Pouring Walls Part I

They poured the walls on Monday, 165 yards worth, stripped off the forms on Tue and Wed, and did waterproofing and drain tile on Wed, Thu and Fri.

Early Morning Monday.

Great crew from Excel Concrete. 

Ready for the first load of concrete. Todd from Flatrate (concrete pump) is playing with his remote control.

Similar to the footings, they poured a bit in the ends and corners of the larger forms so that it could set up a bit to keep concrete from pushing out the bottom due to the amount of weight above when full.

“Oops!” OK, that’s not a direct quote to keep this family friendly.

They poured in this one junction for quite a while as the concrete flowed in five directions of mostly 24” wide open forms.

One quick jump up to the top while pouring from the junction. He knew from experience that he needed a little in that spot to prevent problems later on.

19 trucks of concrete came on a continuous rotation. There was only one time in all of this that the crew had to wait on a truck. The lake is still largely frozen (on April 30!) but was thawed for about 20’ near the shoreline. About an hour after I took this shot the wind changed and drove the ice in to our shoreline. Five years ago something similar happened but the ice was still somewhat thick and it made a rather loud noise as all of the ice compressed up against the shore and itself. I believe this will be the first time our lake will still have significant ice on it in to May.

Everybody was busy; filling the form from the pump, rough leveling with a board, finishing the surface with trowels, and sticking in rebar to support the wall that will be poured on top of this one next week.

The pump was rather close to the edge of the hole.

And a preview of things to come. This is how it looked by Thursday evening after the forms were removed and most of the waterproofing and drain tile done. It’s almost ready for the initial backfill and then they’ll form up the tallest walls on the south (right side of image) and SE.