Pouring the slab. 130 cubic yards of concrete was scheduled for 4:30am (Who picked that time? IDK?) So, I arrived at 3:30am to make sure all was in order and to fix a few last minute problems. At 4:30am, 2 concrete trucks arrived. No one else was here!!!! Apparently, Gilbert overslept a little. He was 30 minutes behind. I had the trucks backup and began pouring the first 2 loads into the beams... By myself! Gilbert and his finishing subs showed up about 30mins later. I actually poured and directed 6 trucks (1/2 of the concrete) myself. That's some serious owner participation.

This is the front of the house. Looking at the office area. The slab and beams have been filled with concrete.

Another closeup. We used 3000PSI concrete. All cement. No fly-ash fillers. This makes it stronger and smoother. 

Workers walking in the mix.

I'm standing in the garage area. The beams have been filled. Workers are moving concrete in the background.

This is the front of the house, near the office. Gilbert (in the brown jacket) is assessing the pour.

Front of the house.

Scenic shot of the sun coming up. It was actually freezing when we began the pour, but it warmed up quickly.

Back of the house. Daylight finally arrived. 3 more trucks to go.

Standing in front of the garage. Workers are screeding the concrete flat. Beautiful sunrise!

Back of the house. Workers are filling the Master Suite.

Back of the house, showing the Living area and Sewing room. We are letting the concrete setup before smoothing it.

Another shot.

Standing at the back of the house, behind the Living area. Workers are now filling in the Master suite.

Another shot.

Workers are smoothing the edges. The concrete is starting to bleed out water.

East side of house, near the Guest Wing. Workers are adding the last of the concrete to the Master suite.

Back of house.

Back of house, near the kitchen. Workers are smoothing the edges and starting to fill the garage.

East end of the house, near the Sewing Room. Filling in the garage slab.

Workers are filling in the garage slab.

Workers are smoothing out concrete in the garage.

Uh oh! Red (the neighbor's dog) wandered over to take a closer look at the Dining Room floor.

The concrete finally setup enough to begin troweling around 10:30 am. He is smoothing over the dog prints!

Workers continue to work on the edges... smoothing. troweling, edging, etc...

This is a shot of the front door and the courtyard patio. What a beautiful broom finish! I was really pleased with how this turned out.

One of the workers is finishing up the courtyard patio. We placed J bolts (spaced every 3 ft) along the walls to prevent uplift of the walls. The square boards with J Bolts along the patio are for the patio columns.

Front of the house, near the Master Bath. The concrete is being continually troweled smoother and smoother.

You can see the swirl patterns left by the trowel. Those will disappear after the concrete has fully cured.

This is a shot from the driveway, looking toward the house.

This is the front of the garage. I placed some "sweeps" here to allow the water to be piped into the house and some electrical lines to run out for later. Notice the slope that we placed in the garage to allow water to drain toward the overhead doors.

This is a picture of the garage floor. Not quite smooth yet.

You can see the slopes (along the wall) that we added to the front and rear of the garage.

This shows the "lugs" that we placed to allow the overhead garage doors to sit in (when they are closed). The 2x10 will be removed later.

This is a picture of the floor drain pipe penetration. All pipe penetrations have to be sleeved.

The Master Suite is smoothing out nicely.

This is the Master Shower. We will fill and slope it with mortar later during the tile work.

This shows how smooth the concrete is becoming. The workers keep polishing it until it is mirror smooth.

This is the trowel that was used for the majority of the slab.

Finally, the workers have just left and the slab is smooth and dry. It looks wet because it is soooo smoooooth!

I've been up since 3am for the concrete pour, but now (at 7:30pm) it's time for me to apply the curing agent with a pump sprayer.

Like the hair?  Ha!

This took about 2 hours to apply. I finally finished around 9:45pm. It had been a loooong day. I was really tired.

Pouring The External Beam

02FEB2015 - This is the cleared area (for our external sub-grade beam) looking at the Guest Wing. Our design called for an external sub-grade beam located at the front of the courtyard. The beam ties the ends of Guest Wing and Master Suite together. The first task was to dig the ditch for the beam. We hit rock! Imagine that, here in the Hill Country. Well, at least I don't have to dig down very far.

02FEB2015 - This is a view of the cleared area (for the beam) looking at the Master Suite.

02FEB2015 - We planned for the beam when pouring the foundation. This is the rebar sticking out of the slab on the Guest Wing.

02FEB2015 - This is the rebar sticking out of the patio on the Master Suite. There are only 2 rebars on this side because it was so shallow.

01MAR2015 - This is Gilbert (Lopez Concrete and Construction) drilling holes for the supporting stakes to be driven in.

01MAR2015 - Gilbert is checking the lines for the concrete beam.

01MAR2015 - Gilbert and his worker are tying steel for the beam.

01MAR2015 - And the rains began....  It was cold and wet.

03MAR2015 -Here you can see most of the form work is done. I marked the drainage lines with green paint. I am so glad that I did that. I almost couldn't find the drainage holes later. They became covered with concrete.

03MAR2015 - I used the shop vac to clean the mud and debris out of the forms. It worked pretty good.

03MAR2015 -Here's a view from inside the courtyard. I'm waiting on the Engineering Inspector to show up now.

03MAR2015 - I installed 2 layers of drainage through the beam. I didn't want the courtyard becoming a mud pit due to poor drainage.

13MAR2015 - We needed to remove a tree branch for the concrete truck to back into position. Looks like Gilbert is the one in a bad position here.

13MAR2015 - The inspection passed and we poured the concrete for the sub grade beam.

13MAR2015 - Notice how all of the ends of the drainage pipes got covered up.

13MAR2015 - Here's another view looking into the courtyard.

25MAR2015 - After the beam was poured... and it rained again... I noticed that their was still a drainage problem in the courtyard and around the front of the beam.

25MAR2015 - Here's a shot of the water puddling inside the courtyard. This could be a big problem and cause foundation settling.

25MAR2015 - I chiseled a small ditch into the rock and laid in a french drain to the area that had the puddle in the courtyard. I used a heavy duty silt fabric and wrapped the drainage pipe with 1.5" washed limestone gravel and another layer of silt fabric.

25MAR2015 - The french drain is sloped to the base of the beam at the front of the courtyard.

25MAR2015 - Here's another shot from the front of the house, looking into the courtyard.

25MAR2015 - I added another layer of silt fabric on top of the french drain system and then covered it with 1.5" rock.

Here you can see the added layer of silt fabric over the french drain in the courtyard.

I then added silt fabric over the remaining drain field outside of the beam. This is a lower basin area that collects the water from the courtyard. I figure the oak trees will eventually find it and make use of the water that collects there.

This shows the silt fabric laid over the drain field.

I then back filled the area with 36 cubic yards of washed sand.

This is another shot from the front of the house. I brought in additional sand to fill the courtyard to about 2 inches below the patios and covering the black colored waterproofing on the foundation.