The concrete foundation preparation and pouring took longer than we realized and happened over 2 weeks.  This meant that starting the garage/workshop had to be delayed.  So in the meantime Larry, Elder and Bob worked on various tasks that also needed to be done, just in a different order than planned.  This slowed things down some and meant moving the scaffolding more times and deciding to get more scaffolding to reduce the number of times it must be taken down and put up somewhere else.  I plan to do a post soon to recap the various items that were happening during these 2 weeks.  Back to the concrete work!
The prep…
The foundation work needed to sit for a few days and be inspected.

On July 31th the work began for the final phase of the concrete work.  Fereira Construction’s excavation crew came back and filled the garage foundation area with gravel and compacted the gravel so that Steve Neft’s crew could come back and finish the forms and steel rebar required.

It is apparent that Jim Fereira’s crew and Steve Neft’s crew work together very well and coordinate with each other.   They also spread gravel around the what will be the drip line of the new garage and finished moving dirt and created a pad for a small concrete area outside of the garage which will be under the new deck extension.

When that was completed they moved gravel to the other side of the house for us to spread after the new roof is in place.  They also moved the remaining dirt piles and made us a level spot where in the front yard over the new trenches were put in for a picnic table or chairs in the shade for a later date.

On August 1st more work was done.

The Pour…
We noticed that on August 1st it was chilly in the house. A big difference from the heat wave of the previous week where the upstairs bedroom was so hot we choose to sleep down in the 1st floor in-law unit.  This morning, August 2nd, at 7 am it was 35 degrees outside and a toasty 40 degrees in the house!  By 6:45 am trucks and people began to appear at our house.  Neft Construction’s crew was here plus a pumper truck where the cement would be dumped in and pumped up to the area for the new garage and pad in front of the garage.  And a regular cement truck with the cement.  Everyone seems to have a role to play and there was very little discussion as each step started.

By 8:40 am, the slabs and entries to the new garage/workshop looked in place.  Then the finish crew started making everything smooth while others started cleaning tools and boots!

Along with all this at 8 am Larry and Elder, the two carpenters, came in and started working and two plumbers were back to finish the gas, water and drainage lines they started yesterday.  While the cement crew finishes; the carpenters are cutting roof rafter tails to get ready to install new barge rafters all around the house and Bob is cutting out the subfloor in the kitchen to give the plumbers access to the drain lines and water lines between floors.   Not even 9 am!

During these few days,  I also finished staining all 4 sides of all the barge rafters-a 2 day job.  It is almost impossible to imagine all the small jobs that it takes to get each job done.

We are almost done with the tearing apart and creating the new infrastructure to begin construction on the new garage/workshop, storage area, deck, kitchen and dining room.  Yeah!