I'm up at 6:15am, and after breakfast, I'm out the door to meet Yves.
He points out that there is no plastic on the base, so we begin by removing all the rebar, mesh and bricks (so much for my work). He's got enough plastic to lay down, so after cutting and laying it, we restore the bricks and mesh to their original layout - with the exception of the mesh. I had it out to the edge of the form which is wrong (it'd be poking through the sides of the slab). We bring the mesh in from the sides of the forms some, he cuts it in many places, and uses the cutters to loop/tie it all together.
The drain box is then levelled and set to be 3/4" below the form walls so there's a slope for future floor water to drain. Yves then drives 4 pickets into the ground surrounding the middle section. We snap some chalk lines to line up level with the forms, then nails are driven sideways into the pickets for reference later. We're now ready for the concrete.
The concrete truck arrives at 8:35am, and soon discover it's an older truck with a short reach for the spout. This means he has to back up as close to the form as possible and is still only able to get within about 8 feet of the rear form. So, first we try the wheelbarrow, but the tire pressure is too low, so we get out the rakes and push and pull the concrete into place. It's much heavier when you're doing the job, and we are sweating by the time the rear section is poured.
Yves gets out his 2x4 and starts leveling the concrete in the rear section. He trowels around the pickets and their side nail as a guide, and now has a level area to span his 2x4 to the form wall. The pouring, spreading, trowelling and leveling continues until we're at the front wall, then discover that there's lot's of concrete left over. We quickly get some boards together to build a rough form in front for a sloping pad about 8x12 feet leading to where the garage door will be.
At just after 10am, the concrete is complete, and Yves goes to work with the bull float. He's obviously done this before, cause he's doing a great job already. To prevent the sloping pad being too slippery leading into the garage, Yves gets his old broom out and brushes some wave patterns into the concrete for traction.
After getting the slab pretty smooth with the float, he finishes off around the forms with the edger. Then where the garage door will be, he slopes it down to the outside so water won't sit there in the future. I gather my hold down bolts for the walls and sink them into the concrete around the perimeter.
By noon time, the slab is setting up pretty good, so we break for lunch, I run into town to grab some beer and Dixie Lee. We sit on the tailgate and devour the food, and the beer goes down pretty good also.
Now the polisher is fired up to do the initial run with the float attachments to the blades for the first polishing. Time crawls along now sitting and waiting for the concrete to harden. Yves brought his large spotlight thinking he will be here till dark. A couple hours pass, and the broad, rough floats are removed to do the finer polishing. Now the slab is looking great after this pass, but 2 more polishings are in order. Hours float by, and so does the polishing, and by 7pm the job is complete....Yves doesn't have to stay after dark.
I'm supposed to let everything set for 3 days, but building is 7 days away, so all the better. Rain will help set the concrete even more, and that's what happens on the 4th day.
