I started the day going to a cute little bakery in town that we've never been to - donuts for the driver are always a good idea! I filled up the cooler with tons of water too - concrete work is exhausting.
Jim headed out to the land - he had bought a new breaker and wanted to get the temporary power working. I headed out to pick up Kyle - he was coming in on the bus. The MegaBus that he usually takes only comes in/out once a day and the hours weren't great. So he took a Trailways bus that was supposed to get him in about 11:30. Concrete was scheduled for 1:30, so that would be great. The bus made a ton of stops apparently, so Kyle was a little later - closer to 12:30. But it was so good to see him!
When we got back to the land, Jim had the power working and the vibrator in the site ready to go with no generator. The truck was up by the well plugged into the temporary pole and we had water with no generator - all happy news!
Jim had everything ready to go and walked us through the plan for the concrete.
Here's the happy crew before, waiting for the concrete truck.
The truck arrives! This is the first time we've ever had one of these new front-discharge trucks and what a blessing it turned out to be! The old trucks we always had in Ohio, the driver backs into the site with the mixer and chutes out the back. However, he's in the driver's seat controlling things and moving positions and you have to yell directions and when to stop/start, plus you have to move the chute around. If you don't get a good driver, it can be a horrible experience.
This was great - the driver can see everything that is happening and can position the chute with amazing accuracy. You can talk to him easily to tell him what you need. This driver was so good - Jim had a backup plan of putting the concrete in the Bobcat and putting it into the footers from there. But this guy said he could reach everything from the truck - we ended up not even getting the Bobcat dirty!
They started in the step area - Jim wanted a base of concrete there and some time for it to set up a bit before it was finished.
Hard at work...
After the step, the driver repositioned and they started from the front and worked their way around. We all had to take turns vibrating the concrete after it was poured too, so while the truck was repositioning or someone else had things under control, the concrete had to be vibrated to make sure the rebar was set and there were no voids.
This corner was the toughest - the truck couldn't reach the corner itself so concrete was dumped on either side and Jim and Kyle had to do a lot of pushing and pulling to get it into place. As you can see, there's not a lot of room to work down where these footers are below grade so that made it even harder.
Then they worked back around to the step area and did the rest of that.
After the step areas were done, it was much easier. There was room to stand and work and the truck could reach everything easily. You can see all of the footing dowels - it was amazing that the truck could get up and in between these with just a few instructions from Jim.
And then the concrete was all in place! The driver cleaned up his truck, had a donut, and was off!
Jim and Kyle went back and just smoothed the top - because more concrete is going on top of this footer, Jim just wanted it level with clean edges but not totally smooth so that there was good friction between the two concrete pours later on.
Kyle smoothing things off.
We left the step area vibrating until the end just to give it a little more time.
And it's done - the first concrete pour is in the books and we have footers!
The after picture - the crew is actually in good shape! Usually concrete wipes you out but the driver made it easier and Jim had all the prep work done. The temperatures were good too - upper 70's with a bit of a breeze sometimes so that certainly helped the crew.
Can't forget clean-up time! Jim always takes good care of his tools and spends a lot of time making sure they are concrete free.
As always, leaving our mark on the concrete.
What a great day! We celebrated at Village Pizza when we were done before we had to take Kyle back to catch the bus. We are so grateful that he came up to help - many blessings today!
Tomorrow we get to take the forms off and start digging for the next section!
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