The day started with Buddy and I waking up to the dogs greeting the first truck load of workers. That was at 6:25AM. The workers varied from the local high school's football coach to a 'would be' member of ZZ Top band. Buddy told Rusty that he appreciated all the help he brought, but that we did not expect ZZ. Rusty said they always bring him, hoping that the old coupe with the good looking girls will show up!.............but alas no coupe and no girls.
The first concrete truck showed up at 6:42 AM. Rusty finished placing the steel bars in the wall area of the future tornado room and in the hole where the fireplace was going to be. (The concrete walls and ceiling for the tornado room will be poured next week.) The first area to get the concrete where the beams and the storm room. As more concrete trucks came the slab started to form. Then crew worked from the southeast corner, around the north side, to the west side, then back to the southeast corner. One minor accident - no one hurt, but the coach forgot that the section of the floor where the fireplace will be is quite a bit deeper with cement than the rest of the floor. He as walking across the slab and all of a sudden one of his work boots and leg went out of sight. It took him a little time to clean up before he could get back to work. Everyone took turns leveling the concrete out with a 2"x4"X10' metal screege and then "ZZ" started using the long bull float. Prior to the pour, the area designated for the showers, in the north west corner of the house, were framed out with lumber so that their floors would be 3 1/2" below grade. The coach started by sloping the floor towards the drains then after the concrete was worked into this area of the house, Billy and Opa took up the boards and smoothed out the shower floors. Over all, it took 68 cubic yards of concrete to finish the slab. We even had enough concrete left over to form a small slab for our temperary building we will use to house our solar power inverter(DC to AC) and battery bank.
After the concrete had settled a few minutes, Rusty and the crew started the finish work. This was done by hand around the edges and close up to all the stub-outs while Rusty and ZZused two gas powered trowels. It looked like the power trowels were the only way to go. I would hate to have to do it all by hand! By 2:00 PM, Rusty and the boys had gone and it was now our turn to try and keep the concrete cooled down as it dried. Since the temperature was in the lower 100's, with very few clouds, it was going to be a challenge. Buddy tried using the tree sprayer for the first 3 or 4 hours, but that was getting tiring and we could not keep that up all night. So, we decided to try the sprinklers on a cycle of 30 min. every 2 hour overnight and that worked great!! The plan, for now, is to keep the slab flooded for the week-end, which should allow sufficient time for it to cure to it's greatest strength with the least likelyhood of cracking(so they say).
It is now 9:00 PM and the slab looks like a calm lake with the sun setting on it and all is right with the world - or at least in our part of Texas, here at "Thee Place"