Hi all,

My house status report mailing list is growing!  A number of you have asked to be included in this mailing, and I am delighted!

We left for California on December 19 to celebrate Christmas with our family.  We had a good trip, seeing both Deb and David in Escondido, as he was down helping her for a couple of days.  I was able to help empty a storage unit for her and to do some plumbing tasks in her house.  After several more days socializing with our many friends (and doctors and barbers), attending church on both Sunday and Christmas Eve, we headed up to Temple City on Christmas morning.  Every year Betty's side of the family gets together for a few hours for our Christmas Breakfast.  David and family and Deb were there along with about 20 other family members of several generations.  I have been attending these get-togethers for about 45 years now, and Betty somewhat longer.

After the large gathering, we had our own family Christmas with the kids and grandkids in our motorhome.  We then headed back to Prescott.  As it was nearing dark when we left, we only went about 100 miles and spent the night in the same Flying-J truck stop where we slept overnight on the way over.  We were back in Prescott by noon to see the remains of a 5 inch snowfall.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and will have a happy New Year!

Thursday Dec. 26
A lot was accomplished on our construction while we were gone!

The footings for the garage and shop were poured.  Also the front of the house had its perimeter footings poured.  The block foundation walls were pretty much completed on all these footings.  I can now actually walk around in my machine shop, the garage, and go down the "steps" (a dirt slope) into the RV garage.  It is looking great!  The garage and shop foundation walls are a little higher than the concrete floors will be, so Steve and I figured out exactly where the doors should be between the shop and garage, and from the shop to outdoors.  In these areas, they then lowered the blocks enough that the concrete can be poured without a step at the doorways.

Friday, Dec. 27
They filled the various block foundations with concrete today.  It took several cubic yards of concrete!  They filled the added row of blocks around the perimeter of the house, all the block around the front, all the garage, and all the shop foundations.  Steve and I determined the exact locations for the RV utilities both inside and outside the RV garage.  I am having full hookups in both places.  The water and sewer dumps will both be in the ground in the same concrete boxes they use for water meters.  Outside the RV garage, there will be a stop-and-waste that will drain all the water from the RV garage plumbing.  There will also be an in-ground hose bib outside.  It would be nicer to have it on the outside wall of the RV garage, but as this is primarily an un-heated area, freezing is a concern.  Also, the concrete block foundation wall extends higher than I would like the hose bib to be.  I think in-the-ground is a good solution!

Saturday, Dec. 28
Steve back-filled the various walls and did some general grading today.  I did not return to the house this afternoon to determine the extend of his progress.

Monday, Dec. 30
It rained a little and snowed a little yesterday.  It then got below 20 degrees last night.  When I tried to unlock the truck this morning, the driver's door would not unlock!  I even opened the passenger door and tried to pull the lock knob from the inside.  It would not budge!  I drove the Saturn over this morning.

When I got there, they had added an additional inch of "AB" to the RV garage floor, as we had decided to raise the floor that amount.  AB is a soil they use under the concrete.  It packs to a very high density with their gasoline powered tamper.  Also the shop and patio areas were filled and tamped to a level 4 inches below the final surface.  The RV garage and driveway will be reinforced 6 inch concrete.  The other areas will be reinforced 4 inch.  The lower trim strip has been removed from the outside wall of the house and a strip of thin chipboard now closes the gap where the concrete will be poured.

When I returned this afternoon, Steve was hard at work on the backhoe with a very deep trench from the sewer pipe toward the RV garage, and another toward the house.  He plans to get the basic sewer runs in place and call for an inspection tomorrow.  Our sewer will have a wye close to the street with one branch going up the side of the RV driveway and along inside the edge of the RV garage.  This branch will feed the two RV dumps.  The other side of the wye heads to the house and drains all the plumbing there.

Steve had the concrete people in today planning for the floor pours.  He is bringing in an outside crew for this job, due to the amount of work involved.  As the concrete plant will be closed on New Year's day (I should hope so!), they are planning to do the patio and the RV garage floors on Thursday, and the shop and garage on Friday. 

Tuesday, Dec. 31
Today we dug up one edge of the nice smooth and compacted RV garage floor.  The sewer pipe for the garage dump was laid and connected to the sewer, and a plastic pipe for water was buried and led outside.  Steve suggested running this in a larger plastic pipe "just in case".  I thought this was an excellent idea.  He thinks a lot like I do!  Two water meter concrete boxes were set into the AB base with the tops at the exact level for the top of the concrete.  The sewer dump is in one of these, and the water pipe (for a future hose bib) is in the other.

Toward the end of the day, it didn't look like they were ready for the concrete.  I offered to come over and help on New Year's day afternoon if they needed it.  Steve said they would finish up what was needed, and that I should call to see if I was needed.

The ditches were all filled and smoothed over, but none of the steel mesh or rebar was installed. 

Wednesday, Jan. 1
Happy New Year!

I went over to the house after noon, and found the patio and part of the RV garage mesh and rebar in place.  I secured the conduits I had put from under the house to the wall, assuring the correct position when the concrete is poured around them.  I did a couple of other small things as the crew, about 4 or 5 left for their homes.  The concrete pour starts at 9:00 tomorrow.

This afternoon I went over and picked up a radio controlled airplane and radios, along with all the equipment needed to get started in the hobby.  I really need another hobby!  This equipment belonged to a member of the local flying club who had recently passed away.  His widow turned the equipment over to the club, and I bought it.  Gene Wilkison is a member of the club, and an avid RC modeler!  I will probably not get started for real until we are in the house.

Thursday, Jan. 2
Note to Jim Harris:  Today is 01/02/03

Today was really exciting!  I left the motorhome a little after 7:30 (temperature was 19) and headed to the house.  The whole crew was there finishing up the mesh and rebar, the forms for the steps between the RV garage and the garage, and several forms.  The 4 man concrete crew was there driving stakes in the RV garage with wire hooks to support a 2 x 4 right at the top of the desired concrete surface.  Suddenly someone called out "the mud is here!".  It was only 8:06.  The pour was set for 9:00.  I found out that someone had changed the time.  The crew really scurried to finish tying the rebar and finish the step forms.

The concrete truck with 10 cubic yards of concrete aboard (about 40,000 pounds of concrete plus 20,000 of truck) backed fully into my RV garage, driving right over the mesh and rebar.  They then started pouring the concrete from the back, carefully matching the height to a pink line around the walls.  Using these lines and a 2 x 4 on the hooks they had set to the same height as the lines, they started screeding the concrete.  It was largely a matter of skill and experience to match the lines, but they did it very accurately!  After they had poured about 15 or 20 feet of length, they had the truck pull forward an extra amount and they got all the poured concrete finished as much as possible at this stage of hardening.  They then repeated the process for another 15 to 20 feet.  This emptied the first truck.  Another truck with another 10 yards had arrived shortly after the first one, and was backed into position.  Finally, after the truck was fully out of the garage, they placed the form across the front door, and did the final pour.  After it was all pretty well troweled, they put a couple extra shovels full of concrete in each front corner and troweled it out smooth.  This elevates the corners just enough that any water spills on the floor will not collect in the corners.  The whole floor slopes slightly toward the front door. 

After finishing the RV garage pour, the truck backed into the car garage and filled the forms for the patio just behind it.  In all, about 18 yards of concrete were used for these two slabs.  The concrete crew did as much finishing with their trowels on the long poles as they could and sat down to wait.  This part is like watching paint dry.  It had taken about 2 hours to get to this point.  There was a small amount of concrete left in the truck, so it was directed to a nearby house that needed some block filled and they proceeded to do that.    I headed for home.

After a while, Betty and I headed out to do some shopping, so went by the house again.  The concrete crew was just finishing the broom finish on the patio, and had obviously troweled the RV garage since I left.  While we were there, one of the men ran the power trowel.  This is a gasoline powered machine which rotate a large wheel with 4 trowels on it.  The concrete was now to the stage that the operator left shallow footprints in the concrete.  Of course after the troweler passed over the footprints, they were gone.

After Betty and I finished our shopping, we went home by way of the house yet again.  I am glad we did.  The Northlake crew was in the process of burying my conduit across the front of the garage, from the power panel to the corner of the RV garage.  They had about half the conduit buried.  It came up the wall of the house at the wrong position!  They had been told exactly where to put it, but forgot.  While we were there, they dug it up, re-dug the trench in the right place, and re-buried it.  Much better!

The concrete was finished, except for the very back 10 feet or so.  This area was in the shade all day, and was slow to cure.  They covered it with a multiple layer plastic tarp and will be back at 7:00 to power trowel it again.  They were confident it would still be workable.

The pour for the car garage and the shop was scheduled for 10:00 tomorrow.  I thought "Great, I can sleep in.".  Then I was informed the concrete crew had called the concrete plant and requested an 8:00 delivery!  It was not confirmed yet, so no telling what will happen.  The Northlake crew could use the extra 2 hours in the morning.  They will just have to hurry on the step forms. 

Friday, Jan. 3
I was at the house around 7:30 this morning.  There was a lot of activity going on.  The concrete crew uncovered the rear end of the RV garage floor, which had not set up enough for final troweling last night.  They sprinkled a little water and ran the power troweler.  Sure enough, the concrete still was workable!  (But only slightly.)  In a few minutes, they had a very smooth finish on that part of the floor to match the rest.

The Northlake crew had most of the mesh and rebar in place.  Only part of the garage did not have it, but it had been all fitted and cut to fit.  They will put it in place when the truck no longer needs to be in the garage.  The forms for the steps were complete, but were being adjusted to be easier to remove after the concrete starts to set up.

I asked if the concrete was coming at 8:00, and was told they had not heard back, so they assumed it would still be at 10:00.  Rats!  I decided to run over to the Radio Control flying field about 2 miles away to see if anything was happening.  There were two club members out there flying.  This is the smallest group I have ever seen out there.  I spent about 45 minutes there, then headed back to the house.

When the trucks came, things got busy again!  With the truck all the way back in the garage and all his chutes attached, he could still only reach about 3/4 of the way back in the shop.  They were ready with wheelbarrows, but decided to just pour it and push it into place with their long handled scoops.  It only took a couple of minutes for them to shove the concrete and fill the area they could not pour directly.  After they finished the shop, the truck pulled out of the garage and an army of workers rolled out the precut mesh and laid the rebar.  They then swarmed over it tying all the intersections and overlapped areas with wire ties.  They then put the form across the front garage door, had the truck back till its tires were within a couple inches of the form, and poured the house (east) half of the garage.  Next they poured the west half.  They had ordered a somewhat "hotter" mix today, so it didn't take as long before the final troweling.

In all they had 4 trucks of concrete totalling 34 cubic yards during the two days of work.  About 32 yards ended up on our job, with the excess being used on another house to finish off the concrete block filling.

I've been trying to get this report finished up and sent since the end of the year, but just never quite made it.  Finally I think I'm there, so here it is.

I have posted some more photos on-line at:

http://members.isp01.net/rmason/statusreports.html

Till next time,

Dick