Another Item off the list in the never ending construction schedule

Friday, we didn't work on the house. Instead we did some much need shopping, after we took Evan trick or treating at the mall. I'll have to post some pictures later. I didn't bring those with me.

Friday night, Derald and Pam arrived and we visited and relaxed that night.
On Saturday, Pam watched the Big Guy, and the rest of us went to work. With Derald's help and 1200 screw clips later, we finished laying out almost 3/4 of a mile of pipe. Here's some pictures as evidence. Derald and I measured and laid all of the clips for each room beforehand, then Shawn would snap in the pipe, while we moved onto the next room.
Also, where the pipe exits and enters the concrete at the manifold stations, we had to secure the pipe to make sure they wouldn't shift, and Derald did all of the work for that. Here you can see Derald attaching the pipe to a 2x4 we screwed on the wall for this particular station. You can also see grey 90º pieces of conduit that we used as pipe supports. These also will help protect the pipe from the concrete. Once it hardens, the concrete can be too sharp for the pipe at that location. We quit early on Saturday to get ready for Brian and Cari's party, but on the way there Shawn got a migraine, so he came back home. Evan and I went to the party for about 20 minutes then headed home.

Sunday, Shawn worked on getting all of the pipes hooked up together to form a single length of pipe. Then on one end we placed a cap, and on the other end we had an air valve and a pressure gauge. We filled the pipe with air to 50 pounds per square inch of pressure to see if we could find some leaks. We also needed to keep the pipe pressurize during the concrete pour. In the event that the pipe somehow gets damaged during the pour, the air will leak and you can mark the spot and try to keep the concrete from that area so it can later be fixed. We had to tighten all of the joints again as they were leaking, then we brought the pipe up to 50 psi again and left it overnight.

Also, on Sunday, Derald and Shawn worked on getting more of the waterproofing installed on the outside of the wall as we need to backfill soon.

The contractor called on Sunday afternoon to tell us that the pour was scheduled for this morning. Pam and Derald left in the evening with eternal gratitude from our part. My wonderful mother-in-law again left us caught up with laundry, squeaky clean floors and no dirty dishes, bless her heart!

This morning Shawn went out to the house and found our pressure gauge was reading 14 psi! Uh oh. That meant there was a leak somewhere. We went around and tested the pipe connections, and two of them had leaks still. Thank God the concrete trucks were running late, as that gave us time to tighten those connections again. We tried to pump the pipe up to 50 psi again, but the little air compressor had enough and blew a gasket. We at least got the pipe to 40 psi.

The crew arrived at 7:00 am to prepare, and what a difference compared to the other concrete crew. You could tell that these guys were very organized and prepared for the job ahead.
They cut a hole in one of the windows so they could get in there later and start using the power screed once the concrete hardens a little.

Here you can see them when they started pouring in the safe room. There were six crewman all working at once. One held the hose from the concrete telebelt, then two came after to do a rough spreading of the concrete, then two others leveled the concrete with a 2x4, then finally Bubba came with the bull float to get it nice and level, and smooth. Here's a video of the pour in the back bedroom. The little red clips seemed to hold the pipe ok, but the guys stepped on the pipe just in case to keep it from floating or moving when the concrete was placed. Here you can see how the concrete gets placed with a pump truck. Also, on the left you can see what looks like a huge fan. This is called the power screed, and once the concrete hardens for about an hour or two, Bubba and one other worker get back in there and begin to smooth the concrete. One of them claims it will almost as smooth as glass, so we'll see. They hang the power screed on the wall beforehand so they don't have to try and drag it inthrough the door all the way into the back of the basement and chance dropping it and ruining the floor. This way, they will climb in through the window and work they way out towards the door.

In this picture you can see the full crew in action. You can also see the temporary pipe that's hanging that we used to connect all of the loops together from the different manifold locations.
And here you can see Bubba and his big bull float doing the first pass for smoothing the surface of the concrete. The young man with the white t-shirt with black sleeves told us that he used to know the tenants that lived at our old house before we bought it. I guess this placed was called Snake Hill and he used to come and party over here quite a bit. I think I might keep the name Snake Hill for the acreage. Sounds sassy.

Well, the slab is now poured. When we left for work, Bubba was waiting for the concrete to set before he could go in and do the final smoothing of the surface. I'll have to get some pictures to share.

Here's a picture I took from outside the house. You can see on there the dimple board waterproofing on the front of the house that the guys installed on Sunday.















The flatwork conctractor needs to have the backfill in before he can pour the stoop, so that the concrete truck can get close enough to the house. The dilema is that we don't have the first floor deck on, and the walls might not take the earth pressure well without that extra reinforcement. I am also concerned that if we backfill without the deck, and the concrete truck gets too close to the house it might crack our wall, or worse cave it in.

So we are going to call the framer and see if he can get out there and get that deck on, even though he'd like to have it backfilled as well. So we'll see.
We also need to have the waterline trenched in from the meter pit location before we can backfill, but one company won't be able to come out for three or four weeks. The other company will see if they they schedule us in. So we'll see.