Last fall we dug out the foundation and poured new footers. This spring we put in drainage. We spent the summer putting forms up for the new foundation.
These are the foundation forms on the east side of our house, ready to take the concrete.
Once again, Eric made a couple of mega sawhorses to support the giant chutes. We actually rented a chute extension this time because the foundation forms are a lot smaller space to hit.
The concrete truck showed up at 11am.
This pour did not go as smoothly as the last one. The 80 degree plus heat worked against us and even though we were using thinner concrete [5 inch slump], we had to work more slowly and it seized up fast and caused some problems. Our site is a tricky one and the truck couldn't get where it would be easy to pour.
On top of that, these forms were 4 feet or so higher than the footer, so we had much less slope to work with. Gravity is your friend. On this pour day, gravity was on vacation and did not come over to help.
In the end it took much longer and we used a much thinner mix than we had planned. We had to push it by hand and shovel to where we needed it on the west side. It was tricky, strenuous and messy work and it took all of us to get it done. We never panicked and stayed cheerful through the whole job.
We had ordered 8.5 yards of concrete and we used it all. By 4:30 all the concrete was in and we were cleaning up.
Concrete is super messy work. All of us looked like this - concrete everywhere, with gloves that were covered in concrete, and globs in our hair. I didn't even bother washing my pants. I just took them off and threw them away.
We are so relieved that this part is done. Woo-Hoo!!
Next steps:
- seal the foundation
- finish the drainage [fill in the moat]
- rebuild the front deck so we can use the front door again
- take the old aluminum siding off the house
- start framing