Forensic Concrete

OK, so Dee spilled the beans about the countertops being delivered.  I have some video and more photos of that event later in this post.  But the big event this weekend was actually de-construction rather than con-struction.
You may recall that a few weeks after the garage floor was poured I noticed cracks.  Not just surface cracks but cracks all the way through the thickness of the slab.  I told the GC that I would not accept the slab in that condition.  He tried to tell me it was just settling of the subbase and that all concrete cracks but I did not buy it and insisted it be jackhammered out and a new floor be poured.

Here he is hammering out the last little bit of the old slab.

And this is what your garage floor looks like when it is broken up and put into a pile.

Once they started breaking up the old floor the cause became obvious.  For one thing the guy working the jackhammer said that the slab broke up "like butter".  Meaning the concrete was not strong.  I'll get back to that in a minute.  In addition, we could see that the rebar was not suspended in the middle of the slab thickness as it should be.  Instead it was just laying on the subbase and the floor was just poured over the steel rebar.   You could see half-moon impressions of the rebar on the bottom of the slab pieces that were removed.




Now getting back to the "butter" comment.  The contractor chose to have the concrete for the floor pumped to the garage rather than bringing a concrete truck right up to the garage door and doing a "pour".  Concrete pumping is not new technology.  But it is easier to pump a more liquid mix than a very stiff mix of concrete.  Remember, concrete is a mix of cement, sand, aggregate, and water.  In the correct proportions concrete hardends into a very hard and durable surface.  BUT use too much water and the resulting hardened material is not nearly as strong in compression  or in tension.  BUT, guess what?  A concrete mix that is "more liquid" is easier to pump than a thicker slurry.  If the concrete contractor orders a "wet mix" to make pumping easier the resulting slab is not as strong.  We will be pouring our new slab.  I think the GC has plenty of evidence to go back to his sub for reimbursement.  But that is his business.  I cannot prove the mix was too wet or not but in the end it does not matter.  It is obvious that the rebar was not properly suspended in the mix and therefore the slab would fail under even light load conditions.

On to happier milestones.  You have seen photos of the beautiful slab of quartzite that we picked for the kitchen countertops.  I'm not sure how much the  6' x 6' slab that will be our kitchen island weights but it has to be 300 - 400 lbs.  The two guys from the countertop fabricator's muscled this beast on to these two little trolleys so they could wheel the slab into the kitchen.  This is the video of that effort.

And here is photo of this beautiful work of nature before it is permanently attached.

Painters are a funny lot.  Good guys but maybe it's all those fumes.  Not sure if you have seen a whole house paint job in progress lately but they basically mask everything that does not get the color of the day and everything that is not masked gets sprayed.  Frankly I was skeptical at first.  But seeing the finish work on the interior I have to admit it is a better method.  Our molding in white is perfect.  Not a brushmark or drip line in the job.  So anyway they spend more time masking than they do painting but here is how they make the job a little more interesting.  These are little art projects drawn on the plastic masking that covers the windows.

A little workers art

This shot is how they set up the interior doors for painting.  They stand them up and then nail shim strips into the top rail to hold them steady in small groups of 3.  Then when they are spraying the molding they just go ahead and spray all the doors without worrying about the adjacent jamb or wall or spraying the hinges.

Oh and the wood stove was installed last week also.  It's not your grandfather's pot belly stove

Not all the work is inside.  This past weekend we took on the project of putting landscape fabric under all the deck surfaces so we didn't have to worry about weed control or weeds and grass growing up through the deck boards.  I told Dee it would be fun and she could work laying down.  Hey it got the job done.

And finally the LP tank was installed and buried up to it's little neck.

A few plantings around that and it'll be out of sight - out of mind.  Things are happening fast now.  More soon.