8.13.2016 - Landing!

Today was a huge day - we poured the landing for the lower staircase!  This is definitely one of those jobs that needs 2 men.  Jim was hoping to have Kyle help him, but they've been busy and it was important to get this done to be able to move on.  Everything kind of snowballs - we need the building inspector out to see if he needs to inspect the lintels before we can finish the brick over the garage doors.  Jim wants to have the steps in before the building inspector comes out.  There are tools that Jim wants to move from the lower shop to the upper one so we need the stairs for that too. 

Jim got everything ready - we got plastic put down in case of spillages.  Jim put a tread temporarily in place that he could stand on to work in addition to having the ladder.

Obviously, concrete takes a different mixture than we're used to for mortar.  Jim bought up gravel - a pile of small gravel and a pile of bigger gravel.  It was my job to get all the "ingredients" ready - sifting 2 buckets of sand and shoveling 3 buckets of gravel for each batch.



Jim got the pumpkin on the Bobcat and started our first batch. 

Ready to dump the first batch into the mortar box!

 

Then we mixed up another batch and poured it in the box so that we had a good amount to start out with.

Jim had to scoop shovelfuls of concrete into 2 buckets and then he carried them inside.

Dumping the first bucket!

Continuing to dump bucketsful...

Starting to spread it out...

Filling up more buckets...

Getting ready to make our 3rd batch of concrete...

Dumping it into the box...

And continuing to bring buckets in...



and filling up the landing.

 

Spreading it out...

Making the 4th batch!

Dumping the buckets of concrete...

Poor Jim has to do some gymnastics to reach the back side of the landing!

All of the concrete is now placed!  It took 4 batches and 28 bucketsful of concrete to make the landing!

The happy and exhausted crew!  It was another heat advisory day with a heat index of 101 degrees - so elderly people shouldn't be working - ha!  We were soaked to the skin with sweat.

Cleaning off the pumpkin - it did another great job for us.

Doing the first trowel work to make it flat...

Jim brought up a plank...

...and used that to get out onto the landing to flatten the concrete.

First pass all done - now it just needs to cure a bit before Jim can finish trowel it.

Now that the concrete is done for the moment, Jim moved some of the concrete back down to the piles and spread the remainder out.

 

Never one to sit and relax after an exhausting day, while the concrete was setting up Jim went back to working on other projects.

 

He got the lintel with the anchor bolt extensions all painted.

 

Then he got all the clip angles cut, beveled, and holes drilled.



He finish welded the ends to make a nice finished product.

 

The concrete is now all finished!!  Looks amazing - we're so thrilled to have it done!

 

Of course, we have to continue the tradition of signing the concrete.

Jim went back to work and got one of the stringers all welded - it's ready to mount! 

 

High 86/Low 73 (heat index 101)