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Finally fixing our concrete pour

If you remember last year we had a concrete pour that didn’t go so well. Al Riozzi (AJR Masonry) admitted it wasn’t acceptable but wouldn’t fix it. We could have left it as it was but I felt that it might cause problems in the long term and if we were going to level it, now was the time.

Unfortunately for us we couldn’t fix it until now as self-leveling concrete can’t be used when it’s cold. It’s now warm enough, so today we took a stab at it. I wouldn’t say it’s a hard job but you have to be prepared. I’ve been watching youtube video and reading up about it since last year, but I was still a little nervous as most of these products have a very short flow time (10 minutes in our case). Luckily it went well, I had all the tools, buckets, product lined up etc. but most importantly I had a great team of volunteers helping me, so a big shout out to Joe, Deborah, Rob and Aimee. Every one was assigned a different task and everyone preformed flawlessly.

Music was requested by Joe.

My goal was to fix the floor in two passes, first pass was to fill in all the deep areas (shown as the darker areas in he contour map) and the second pass was to cover the complete floor with a final skim coat, re-priming between coats. My only mistake was not ordering enough product. I ordered 17, 40lb. bags of Henry 565 ($40 a bag, so not cheap) and I thought that would be enough – no where near and I think it covered about half of the first pass. I just ordered another 46 bags so hopefully that will be enough. Thanks for picking it up Joe 🙂

Contour map of our ground floor concrete pour.

Even though we didn’t get as much done today as I expected it was a great trial run and everyone now knows what their tasks are and are willing to help us again. Incidentally all the mixing and product were laid down in under an hour, which was pretty quick. I think we all felt we could have easily have managed twice or three times that amount.

Returning to examine the floor on Sunday we noticed some wrinkling in some areas. Not sure what caused this but will ask the manufactures if they know. Second picture shows how it should look, nice and smooth.

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Thanks again team!!!

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Digging is over

Last weekend was wet but this weekend was perfect and I finished removing all the dirt from behind the back of the house. It was a pretty hard job throwing the dirt out of the trench especially as the trench kept on collapsing. I did get bonked on the head when some large stones at the end of the trench decided to fall when I was bending over but no blood and and all is good.  Shuttering isn’t great, but will hopefully hold up for a little while.

Next step is to remove any loose mortar on the wall, wash it down thoroughly and then we’ll pay someone to parge it, after which we can install a french drain, fill the trench back in and get our path around the house back This has been a big job and we’ll both be pleased when it’s over.

Not the most interesting of posts, I keep thinking I’ll dig up something interesting but also no.

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Coming out of hibernation

We’re slowly coming out of hibernation here. In previous years you’d often find us working in freezing conditions, but now those days are thinner on the ground.

We are making progress on the house but we still have some major tasks to do and one of them is to apply a new lime parge coat to the exterior walls, install a french drain and then fill up the trenches around our house so it’s not an assault course.

Clearing out the back wall has been most tricky as the bank keeps on collapsing and everything has to be carried out by bucket. Luckily I had a guest appearance from my brother Matthew and we made a decent dent in the job. We’ll continue this job as the weather improves.

In other parts of the house we have been prepping to get the floor level but this been delayed due to the cold as the concrete slab and ambient temperature needs to be above 50°F/10°C, fortunately those temperatures are fast approaching and once we have a flat floor we can begin framing it out internally for walls and insulation.