The Big Pour

Ryan and I are both back to work here in Lewisburg. The Zeller house was quiet for quite a while. I was away on a work trip and Ryan took the time to do some other work with his dad up in Saratoga, NY. Probably my most exciting work at the house so far happened just before we left town. I finished work for the holidays on December 15th and Mike came down to help out with preparation for and the big concrete pour. Mike, Ryan and I worked on putting down the tubing and wire mesh for the radiant heat in both rooms of the basement as well as side porch addition. I wasn't able to be present for most of the first pour, which included the back addition and some basement footings, but I had stopped by and I thought I had a pretty good handle on what it involved. I couldn't have been more wrong! We started at about 7:30 am in the pouring rain with concrete shooting out of a tube into the basement. Suited up in their rubber boots, Ryan controlled the tube while mike pushed the concrete around in order to level it out. The screeds (boards that are placed intermittently throughout the area being poured) that we had put down the day before and leveled helped them to determine when there was enough concrete in an area. I watched, learned and took pictures of the basement pour and then while Mike stayed in the basement to work on leveling, Ryan and I finished up the pour on the side porch. He controlled the tube while I pushed, or at least attempted to push the concrete into place.

Once all the areas were leveled, we turned some of the space heaters on to help dry the basement and covered the back area with a tarp as the rain became heavier. Concrete is all bursts of work and a lot of waiting around. We left the house, ran some errands, had some lunch and returned to the concrete to check on it. Despite the weather, the concrete seemed to be setting up fairly quickly and we worked throughout the afternoon to smooth and level it. We used magnesium trowels first to bring the "cream" (the smooth, more liquid part of the mixture) up to the top as opposed to the small stones. Then we switched to steel trowels to buff and smooth the surface as it continued to dry. There really is an art to concrete. A great deal of patience is required to keep going over and over an area to smooth and re-smooth and try to bring the surface as close to perfection as possible.

When we started the day in the rain, Mike and Ryan predicted a long day and maybe even night, but we finished off with time to spare around 4pm and closed up the house for the day. The following morning Mike and Ryan returned to the house to clean-up and remove the forms on the side porch slab. Despite the weather, the pour pretty much went off without a hitch. Mike headed home that day and Ryan and I sealed up the house for the final time in 2006 and headed out for the holidays the following morning.