Day 8 - The slab does down!

Thursday 23rd August our slab was poured!  This was really exciting.  I had asked the concreter (the company owner) yesterday if I could bring the kids to put hand prints in the concrete.  He said we're paying for it, we can put bottom prints in it if we like lol!  That's an impression I don't want to make ;)

Because the concrete goes off in a few hours, it would be too late for the kids after school.  So I told their teachers the previous day they would be a bit late for school, and we set off to watch the fun!

We also took freshly backed muffins for the workers.  Part to say thanks, but also to get on their good side as they don't have to let us come watch.  They really enjoyed them... but I wish they'd use a bin for the muffin papers.  It seems the whole site is a bin... drop it where you are!  You can tell a lot about tradies' lunch boxes by the rubbish left on site.  Hot food bags, poppers (how cute), V, Coke, Gatorade, mini chip bags (cute again), coffee cups... Grrrr

We were there for a few hours, so lots of pics today!

Walking up the driveway this is what we saw!

The concrete truck feeds the concrete into the truck which pumps the concrete to the house pad

Check out the wheels!  So that's why they have supports!

I'm not strong enough to lift up the entire truck... but maybe holding up the lights will help lol!

When we arrived at 8am they were well underway

A small area around the perimeter is leveled off

I always wondered how they made the 'step up' around the slab.  They lay these steel forms on top of
the level perimeter (above) and then fill the main slab area

 

Filling all the spaces between the pods.  The concrete will be around 300mm deep in between the pods

Starting to level.  A man has a level remotely connected to a machine which beeps until he gets it to the correct height.
On top of the pods the concrete is around 80mm thick.  That doesn't seem a lot!

Garage leveled.  Waiting for another concrete truck

Almost done!

'Will that lady stop taking pics of us!'

Waiting for concrete to dry... this is much more fun!

The moment we've been waiting for!

Our air conditioner pad

It seems someone deserved a break after a hard days work!  Good as gold!

8 cement trucks and approx 50m3 of concrete, our slab is done!  There were a couple extra additives in our slab.  One man spat in it, and I'm sure I saw another try to discreetly use our slab as a bush hanky... gross!

I went back at the end of the day, expecting the men to be long gone and hoping for some pics of the finished slab.  They were just packing up!  Because it had been overcast most of the day, the concrete had taken a long time to harden enough for them to do whatever it is they do with their machine to leave a nice finish on top.

Carrying the machine off.  It has blade type things that spin around and make a swirly finish on the slab

Family room / Rumpus room

Back corner of Rumpus room

A nice finish for our garage entry

The tools of the trade :)

It seems every concrete job leaves their leftover.  They did at our old house when we concreted around our pool.
At least we don't have to clean this mess up!

Memories for years to come!

190 more days!