Day 22: Pouring the concrete slab

I worked late yesterday (Tuesday) preparing for the slab pour, so I did not post. Some of the tasks completed Tuesday were:

• Completed routing of the remaining 4 PEX heating circuits.
• Pressurized the PEX heating tubing to 70 psi to identify a failure if one occurs before or during the pour
• Built wooden supports for the corners and window openings to prevent them from distorting outward when the concrete is poured
• Built a variety of wooden forms to create 1) a concrete curb detail around the shower, 2) notches in the door openings for the doors to seat into and 3) a depression for a tile mosaic art piece in front of the sliding glass door
• Photographed, measured and sketched all conduits and tubes that are under locations where fasteners may be anchored into the slab, i.e. interior walls and kitchen cabinets.

Here is a picture from the end of Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the slab was poured. The folks from Diamond D Concrete, Las Animas Concrete and Pacific Coast Concrete Pumping showed up early. Diamond D used a laser level to create a line around the inside of the home that represented the finish height of the slab. I am going to let pics and vids do most of the talking. In the following vid you can see concrete being pumped in the foreground and application of a rough screed in the background.

A perforated roller screed is then used to push down the larger aggregate and leave smooth textured concrete on top (called cream).

The cream surface is then finish screed by hand.

The surface is then rough troweled by hand.

A power screed is then run over the surface.

The guys then worked the surface further twice more with hand trowels to get the finish I desired – not too rough and not too smooth…just right. The guys really did a great job! All of the hard work and preparation from the past several weeks paid off. The day went by with few troubles. I’ll close with a pic from the East at the end of the day.

Green comment for today:
Consider concrete as your finished floor. Less material is required to stain the concrete than to cover it with carpeting or wood. The results of stained finish floors are limited only by your imagination - check out Diamond D's gallery.

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Day 12: Plumbing started

Coady Barnum and Adam White showed up to begin plumbing. They made measurements and planned the positions of drains and vents. The finish floor is a concrete slab, so it is very important to get all of these positions correct. There is no opportunity to make changes after the slab is poured. Coady used a laser level to establish the finish floor position. This allowed the drain for the most important seat in the house (the toilet) to be positioned – see the pic below. The big open tube pointing up is the toilet drain. The smaller tube heading off to the left is the vent, which will eventually go all the way up through the roof.

In the next picture you can see the utility room sink, washing machine and floor drains.

Besides this plumbing work, Granite Rock delivered 2 truckloads of drainage rock that will eventually be spread out evenly on the subgrade.


Green comment for today:
Building a home with one bathroom minimizes plumbing materials and complexity. This works for us because there are only two living in the home.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.