Saturday, May 16, 2009

OUTDOOR PROJECT UPDATE #4

A week ago last Tuesday, they finished building the forms for the retaining wall.

Hey! I just realized that was May 5th, the day I was discharged from the army, 39 years ago.

The town initially scheduled the inspector to come last Tuesday, but the regular inspector didn't feel he was qualified to inspect a retaining wall around a swimming pool, so he kicked the job upstairs to engineering. They scheduled an engineer to come Wednesday morning, but he went to the wrong house and went back to the office figuring I was a no show. I called town hall and spoke to him and explained his mistake, so he came Thursday morning. The cement company was busy on Friday, so came first thing this morning to pump the cement to the forms in my back yard. From set up to clean up took only 1 1/2 hours.

Monday they are suppose to brick up two of my basement windows and start the wall. Gene, the construction foreman for the company, wants to make the wall out of poured concrete like the footing, instead of concrete block they originally planned. He said making it out of poured cement will be more expensive, but that will save them a lot of labor and take less time. Lugging 800 concrete blocks to my back yard and mixing countless batches of cement to hold them will together is a lot of frigging work. He's going to talk to the owner. Either way, they will be back Monday.

Here's a couple of shots of the form pre-pour.













Here's the cement truck and the pump truck that pumped the cement.








The cement came down the shoot and into a large bin with the pump. The driver of the pump truck had a remote control that controlled the flow of cement. Pretty cool.







They laid out pipes all along the trench and slowly pumped it in while spreading it evenly.







Here some shots of the finished footing.
























They piled the dirt up against the windows again and I had them remove it. Last heavy rain flooded my basement. Gene is sending someone over next week to clean up the mess.

9 comments:

Barbara said...

Thank G. it's going somewhere faster now. I know how badly you want the bikini clad woman...er i mean pool..um, nah you just want all the hot chicks at your pool:)

I'll get you my fav pool sign.

" Welcome to our OOL, you see there is no "P" in there. Please keep it that way"

hehe

TUG said...

I think that sign is very appropriate for you :)

I'm trying to figure out how the concrete would be more expensive than lugging 800 bricks and all the labor that goes into that. Seems like the concrete should be cheaper because of the much lower labor costs.

Tamara said...

Nice.
;-}

BTExpress said...

Tug - I meant more expensive than the blocks.

Libby said...

Nice...it's on its way, now comes the hard part...patience, as long as they're doing the job!

S said...

Whaddya gonna do?
It will be worth all the pain when it is finished. Think of the pool parties you'll have!

:)

BTExpress said...

Libby, tomorrow 4 masons and four helpers are supposed to show up. With that many guys the wall be up in no time.

S, Yes, POOL PARTIES!!!!! Clothing optional ones too. ;-)

gab said...

And 35 years ago on May 6th Mr Gab and I got married.

Q said...

You lost me at:

"Layed out pipe"

"Slowly pumped it"

"While spreading it evenly"

Yep, sounds like it's time to

"Clean up the mess"! lol