Concrete Crazy

The week started off on a good note.  We passed the footer inspection from the county and the inspector said it was the best work he'd ever seen!  (And, I didn't have to wear a Nascar shirt or talk tracksmack!)  We were finally ready to pour the footers.  We had decided to use a pump truck to pump the concrete into the footers because the ground was so wet from last week's rain and we thought for sure the concrete trucks would get stuck. 

Action Concrete Pumping brought out a pump truck with a 120 ft. boom to pump the concrete into the footers.  (For construction illiterate folk like Cristi, a boom is like a long arm with a nozzle at the end that dumps the concrete.)  Once the footers were poured, we had to let them sit overnight so the form boards could come off Tuesday morning.  The survey was also done Monday for the house spotting. The house spotting doesn't have much purpose other than to let the bank know we are building on the right property.  Why every bank does this AFTER thousands of dollars have been spent  on excavation/foundation instead of doing it before breaking ground is something I'll never understand.

Tuesday, our prayers must have worked because the only rain we got was a light sprinkle and it didn't last long.  Acme Block and Brick delivered 1700 block and 5 tons of sand whilst Lowe's delivered plumbing supplies and a pallet of quikcrete.  Christmas Lumber delivered rebar and Rogers Group delivered 70 ton of rock which is 140,000 lbs!!!

Wednesday seemed more like Monday as I made 4 trips to Lowe's. Thank goodness Ron and Jeremy were here to work or nothing would have gotten done today.  Ron plumbed in the basement bathroom.  The skreet boards were put in place to get the basement ready to pour concrete and we moved 23 tons of rock by hand into the basement.  Hard manual work and it wasn't the best thing for my shoulder as it has been hurting for over a week and I haven't had time to see the doctor.

Thursday, we got smart and called the excavator to use the bobcat for moving the remaining 47 tons of rock into the basement. (WHY didn't we think of that earlier?)  Once the rock was in the basement, we leveled it and installed the foam insulation boards.  Then, we installed the vapor barrier and put down the wire mesh.  We also passed the basement plumbing inspection and slab inspection so we were ready to pour the basement slab on Friday.

Come Friday morning, Murphy was in the house.  Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.  The pump truck and concrete truck were supposed to arrive at 8 am so we could put the concrete in the basement but the pump truck broke down less than a mile from the construction site.  It took over an hour to get a new truck from Knoxville out to our site.  And, because of the wait, we were charged a sit time for the concrete truck.  (cha ching!)  Once the new truck arrived, we finally started pumping concrete!!

Then, we quickly found out that the correct yardage (of concrete) that we ordered was not on the concrete trucks - we were shorted concrete so we had to order 4 more yards of concrete which meant we needed another truck ... cha ching!  The power trowel, which is used to finish and give a polished look to the concrete, had bent blades so the rental company had to bring out new blades and install them.  Then, I had to leave to go to a doctor appointment for my shoulder only to find that I tore the outside of my rotor cuff.  Upon returning to the site, there was some good news, Ron and Jeremy had finished the slab and I could go home!  But, Murphy got one final jab in when he topped off the day with a nail in my tire...cha ching!

Saturday, we cleaned up the site, took the skreet boards off and got ready to set the first course of block.  Jeremy had to return to FL, so Ron and I will be working alone for the next 2 weeks laying block.  If you have any free time on your hands and want to help out, we'll be more than happy to keep you busy.  (oh, and don't think you'll be getting paid, we are running low on the cha ching this week!)