Pouring of the slab

The day has finally come -- the slab is poured!! We have waiting on this day for months now -- there were days we didn't think this would ever happen. Randy Dunn was the sub that finished the concrete for us. Of course mom was here to take all the pictures. Black Concrete was here by 8:00 am and they began working. First they poured the concrete to go around the pool for the walls - we were very nervous about this but it all went well. The walls of the pool are 12" thick in some areas -- this is the safest place of the whole house (ha ha). Anyway, once the pool walls were up to the top they went around to the rest of the house. Randy used a bull float to smooth it out first -- his feet sunk all the way to the bottom at this stage. They then took a couple of hours off and went back to use the first motorized smoother. His feet was barely sinking at this point. Then he finished it off with a larger machine and by this point the concrete was really setting and he was not sinking at all. Roger was really impressed with Randy and he learned a lot. Concrete is amazing to me, as the hours go on it gets hotter and hotter which in turn makes the concrete harden. It looks great -- Roger and I are extremely relieved. Getting to this point has been rough and emotional, but it is finally done and looks great to top it all off!!!

Radiant Floor Heat

We are heating our house with a solar radiant floor system. The red pipes constantly circulates hot water through the concrete slab. The pipes are hooked up to a solar hot water heater. This will be the only heating system in the house. It will heat up the concrete and then radiate throughout the whole house. I am very curious to see how well this works -- at least we can heat the house for FREE!!!! There is 1200 feet of this pipe in the slab. There are no breaks/connections in the pipes. Each pipe links to the in-take and out-take valves, so we should never have a leak (hopefully). Once Roger put down all the pipes, we then had to put 1000 plastic zip-ties that secured the pipes to the re-bar. Mom came over that day and helped Roger tie them all down. Well then we had to cut the tips of the zip-ties off. Thank goodness dad came over that day. Who knew 1000 zip-ties would be that many --- it was. Dad and I worked for hours on this project. I had many many many blisters at the end of this day. Once the pipes were down, we had a horrible realization -- the slab was not going to be as thick as it needed to be. The total thickness of the slab should be 4" thick. We were measuring from the top of the first round and there were places where the concrete would only be 2" thick. Roger quickly realized that technology is not always right. The laser beam they used ended up being off in places. Oh no what are we going to do -- this was the worst day so far. The concrete was coming the next day all the re-bar & radiant pipes were down; we can't dig down in the high spots. Roger was pissed and I had no idea what to do. Roger had to come up with a miracle and he did. We built up a 2" form on top of the first round of blocks to raise the level to 4" in the lowest parts. Now this was no easy win -- it took us hours to build these forms and then of course our luck once we started installing them, Roger's nail gun stopped working, could it get any worse. Roger found new nails and the gun started working. The best part was dad showed up out of no where to help where ever he could. I think mom told him he needed to come, the few times I talked to her this day, I was on the verge of tears at any time. I had the best feeling when I saw dad's car. While Roger finished building the forms, dad and I clipped the tips of the plastic zip-ties, like I said above. Parents save the world just when you need it most :)!!!!!! At the end of the day were emotionally and physically exhausted -- but I had a crock pot going, so we were good to go!!

Slab preperation

The process to pour a concrete slab is:

1. Gravel and level


2. Layer of foam insulation


3. Layer of 6-mil plastic
   
4. Pipes for the radiant floor heat

Of course once we finished all the prep work it rained again -- we tried our best to empty it into the pool hole with the drain (this is one reason we put the drain in).

Forms for the pool walls

It has been 2 days since the concrete for the bottom of the pool was poured. Now Roger needs to build the forms for the walls of the pool. Forms is what is used when the slab of the whole house is poured and that concrete will just pour into the forms. First Roger must place rebar for the walls of the pool to hold in the concrete. He then built the crazy forms out of wood. This was much more complicated than we ever imagined and took a lot more wood than imagined. Once the forms were in he then had to screw them in the concrete at the bottom of the pool to prevent them from floating once the concrete spills in the sides.

Ready for the pool

Now that the rain is finally gone, we need to get the slab poured for the pool. Like you saw in an earlier post the gravel was already down. Now we need to get a layer of plastic in place and then put all the rebar down -- this was a very long day!!! First we had to get that huge square of plastic to fit perfectly, bend the rebar and set it in place. This all sounded much simpler when Roger first explained it to me -- and the first layer of rebar was easy. As Roger bent it to the right length, I set it in the hole 16" apart from each other. Then Roger told me we had to put more rebar going the opposite way. At first this was fine until I realized we had to put a metal tie every place the rebar crossed. We have these cool tools with a handle on one side and a hook on the other. The metal ties have loops on each end. So you pull the ties around, match up the loops, put the hook in the loops and then twist away. It seemed like there were a million places the rebar crossed. We then put the drain in so the bottom, so we can allow for any water spills or more rain.

The next day Black Concrete came to pour 7 yards of concrete in the bottom of the pool. Roger, Nick and Sam used a bull-float to smooth it out. It needs to sit 2 days and then we can put in the forms to finish up the slab.