Metal mesh in place, cement truck incoming this Wednesday
Now is time for some panicky wait time. I’m really hoping I did not forget anything critical. If everything goes to plan we’ll be 4 to man the gigantic pump I requested and reel the cement mix in place. I have some shovels, rakes and I rented a vibrating ruler to help the finish.
weather is back to seasonal normals at around 25 after too many weeks over 30+.
Still I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting something.
23 replies
Concrete
ah yeah concrete and not cement in this case you're right =)
Well there is cement, just not 100%
me and my sister have a several year long inside joke of going "fuck yeah conkrete!!" whenever we see a cat sitting on concrete
Make sure to add those pizza topper looking things to keep the metal held up in place when the concrete is poured.
Like the outrageously priced cement cast thingy I added everywhere under the mesh? It’s like cement snake thingies 2 inches high, 4 feet long. I laid down like 60.
Oh nice that's what those are? Nice!!
€240 of them yeah :(
They showup better with the night mode;
What do they do?
They just make sure the metal meshing stays in the middle of the slab and doesn't go straight to the bottom. Also they go sssSsSSSsssss.
The mesh should be about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom, not in the middle. The point of the reinforcement is to resist tensile stress, and the stress in the middle is 0.
Tensile stress increases linearly to the bottom of the slab, but you can't put the metal all the way at the bottom because you need enough concrete under it to embed it properly.
(I realize you probably didn't mean "middle" literally, but just in case...)
That’s actually a welcomed confirmation :) They are 4cm up the bottom and the slab is 12cm itself. So we are tight at a 3rd 🎉
What are those snake things? Are they just to hold up the rebar? They must do something else?
Yup. I saw some talented dudes doing without but I’m absolutely not confident to pull that so snake things it is.
Don’t forget to hide something cool in pour for someone to find in the future.
Get a little Han Solo action figure from Amazon or something.
Italian construction workers drop in coins for luck.
Bodies too
Now that's a fun one :) I'm definitively putting something in there now. I'll shove a mini or something in a small section of conduit I have left over and put it in.
Jimmy Hoffa action figure.
Damn that's cold xD
Be nice and buy a case of water or if you want to be fancy Gatorade/poweraid for the workers. It won't help the concrete directly but being nice to workers typically means they will go the extra bit to make it actually nice instead of the minimum.
Ho for sure I'll have water, various drinks, beers and french frises for everyone when it's over :)
Offer water as they work too, beer hold off till they finish but water should always be available