Garage Slab Concrete Day

Date: July 28 - August 1, 2025 

The plural disagreement between this post's title and the date imply the same old, same old was at work again. Friday the prep is done, so "we'll pour on Monday", Sunday its "Monday weather looks bad, we're on for Tuesday", wait! - Monday evening its "Tuesday is out because I have another job" (of course Curly already had someone booked before it rained on Monday), "soonest we can get there is Friday". You can bet that I was counting my blessings when Friday August 1st rolled around and we actually did it.

The weekend before all this sliding I decided to try to address the flat tire issue. Now I realize the real solution is to use my Rock Drill and expanding grout to break the rock - I'm an expert! However it'd be stupid to try to wrestle that drill again - a fresh back injury would be a likely outcome. So instead I put a cone at the spot to warn the drivers.


 

The high points in that pic:
You'll notice that the leftmost high point looks like it's scarred on top - that's what a truck rim does to a rock that's just minding its own business.  Another data point is that drivers only seem to rub up against the rock on the way up the driveway, going down is always OK. Probably that is because the driver, sitting on the driver's side, is mighty close to a 40' drop off on the left and I suspect they shy away from it and crowd the rock instead.

Anyhow since I still had unused gravel, I used those free days to lay down the footer drain and throw/carry buckets of more gravel in behind the wall. Here is my sped-up walk-through to document the placement of the drain pipe:


The building inspector came and did the sign-off on the slab preparation on Monday. To save the hassle of another visit, I asked him to sign off on the backfill preparation also. I had embedded some of the pipe reviewed above in gravel, and I explained that I'd be placing gravel next to the build all the way up after the floor system was in. He said fine and dandy, so I can go ahead and move the dirt when it suits me.

These photos were taken Thursday the 31st.  For the west wall I was able to use the tractor bucket instead of a 5 gallon bucket to move the stone:

After getting the pipe fully embedded:
I spread the landscaping fabric which will keep most of the dirt away from the gravel channel.
Really the gravel layer is the drain since the water should run freely through it. The pipe is just there to assure that a void exists into the distant future. Then cover the fabric with more gravel.


The other task for me was to build a couple of small boxes that, when filled with concrete, would be a stand-off for the two support beams we would erect between the garage doors. This would help ensure that the wood stays rot free into the distant future.

Thursday morning: more rain over night. You can see some fresh wood on that front form. Those a brackets I added that my box forms can slide into after the main concrete is in place and leveled so they will be precisely correspond to the beam locations.

Friday morning started around 7AM when Curly and his crew got there. This time the pump guy (different company) was the first one there, which meant he blocked the driveway up to the carport, eliminating the parking we'd used the week before. The finishing gal didn't come this time, it was two younger guys and I was sorry to see that as that woman was a real artist. 

The previous night I'd be laying in bed thinking about how I could put my name and the year on the footer concrete. As the crew was working I broke out my Dremel tool and installed a wood bit in it. Then taking the form boxes I made, I cut out the text I wanted in mirror image. I spread oil on the wood to help it separate cleanly from the concrete. Here is one of them (picture taken after it was used)


 The first truck arrived at 8:20. As you can see in the video below, we had vehicles all over the yard, since the main lawn area had to be kept empty to allow the cement trucks to turn around.


That is Curly moving cement in the red shirt. It was his flatbed truck parked off the side of the hill. I was amazed at how readily he just drove down that 25% grade dirt hillside. I hoped he'd be able to get out of there. After the slab had poured I screwed the two box forms onto the front form and we filled those, trying to leave the main surface as undisturbed as possible. One of the workers got a little perturbed when I kept tapping the side of the box form - I wanted to make sure the concrete filled the lettering.

 So this time we needed just two loads. I calculated 14 yards rounded up to 15 then got talked into 16 yards "just to be safe." We ended up with lots extra and Curly extended the driveway paving another 15 feet. He skillfully got the truck empty into a pile while leaving room for it to drive out without messing up the new concrete, then pulled the pile out to extend the drive just perfectly to allow everyone else to get by it with their smaller trucks. The second truck left a bit before 10AM:

Curly backed that big flatbed truck up the steep hill like it was nothing. Some people have a knack for operating machinery. Curly and most everyone else then split, leaving two guys to do the slab finishing after it started to set up.  We sat around for a while then I got them to move buckets of gravel with me around the back wall. Around 12:30 the concrete was set enough to start the troweling. The main floor could use a motorized trowel, while the root cellars had to be hand-troweled.





After the troweling I took apart the box forms (they were put together with screws). My technique could have been improved in two ways. First when I screwed the forms together I didn't think about the angle I'd have after they were full of concrete, so I couldn't get on of the screws out, which meant we had to break things a little bit taking it off. The second was that the lettering would have come out better if I had taking some of that high-clay soil I'd found under the bedrock and rubbed it into the carved out letters so the letters would have a smoother surface. At any rate I was thankful it worked at all, here are the results (pictures taken later that evening):


Trying to get a sense of how level it was. Looked good to me. It turns out your eyeball isn't really very good.

I sent a text to Stacy McCurry to let him know that the slab was done and that I'd have materials for them to start the framing delivered on Monday.  He said "it'll be Tuesday or Wednesday" for them to get there. 

Later in the afternoon the guys unloaded a heavy duty cement saw which runs on treads to cut the score lines. It wouldn't start. They broke out the backup heavy duty saw which had a broken pull rope. It wouldn't start either. They fooled with them for an hour an a half (including trying my starter fluid), getting oil all over my pristine slab. Finally they gave up and said they'd be back in the morning to do the cuts.

 Pictures from just before sunset, this one from the wet root cellar with gravel floor:

Score lines but no cuts:


"We'll be back in the morning" turned out to be an understatement. Charla woke me up at 5:45 AM Saturday morning saying someone was out there in the dark doing something. Then it clicked that I hadn't told her about the problem with the saws. So before there was even enough light to see there was a hand held cement saw that sounded like a chainsaw raising hell out there. I suppose these guys had some regular job they had to be at, so they just got up real early to deal with this. The lines they cut were a little wavier than would have been created by a heavy duty saw. 

When I paid Curly for the work he gave me a c-note back and said I should buy some crack grout to make those cuts look better. That was a good customer relation move.

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