The farmhouse project continued this week with the goal to pour the first layer of the concrete slab. The over floor of the farmhouse consists of packed sand/clay mix, followed by 2 inches of concrete, 1 inch of high density foam board, wire mesh, radiant floor tubing, and then a 4 inch pour of concrete mixed with fiberglass strands.

It looked as though the timing would be pretty good. The site work was ready by the end of work on Wednesday and Thursday was predicting rain. the rain would be good to help compact the sand base. That much worked out as hoped. Friday scheduled the concrete trucks. At first, things went pretty well. The challenge turned out to be the rain from the previous day. While it did great things for the sand base below the concrete pour, it did terrible things for the surrounding ground. This would be very troublesome for the concrete trucks, which when laden with tons of mixed concrete, were VERY heavy. They started to sink and get stuck.

The attention of the drivers was part of the issue. For example, in the filmstrip you can see one truck attempting to get a second truck free of the mud. What you don’t see is that both trucks were parked off to the right for a period of time and when the trucks pulled out, one went too far right and got stuck while the other truck had no problem driving around the stuck truck. Had both drivers – who had already nearly be stuck in that very spot – stayed away from the mud puddle, they would had a much better time of things.

When I did my final site visit of the day, I saw a very disturbing and most likely problematic site. I had repeatedly informed the site concrete where the drain field was installed and that it was clearly marked off with flags and caution tape. “No heavy vehicles allowed.” They seemed to have headed my message until some time late in the day. My final inspection showed large cement truck tracks right across the end of the drain field. What was really obvious is that the crew knew they had done it because the flags and stakes were all intact – meaning either, there is a new kind of concrete truck with the ability to limbo under a 2 foot line or they removed the line, drove the truck in/out and the put the line back. I’ll have to take a probe down to the site and locate the drain pipes and dig down to see if they are crushed. … more work I really didn’t need and if there is damage, more discussions I really didn’t need.

This next week – weather and crew permitting – will see the foam board, radiant floor tubing, and be capped off with the second concrete pour at the end of the week. The weather, thus far, looks to behave (although it is pouring out at this very moment).