year old guy down there, but some of these guys are approaching 50 and do this every day.  They are strong, but ultimately only the smart ones survive it...  You can see it in how the older guys work.  They are more patient...

So yes, a few problems.  At one point a concrete truck got stuck by backing too far into the washout, which we were able to fix by moving some plastic around so the trucks didn't have to back up so far.  And at the end of the day, the pumper had some trouble getting off the site.  He weighs 80,000 pounds.  His front axle is a double steer, and a rear twin tandem.  He gets about 6 mpg in diesel down the road.  I found out the hard way that he is completely covered in oil (actually a release agent) that keeps concrete from binding to him.  He looked clean, but by the time I climbed up on top I had realized my mistake...slippery. 

An impressive sight.  He has a remote control pack of switches, which he uses to control his arm, about 130 feet out there in this case.  I can't remember the actual rating, but he was telling me that pumpers are measured from the ground to the boom as it is standing straight up.  Which he actually had pretty far up in the air at one point while getting his boom uncurled.

The concrete supplier started out slow, but by the end of the pour it was one right after the next. 

My red tubing took a whoopin' for sure.  The concrete falls from the high point in the boom, but mostly that last 10 feet through the rubber hose on the end, and it is flying fast as it comes out the end.  You can be splattered with concrete at 30 feet away...  All that weight hitting the tubing, and then the guys standing on the cables and tubes while they moved it around was abusive to say the least.  Yet, it had to be done, so I nervously watched my pressure gages from about 25 feet (yea, you got that one, about 5 feet too close).  Even today the pressure is still holding on all 4 manifolds.  Although I do have one suspect that is about 2 PSI lower than the rest???  In retrospect we probably should have tied the tubing down with wire instead of cable ties.  The reason we didn't was that the engineers were balking at ANYthing being tied to the cables.  So the compromise was the cable ties, as they wouldn't be strong enough to resist the eventual tensioning of the cables (7 days from now). 

My fear with the tubing is that although it didn't break, I am pretty sure it got moved around significantly.  Could be enough to get it under a wall surface, where it could get poked by a framing nail.  The other problem could be that it got kinked over the top of a cable.  That being said, I never witnessed either while watching the pour. 

For those interested in a radiant system, I would suggest you tie with wire ties and a hand twister.  I experimented with a pull twister but that didn't tie very good, and seemed better at breaking wire and launching them across the garage.  The little 5 dollar twister would work well. 

At one point, we had 13 guys out finishing.  By the end of the night (about 10 PM) they were down to 3.

This is from the back of the house.  I figured they would start the pour on the opposite side of the house and work towards the pumper, but I would be normally wrong.  Turns out you want to set the concrete first that you want to work the finish the most on... Garage and porches.  Yet at the same time, you also want to place the concrete above the floats so they can work on that as well.  So they were really all over the place, and the management of the operation pretty much goes to the guy holding the hose at the other end.

Now, if you think he is just standing there watching the concrete come out, you would be wrong.  The thing is moving around fairly wildly, and it's a minimum 100 pound push to get that hose to go anywhere.  Ultimately it will only go if the boom operator moves it, so they are using hand signals back and forth as they go.  I didn't notice it 'till the end of the day, but this guy was the only one to duct tape his pants where they go into his boots.  Obviously he did this for a reason.  They could dump a 10 yard concrete truck in a few minutes, and this stuff could bury you alive...  or seriously get into your boots;-)

You can see the "waffle" effect of the beams well from up here.  And I will never fall in one of these again.

Should have duct taped my movie camera to the end of this thing and had him twist that around up there in space... 

Here are some finished shots from today...

The concrete "dowels" or rebar that you see sticking up is for the ICF walls.  They 5/8 inch rebar spaced every 18 inches or so, and will tie the floor to the walls, mostly for shear forces, as I doubt there will be much tension.  One advantage for sure of the ICF is it creates a "box" structure on both sides of the slab, which makes everything super strong...

By the way, my wife and I were in complete joy to find the simple act of walking around now on the house without cables, tubes, and ditches in the way.  She is a tad challenged in the department of conceptualizing space, and I think she is now getting a real view of the shape and size of things, and we are likin' it.  The kids were funny running around on the slab, and standing in their future showers pretending to be clean.  I am still nervous to have them out there, though.  Every piece of wood has nails in it, every rebar end as sharp as a razor, and if it's gray it's either concrete or mud, but you sometimes have to step into it to figure that out...   Being city kids, though, this is a good experience for them. 

And finally, the sad part... My road didn't hold up so well.  Fortunately, my tube survived.  Looks like I have to get a dozer back in to clean things up a bit...  That's close to 5 million pounds of stuff up and down this road in 5 hours.  That's abusive.

Enjoy the rest of your week... next monday... ICF begins... the big IGLOO...   Looks like I'll have to have that road fixed before I can get another (even bigger) pumper in for that operation, but certainly a lot less concrete... 

Keep checking back!

Getting Ready for the Concrete

Well, headed out to the lot this morning after a long nap...  Laid down on my son's bed and then the cat came and "zapped" me...  Anyway, I got to the lot later than I had planned. 

Didn't really have much planned but to stare at all the stuff that would get covered up tomorrow, but in the end, I worked my rear end off out there.

First order was to fix the little valve I broke the other night in the cold.  I had just sheared off the metal pin between the handle and the ball valve.  Then I plugged the drain hole from the other day and filled the standpipe all the way to the top.  Walked around and looked for leaks... Nope... (so I thought).

So then, tried to get as much water and ice off things as I could.  The ice chunks were pretty huge considering they had had lots of time to melt.  I tried to take a picture with my foot in it so you could compare size.  These came out of the plastic sheeting covering the perimeter of things.

It took about an hour, but I was able to finally get all the plastic pulled back from around the edge of the slab.  My thinking was get the thing opened up so it could at least breathe some tonight and get plenty warm before the concrete hits it tomorrow morning.

Researching concrete "cures", it appears that when you freeze concrete, it stops the curing process and greatly weakens the concrete for life.  There are work arounds to this, but in short warm, not cold, not hot.  Ice is also a problem because it is cold and also can create a "void" in the concrete.  I think we will have pretty good weather for this whole operation...40's by the time they pour, warming to almost 60 tomorrow, and then the actual concrete temperature should stay between 50 to 55 degrees for the next week.  It is even supposed to mist and rain starting a few days after the pour... perfect.

So, I am just about to head out, and standing over by the Master Bath, and I hear a hissing sound...  Hmmm... Too cold for rattlesnakes (but one can never dismiss that possibility)...  After searching around, I finally find another hole in a pipe...  It wasn't leaking water, but rather air from the system being under pressure.  I really had to dig around because the air was actually coming out of the roofing mastic they had smeared all over one of the pipes...  Dang... So, with the sun going down in 1 hour, I am off to HD again for another part....  It is just a pinhole leak, but rather fix it the easy way...

While at HD, I also picked up the stuff to run power all the way down to the house from the T pole.  I think I will run two outlets on stakes, and also picked up some stuff to put a dusk to dawn light on a pole out there.  Not sure what the light will do, but I must say it is pretty creepy out there in the pitch black of night.  Hope I don't get zapped while hooking all this up... There isn't really a shut off on the meter, just breakers, and I need to be inside that box to hook it up...  bbbbzzzzzzzttttttt.

Ok, I know you just log on to look at pictures, which so far have been pretty boring...  Here is another boring picture... These are the electrical floor boxes...  Not exactly rocket science to hook these up, eh...  And builders charge you a ton for stuff like this...  dang.

These are in the Rec room by the way, fed through the dining room wall.  Had to get power under what will be the air hockey table...  The other one will be in their little theatre area.

Ok, the concrete guys say they will start pouring at 10 am, and have the concrete in place by 1 pm...  I am sure they will play with it for hours after that... At some point I have to get the wife and kids over there to make our mark somewhere in the concrete...  Have to come up with some cool saying, like "One Small Step for Man..."  has somebody used that one??

I hope tomorrow goes smooth... But even if it doesn't, I will never have to look at all these cables and red tubing ever again.  Nor have to walk across this stuff to retrieve whatever tool I forgot out there in the middle somewhere... 

Wish us luck...