Month: July 2008

The floor was poured a few days ago but I’ve just got around to putting  pictures of it on the site. The finish is a semi-gloss sealer which should turn a matte within a week. Wanda really likes the floor, it’s ultra smooth, actually too smooth (I think I may fall if I walk in with wet boots on in the winter). The concrete is still dark because the water hasn’t come out of it yet, it’s really nice stuff. We are going to reseal it with CPD 30, it’s the same sort of stuff that we have it sealed with but it’s glossy and thicker. We would have done that before but we were planning to put tile and laminate flooring over the cement, but now we may leave it as our actual floor (you might think we’re crazy but if you saw it you’d be impressed, it was trowel ed seven times). And many thanks to our concrete guy, he’s is excellent, he did a perfect job, and he made a driveway up to our garage door, plus smoothed out some fill that we had delivered, and last time we had ten truckloads of rock delivered he whipped up a driveway for us before I got out there to do it. I think he’s gone out of his way to make us happy.

My friend Dave set his canned drink down on the table like this. I’ve never seen this before and I was amazed. All you have to do is drink a bit more than half and put in on a flat surface. It’s good stuff. An other thing that would be good stuff is if someone made a giant French coffee press with this giant screen thing that Mike and I found. It would work great, it even has a sealing ring around the outside.

The concrete was pumped into our house today, I missed it all, when we got there power trowelling was happening. Our niece took a action shot of what was happening. This was around 6 PM and it was just about done. It took 4 regular and one large truck of concrete to finish this floor.

Jack had his wife and son working today and Blair (seen deep in the dark corner of the house) as well.

It’s been busy the last few days, well not for me, but our concrete guy has been busy. Friday he hauled in some crushed rock and packed it. Monday the insulation 1″ of SM (R5) went in and got taped, then rebar was put 1′ on center. Today the tubes for the in floor heat were installed 1′ on center. Tomorrow concrete and a pump truck will arrive in the afternoon, and the concrete will be finished in the evening. People ask me why I’m not doing the in-floor heat myself, the reason why is because our concrete guy works so efficiently I don’t want to keep him waiting just to save a few dollars. A few pictures of covering the pipes and moving the big stuff to the neihbours are also below. The air compressor went in the bucket during the move. The exhaust was removed for clearance.

Here is the floor with fresh gravel that is half way packed. Our ditches were being repaired today and we didn’t have a driveway entrance because out culvert was being lowered. Our concrete guy dumped the gravel on the road and I think a few words were exchanged between him and the excavator operator, he didn’t get near the house until 2 or 3 this afternoon. I borrowed the bobcat to fix the approach to our driveway, it only had 106 hours on it, and it drove nice. I spent an hour after that cleaning the clay and soil out and off the bucket and tires, the window scraper works good for that.

Our neighbor’s killdeer eggs hatched and there were three small birds sitting in the nest, the fourth one hatched later and the parent birds moved them away. Now we only see the parent birds.

The lines and piping under the floor are finished. We have drains, electrical conduit, water line, and heat lines. I ran four heat lines to the hot water tank area, in the future I may build a solar water heat system to mount to the south wall (2 pipes for that), and possible a wood fired hydronic boiler (2 pipes for that).

Yesterday I covered the plumbing with mixed gravel and rechecked the slope of the pipes, then I ran a mail water line from the pump to the laundry/mechanical room. It’s gotten to the point where I’m running out of work that I can do before the floor is poured. I could start insulating but I think it will be easier to do after the floor is in and I get some scaffolding. One job that I’ve been waiting to do is covering the conduit in the floor. I’d have it done already but we still haven’t heard back from the electrical inspector that we’ve been waiting for since June 26.

The eggs from our killdeer that were in our driveway disappeared, I saw them one night when I left and the next morning they were gone, and all pieces of shell were gone too. We think maybe a fox of a dog came by and ate them.

As for our house, we are ready for the floor to be made, all the electrical is done and ready for inspections, the plumbing has been inspected, and the framing has been inspected.

Yesterday I bought some one inch 100psi ipex tube for water to go to the house from the garage and I’m going to put it in today. I also bought some 3/4 inch so that I can run a water line to the garden for Wanda.

I’ve been taking a lot of pictures with Wanda’s camera lately and unfortunately it’s at our house right now, but I’ll post a few pictures soon.

The other day on the way back from our house I saw a turtle crossing the road, it seemed strange to me because there wasn’t any water around for a few miles and I think they are usually found in or around water.