Slabs of concrete

When I was looking at the photos I wanted to use in this post, I was surprised to see that there was no snow on the ground when our concrete pads were poured. It seems like we've had snow on the ground for weeks already. But the photos are proof, that while it was pretty darned cold, the snow that had fallen earlier had definitely all melted away.

For two weeks we anxiously followed various weather report web sites, tracking storms and falling temperatures, and worrying that we were a bit too ambitious in thinking that we could get our concrete pads poured before winter arrived. But somehow we lucked out, and a little bit of warmer air arrived just in time for the pour, and lingered long enough to allow the concrete a couple of days to set properly.

I don't think either of us slept well the night before the pour. Rob was out on the highway by 7 a.m. to meet the pumping truck and to help guide him in. The concrete work team arrived shortly after, and because the truck was a bit late, the concrete trucks arrived around the same time. We were excited, but nervous. We were worried that the forms wouldn't hold, and although I was sure that Rob had put all the pipes in the right place, I must admit I was a little worried about the finality of encasing everything in concrete !

The pumping truck was quickly set up and positioned so it could reach both pads, but still allow the concrete trucks to attach themselves to the back of the truck to transfer the concrete.  Then it pumped a nice big blat of concrete on the ground behind the house, in order to clear all the lines, before they started to fill the forms. I of course thought he had forgotten to move the pump and was about to fill the yard with concrete!

The truck driver (wearing the red hoodie) controlled the pump with a remote device that he carried around.  Sometimes I think he was just having fun with the young guys who were hanging onto that pipe as he would jerk it around a lot!

They worked quickly to fill and spread the concrete, taking measurements of the levels all along to make sure everything was where it should be. The heavy flow of concrete did push the forms out a bit, but they held. Whew.

As more and more concrete filled in the forms they worked faster with their rakes. They make it look easy, like some kind of dance. But I tried raking some of the leftover concrete later on, and it's really hard work!

As they moved along the first pour (which was the house pad) one of them fired up the gas powered tamper, but it soon broke down. Rob tried to help fix it, but it looked like it was beyond repair.

Luckily they had brought along the wooden "manual" style tamper, so they had to use it instead. It's really hard work to bend over and use this one, and it doesn't do the same smooth job. But when they used the smoother/finisher it made it all look the same later on. This is going to be our finished floor in most of the rooms, so we want it to look good!

 

Once they finished the house pad pour they moved on to the workshop. They would periodically check the house pad concrete by lightly putting their foot on it to see if it was set enough for smoothing/polishing. Despite the slight bows in the forms, and the broken tamper, things seemed to be going pretty well. It was still colder out than promised, and I headed back to the house to warm up and add a few more layers on.  I came back a short while later to watch the work on the workshop. Unfortunately, that's when we ran out of concrete.  Ordering concrete is a bit tricky as whatever you order, you pay for, and it's yours. They don't take back unused concrete in the concrete trucks. So you sort of want to get the amount right! It's a bit difficult to guess how much you are short by, in the middle of a pour.  We weren't short by much, but it was enough that we had to wait a while for more to be delivered.

 

When it arrived it was a bit different consistency, so hopefully this doesn't affect the floor in the workshop. There was also more than we needed. If we had known, we would have set up some concrete forms elsewhere around the house pad, for things like the pads for our future propane tanks. We will need front steps too, but couldn't prepare for that as there will be more fill added before we can build those. So, we looked around, spied our new rock wall, and opted to pour the remaining concrete around the rocks.  Hopefully the concrete will help the rocks to stay in place a bit better as we did have concerns that they would move out. Here Rob gets to try his hand at pumping concrete! It's not easy to hang on to, and I was worried he would go out over the rocks.

Once the pour was complete, we were probably all relieved. We watched the pumping truck fold up and prepare to leave. They insert a big ball in the end of the pump and it sucks it up and this cleans out the entire arm. Everything gets hosed down as well to ensure there is no remaining concrete anywhere. As they pointed out - tomorrow will be too late - it will have set everywhere! The concrete that is in the pump ALSO gets dumped, but we had them put it in an area that needed some fill.  I guess it is fairly organic at least... Later on when it was still soft, Rob went back out with the tractor and scooped up and broke up the concrete where it had been dumped, leaving most of the concrete around the rocks though.

As the concrete firmed up slowly, they were able to start the smoothing process. They kicked off their big boots, replaced them with clean sneakers and fired up the smoothing machines. Then they walked these machines all around the pad. Waited half an hour, did it again, waited half an hour, did it again....They make this part look easy too, but it isn't.

While they smoothed the surface, we walked around and admired their work, the sun broke out, and the air began to warm up a bit at last.  It was really amazing to see our house floors begin to take shape! Rob had worked hard the last few weeks to get ready for this part.

 

I loved the patterns in the concrete, but after each smoothing session they slowly disappeared. After a long day, the concrete team  gave the pads one last polish, and then cleaned everything up and went home. Rob and I went home too, but couldn't resist going out for one more look before it got dark.

It was pretty amazing to be able to stand on the concrete, and now be at the finished height of our new floors.  Suddenly I could imagine that I was in the kitchen, the dining room.....

We went to sleep that night feeling pretty relieved that this part was done. Somehow, I thought that would be it for this year. Of course I forgot all about the fact that the concrete has to have lines cut into it, which Rob did the next day. And I forgot about the curing, and that it's best if the concrete stays wet and warm. So we had to keep checking the weather forecast, and when we heard it was going to get cold, Rob covered it with straw and plastic.  Rob had read that if we just put plastic down directly on the concrete, it might affect our acid stain finish when we apply it next year. I have visions of the straw leaving marks too, but that would be kind of cool maybe!

We had a couple of extra bales of straw so left them there for now, but I can use them for mulch next spring.

And THEN I thought that was it for this year, but of course - it isn't! Rob has been busy ever since, catching up on all the things that didn't get done in the fall - servicing the tractor, preparing for winter, and working on the next stage of the house plans. As well, he decided to try rigging up a small insulated room on the porch so that he can work on some of the smaller timbers if it's warm enough during the winter. 

We took one afternoon off though to clear a new walking path.  It's our goal to have a few loops through the woods, and I had hoped that I could simply trim some branches to clear the way, but the recent storms have dropped a lot of large trees in the areas we want to walk. With the help of the tractor we were able to clear one path for now, and it's lovely. It leads to a different area of the river. 
We climbed up through the woods on another path that we would like to clear and were stunned to see how many trees came down in the last wind storm. We will have to leave that area for another time, it's going to take a bit of work!

As always, we had plans to get a few more things done outside. But the temperatures kept dropping, and then the snow arrived.

 

Now it's time to get ourselves sorted out a bit here in the cabin. We've had to bring in anything that will be adversely affected by the cold temperatures, and are still trying to sort out our collection of hats, mitts, scarves and winter coats.  Every time Rob plows, or we walk the dog, we have a new collection of things that are wet and need to put somewhere to dry. On the plus side, it adds a bit of much needed moisture to the air !

Christmas is fast approaching, and I think we are both looking forward to some quiet nights by the fire, playing our favourite Christmas tunes, and curling up with a good book. We have a lot of research to do over the next few months, but I think we could both use the next couple of weeks to relax a bit.  I've stocked up on some books from the local library, and some new fabric paints just arrived in the mail.  And if you had told me 2 years ago, that two weeks before Christmas I would even be thinking about reading and painting, I would have not have believed it!!  What a lovely change this has been for us....

Oh, and Jet says don't forget we have to go play in the snow too.....

 Although even Jet has been lying closer to the wood stove the last few nights!