Monday, June 11, 2012

The Big Pour - Part 2 - More Concrete Floor

I finally got outside over the weekend to work on the concrete floor. In case you're just joining in, I dug out the area beneath my deck to create some storage space - this entailed digging several cubic yards of dirt and applying some temporary supports. I'm in the second phase, which is to pour a concrete floor - initially I did a pad 30"x30" and I re-used the same form for the second part. Originally I was going to do an elongated second pour (you can see I've dug out about a 6' long trench):


I nixed that idea though because of space considerations - much easier to fit a wheelbarrow for the mixing in the remaining space, pluse I can re-use the form. When the second pad dries I can place the wheelbarrow on the already set-up concrete for the next pad. Besides it's much easier and I already know each section will take about 7 bags of Quickcrete. Here's the form:


Another bonus with this method is that I'm not totally wearing myself out trying to do everything at once. It does take a while to do this - several hours for each slab.


I got a bit rushed towards the end as I met some friends for dinner. You usually wait a bit for the concrete to set up, apply the texture then edge. Here I've just floated and edged so it's not going to be the prettiest slab (not that it needs to be). I started the first pour in October of last year (2011) and the whole project started in April - it's now June of 2012. I'm not sure where all the time went but at this rate I'll be done in 2015 or so. This is the first post: http://northcrestmodern.blogspot.com/2011/04/great-dig-part-1-introduction-and-some.html

-- John