Mondays Concrete Has Been Postponed

Ugh!!! So Mondays concrete pour has been postponed until Thursday, but it is supposed to rain on Thursday, so I cant see them getting it done until next week. They had prior comitments, and didn't have any finishers to do our pour.

But we didn't know that, until we got home real late Sunday Evening, so Mary and Kyle busted their butts trying to get it all done for an early Monday pour...

Sunday Mary, Kyle, Jennifer and I got the Sono-Tubes dug, placed, plumbed and reburied. These are for our porch posts, there are 12 of them, they need to be securely set below the frost line.

They are 36 - 44 inches deep. Depending on how difficult the digging was at that depth.

We remembered to put in the pipes for the Fireplace Air Intakes, they went in just perfect.

And then we re-leveled everything and used the tamper to get it all smooth again.

Concrete Pour

We got our concrete poured today. Everything went real smoothly. And it is smooth. They also formed out the porch and are going to pour it on Monday...which means I have to set and plumb the tubes for the porch post footings this weekend.

We had to remove the window sashes from four windows and built protective boxes around the window frames to keep the chutes from tearing them to shreads which is a good thing we did because one of the trucks hit our box.

We backed several concrete trucks in through the windows some went around to shoot through the doors. We had a total of 6 trucks.


Here is the beginning pour this is one truckload. This one they brought in through the bedroom window. As they were pouring they were hooking the radiant lines and re-mesh and pulling them up into the concrete.



They have now poured both bedrooms and are now working on the livingroom, which they brought in through the doorway.



Here they had them going in side by side through our front doorways.




They were shooting into the master bedroom. So very glad the drivers can actually drive.



The place looks like a concrete terminal to me.




Inside shot of the masterbedroom pour.



looking good with the bull float, here they are in the diningroom; wheel barraling it from the back door.



And several photos of the power trowels as they went over and over it again and again. So here I have just one picture uploaded because they all look the same really, and I really don't want to bore you.

We opted to not put in any control joints, for various reasons, the biggest reason was because of the radiant lines and only 4 inch depth of the concrete, we didn't feel comfortable sawing them in. We expect cracks, but are hoping they wont appear. So to give us a good chance that they wont appear, we covered the floor with plastic to slow down the drying time to make the concrete harder, the longer it takes to dry the stronger it gets, the plastic may cause a mottling effect on the floor, but since we are staining it, that should add character.

I'll post pictures of the plastic wrapped floor probably tomorrow, and the porch pour on Monday, as time permits.

Exterior Doors

D'Artagnon is demonstrating the width of the doors, which apparently is large enough to put a small plane through... ZOOM!



Nearly 7 feet of glass. The Doors are Hugely Insulated, the Glass is Triple Pane with Low E Coating, and Gas Filled. The door frame is a plastic composit with wood fiber and insulation. We had them shipped primed, but unstained because we don't know the final wood tone we are looking for. Same goes for the windows they are primed but unstained.

Its hard to get a perspective on how huge these doors are even with D'Artagnon standing there. But if you look closely, there is a Pepsi can sitting off to the left on the ground, that, I think really puts the size in perspective.

SHIPPING - ROAD TRIP

When I called to arrange shipping, I was told that because of the size of the doors, their frame, and the pallet they were placed on, that it wouldnt fit in a conventional trailer, or semi. So I went about building a custom trailer enclosure tall enough to get them loaded into, light enough to not overload the weight limit of the trailer base, but sturdy enough to make the trip to Nashville, and back.





So heres the scoop and adventure that led to us getting such a late start. Monday we get teh oil changed in the truck, and arrange for the AC compressor to get changed in the morning if we can find a compressor for it. Mary locates one with Advanced Auto who says it is in Chicago, but can get it here by morning, if they can get the order in by 8pm it was 8:30pm already, but they said it is possible it might still get here Tuesday morning.
Next we go and get a drop hitch for the trailer to lower its nose abit, from 12 foot tall to 11 and a half feet tall, but the hitch pin is rusted on, so I needed to grind it off, a SawsAll worked best. we also tried to get new tires for the trailer, but Farm and Fleet only had on tire in that size available, so we were going to buy it and rotate the other best tire however F&F only had the tire already mounted in a rim, which lug nuts was a quarter of an inch off. So we repaired our spare tire, put it on and rotated the other tire. Ah Mondays.

Tuesday morning we had things lined up to get the Air Conditioner in the truck replaced. So the Compressor did make it to Bloomington in time. It was the wrong one, they sent one for a V-6, ours is a minimum 350 Big Block Vortec. So they did some calling around and found the right size compressor in Bloomington at a different store, we drove over there, got it, took it to our mechanic, who installed it in under an hour. We hit the road, but in three blocks the AC stopped working, so back to the mechanic, who nearly swore when he saw us sitting in the bay. He located the problem to a low preasure switch, called in a replacement, it arrived in half an hour, the driver left, he went to install it and, it was the wrong one. So he called back ordered another one, which took another half hour to arrive. Yeah!!! it was the right one, and so we were truely on the road by 1:30 in the afternoon. 5 hours behind schedule. As usual really, nothing new there.

We drove to Nashville Tuesday got to the Best Western in Goodlettsville at 9:30pm. Mary had asked "When does the pool close" and was informed it closes at 10:00, but that the manager might forget to anounce that for awile so they can swim abit longer so D'Artagnon and Mary swam til 10:30 or 11:00...

Wednesday arrives and we drive to the warehouse on the Southern edge of Nashville, to get the doors. Our GPS is telling us its on the left, but there isn't anythng on the left but the interstate. So we look to the right, and no businesses in the industrial complex on the right has the name of the company we are looking for. So we call; and are informed that the pallet broke and one of the door frames was broke as well, and that they wouldnt be ready for another hour or two. So we killed time at Sam's Club. When the appointed time comes we go once again looking for the warehouse, we finally find it tucked on the inside of the square industrial complex. when we arrive the french doors are off their frames, but everything gets securred into the trailer no problems. And we are off.

We went back to Goodlettsville and went antique shopping, Mary found one of her favorite artists prints their, and asked how much because the price wasn't on it, she was informed that it was $15, her jaw nearly dropped to the floor and she said "We'll take it"... she didn't even negotiate.

So it is now well into the afternoon on Wednesday, and we settled in for a long night of driving. Never trust a GPS, always look at its itinerary, we would have gotten home 2 hours earlier if I hadn't driven 150 miles before looking at where it was taking us. So now we are driving into the wee hours of Thursday morning when we FINALLY got home at 1:30am. But we did get to see a few shooting stars as we packed our stuff back into the house.



Here are the doors off their hinges and leaning against the wall right where they are going to be mounted.



I think the size of the doors compliment the height of the wall is great. They will be mounted as high as the silver line right above them. The wall they are leaning against is 14' tall. And to the right you can see the modified trailer we went to get them with.