Jim took the truck and went to Lowe's to pick up bags of concrete.
Then of course there is a ton of preparation work. By the time I got there, Jim was basically all ready to go. He was just leveling the forms and getting them in the perfect position over our hole.
Then shoveling dirt around the form just to keep everything in place and to keep the concrete inside the form instead of oozing all over!
Jim got to try out our new rebar bender/cutter - worked great!
Four pieces of rebar went down into the hole and then were bent to go out into the base for strength.
And two pieces of rebar (plus one additional one later on) go in the hole and straight up - eventually they will go through the core of the pedestal.
The concrete mixer (aka the Pumpkin) is attached to the Bobcat and buckets of water are standing by.
Time to mix up the first load - first the water...
Then the cement...
And we have concrete.
Since this is a relatively small pour and there are pieces of rebar that need to stay in place, we worked out of our mortar box and just shoveled the concrete in as opposed to just dumping it from the Pumpkin.
After we got the 4' deep hole filled with concrete, Jim used the concrete vibrator to make sure there are no voids anywhere.
Some adjustments to the rebar...
And now the rebar is all set in place and ready to be filled up with concrete.
I even got to take a turn filling it up with concrete while Jim was mixing.
Back to vibrating.
Two flat pieces of rebar were laid across the base.
And then more concrete...
and more vibrating.
15 bags of concrete later and it's time for finishing!
The middle piece of rebar went in and Jim taped them together just to hold them in place until the concrete was dry.
Lots of clean up work afterwards but the power sprayer makes it so much easier.
It was a very successful pour - the first of many to come!
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