Jim started to investigate why our upper lawn hydrant wasn't working - it would sure come in handy if it was. We haven't used this one at all except for a few times when it was first installed.
Once he got it apart, he discovered that the clevis pin had broken off inside for some reason. He has already ordered a new one in stainless steel - hopefully he'll be able to get the bottom of the old one out to replace it.
He spent about two hours getting everything ready to pour concrete today - he brought up the forks and the pumpkin, the mortar box and all the concrete...
Since the upper lawn hydrant isn't working, we have to bring a hose from the lower one and make a cleaning station and bucket fill up area near the driveway...
Yesterday, Jim had finished off this corner of the form with some plywood...
Jim keeps some old motor oil and has a special hose connected that he uses to spray the inside of the forms so that removal is easier when the concrete is cured...
Starting to mix!
Jim mixes 3 bags at a time in the pumpkin, dumped it into the mortar box and mixed up another 3 bags and dumped it...
Then he had to offload the pumpkin onto the pallet and put the forks on the Bobcat...
Then he could pick up the mortar box and bring it over to the site...
Starting to hand shovel it into the form...
Vibrating the concrete to remove voids...
Putting the wire on top...
Vibrating again to make sure the wire is encased well...
Then the process started all over again - offloading the forks, putting on the pumpkin and starting to mix more concrete...
Another six bags mixed and Jim is starting to place the concrete...
We mixed up another 3 bags (for a total of 15) and Jim placed it - pretty much perfect amount with just a tiny bit left. Vibrating...
Then it's time for two hours of clean up and put away! Cleaning the mortar box...
Stopping the cleaning process for another float...
Then stopping to do the edges...
It turned out perfectly!
As luck would have it, all of a sudden rain was in the forecast. As I write this, we've only had a couple sprinkles and hopefully we won't get more than that, but Jim had to prepare for rain. In this area, all the water comes off the roof and splashes down - it would ruin the concrete. So Jim made a multi-level cover - none of this is sitting on the concrete so it should all be protected in case it does rain.
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| High 80.7/Low 52.9 |
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