Fast & furious concrete pour

Hey Folks,

This week I took a day off from work to participate on the foundation pour for houses 5 & 6. What's to follow on this post will be less of me yappin' (yeah!) and more of a photo essay of the day and some absolutely fascinating info about pouring concrete on a Habitat site. Let's begin...

One of the things I learned about concrete pours is having everything ready, then being able to wait...and wait...and wait some more. Oh! Here come the pumper truck, we'll finally get started. But noooo there's still more waiting. This time for the cement trucks. Once they are both there, well that's when the fast & furious begins.

Two layers of concrete are poured between the forms. This is considered a mono pour, where the footer & stem wall are joined creating one solid foundation. The concrete keeps coming whether you're ready for it or not. :P

That's me following behind, using the wand to vibrate the newly poured concrete. This helps it spread evenly and fills in any air bubbles. Some pointers from one of our volunteer site supervisors and retired engineer Bill, helped get the job done correctly. By the end of the second layer I looked like cement was the new winter fashion trend. Head to toe.

A screed board & trowels are used to level
and smooth  the concrete out

Pads, which weight baring posts will sit on, are filled

Job complete! I'd asked why we didn't pour the driveways as well and Terry, another one of our site supervisors, also a retired engineer, said it was because one the the challenges of pouring foundations during a cold winter is the chance of freezing, which can leave cracks in the concrete. We could pour the foundation because the wooden forms would insulate it and the elements used to make up the concrete would cause a “thermal reaction” and keep cracks from forming. Visqueen (a very heavy plastic sheathing) will be thrown over the top to help the process. The driveways don't have that kind of insulating protection so they'll need to wait for temps that'll stay above freezing overnight.

Now our foundation just needs to cure. It can do so overnight. Pretty darn quick!

And here's the finished product, looking like a solid foundation for homes that two of our families will live their lives upon.

It was 24 degrees and cloudy on site yesterday morning but we kept moving, getting the foundation forms and pad boxes cleaned up for the next set of townhouses, which will include our Women Build home. We were grateful when, after lunch, the sun came out and it eventually warmed up to 38. I'll end this post with what I think is a cool shot.

Until next time, live you're best life, however big or small it may be!

Cutting off the excess rebar