Wednesday 20 April 2011

Getting Ready to Pour



For once, the weather was in our favour. We had planned last week to pour on Monday because we had a two day window where there the temperatures would be above freezing. The only variable was the rain. It was supposed to be quite wet. We called the concrete finisher guys because they had a power trowel to finish our floor. Since its going to be a business we need to make sure that we can clean the floors. They were quite apprehensive about getting the concrete on Monday. They said we should wait until Tuesday. All weekend we were watching the weather network and gradually Monday starting looking sunnier and sunnier. It rained all Sunday night but by the time we got up at 6 on Monday to lay the vapour barrier and mesh the clouds started to break. We had 2 great days for the concrete to set. Good thing we went with our instincts. It rained in the afternoon on Tuesday so it wouldn't have been ideal. We can now take a deep breath. Concrete is not cheap and if it were to freeze we could be in quite a pickle.

"H"Ardy and his son Danny Doing their thing



When talking to the Ready Mix Office in Lewisporte they calculated for us how much concrete we would need. We also calculated and received the same total. She added 0.25 metres more to be safe. On Monday, we called to confirm and decided that we would order another 0.5 metres of concrete JUST to be safe. We had some sonotubes for our deck all ready to be poured as well. We thought we'd have plenty of concrete left over. Well, good thing we ordered a lot more than we thought we would need. We had JUST enough concrete to pour the pad plus enough to fill a couple of our sonotubes. That was a little too close for comfort. You wouldn't want to be left with half a pour. WHEW!!


The Power Trowel



This is the machine that makes a nice smooth finish. We plan on staining the concrete when we're all done so it doesn't have that concrete look. We're having trouble finding a store around here that sells it. Home Depot does but we'd be in the car for a while to find one.







We had to find SOMETHING to do while we waited!!:)

Since we had to wait a day for the concrete to harden properly we went on a great hike. Recently we had discovered excellent trails and more rugged terrain in Durrell (the Town next to Twillingate).

















One of us had great discoveries, which was quite crappy for us (no pun intended). As I have mentioned, Crosbie likes to go on great explorations and chase the birds on our hikes while Iris sticks close by. Sometimes we won't see Crosbie for a while but he eventually finds us. Soooo, on one of his excursions he runs by and his whole coat is full of poop. We did not let our imaginations run as to what type of poo this might be. All we knew was that is smelled and that WE would have to do something about it. Thanks to the terrain, we found a low spot with swamp water. After throwing him in so his back was covered and rubbing him down with moss he wasn't too impressed with us.

He got over it though......hopefully.


Its all UP from here!


















Today (Wednesday) we stripped the forms off the concrete and got all our sill plates bolted down and the studs laid out. This is the time-consuming part. Making sure everything is square etc.

Tomorrow evening we are supposed to get 20 cm of snow. Yikes!!! Hopefully that weather angel we had for pouring concrete is sticking around till tomorrow. I'm sure you'll get the scoop in the next update....if we're not still shovelling snow drifts :)

3 comments:

  1. and I always thought that things moved slowly on the rock! You guys are setting a new pace for the place. Cheers!

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  2. Katie & Ted - you guys are awesome! I can't believe how much you have accomplished so quickly, especially on Newfie time.

    Andrew & Jenny are sitting here with us and they helped us set up a google account so we can now post a comment.

    Allen says we are on the information highway again.

    Happy Easter!

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  3. Wow, Katie and Ted, amazing work! Well done! Congratulations on the new nephew. Lots of love to both of you.

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