This week was a big week! We had a few surprises right before concrete was poured. A mix of California power outages, hospital stay for our little girl joining the family, extreme winds and finally our concrete pad was poured!

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This week started with the first major power outage of the season and the power was off for us for three days. This was three uncomfortable days for me as we stayed in our trailer since we did not have running water in our house with not having a generator hooked up yet. This included carrying buckets of water to fill the chicken water troughs and making sure all the farm animals had all they needed in the 90 degree temperatures since on a well the irrigation is turned off with no power.

This image on the top right made me laugh when I took it – it was the evening after our power was turned back on and we were back to work on the home build!

The concrete pad was pushed off a few days because of the power being shut off. The Sunday only one day after the power came back on our little one surprised us early! We were able to go home two days later with a thriving baby girl, Frankie!

 

After the intricate slab preparation, the slab was ready to be poured. The best concrete pour days stem from the best preparation, so the better the forms and setup, the easier the pour will be and the better the finish because more attention will be focused on finishing and less on scrambling to fix form blow outs and falling steel. We poured monolithically, which means we poured the footings and slab at the same time. The benefit is only hiring a pump and help one time and only having one pour date. Often others consider a downside to be that it can use more crushed rock in the underslab because the footings can hold it back, but it is well worth it for the cost of the hired help.

For the pour day, we hired a concrete pump to place the concrete from the truck. It is almost a necessity and makes for a miserable day without one. This slab was too large for one person to finish, so we hired four additional finishers to help make it perfect, as stained concrete will be our finished floors in the addition as well. Concrete always needs joints cut in it to control the cracking and avoid shattering, but the deep joints can collect dirt, dog hair and other grossness, so we cut the joints to create the relief for the cracking, but then creamed them back in with fine concrete film to disguise them. The result is controlled hairline cracks in a defined pattern and an altogether more aesthetically pleasing finished product. As with the form work, pouring the slab is critical to the remainder of the construction process. The more straight and level the slab is, the easier the build will be and the better it will turn out. Our pour went off without a hitch and our slab turned out beautiful. On to the framing!!

Hugs, Christina