But I'm getting ahead of myself. So the Murdocks had set the stage for Gary Davis and his crew of masons.
The masons began their expert work on the morning of November 1, which also happened to be the first morning we woke up to snow accumulation! They laid out the perimeter footer...
...then the footers for the basement posts. We have loved working with Gary (in the picture below).
They cut the rebar to set into the footers.
They suspended the rebar in the perimeter footers, but for the post footers they just dropped the rebar into the footer after the cement was poured.
They also set up footers for the porch posts, using cut-off old metal barrels.
Then they called in the cement truck. They backed him up reeeeeeal close to the edge of the basement hole. I (Sarah) was too nervous to watch :) but the ground guide certainly knew what he was doing (and probably wanted the truck to end up in the hole even less than I did).
We were enjoying watching the process unfold, and at one point Gary commented, "Beats a wheelbarrow!" The cement traveled out of the truck...
...up the conveyor belt...
...through the chute...
...to its new home.
Gary and one of his workers used shovels to roughly level the cement, and a third man smoothed it out. We couldn't believe how quickly and efficiently they worked their way around the footer!
We also couldn't believe how quickly and well he was able to smooth out the cement. I think it was about at this point that Mick commented (in response to my disbelief at what a great and quick job they were doing!), "This is why we pay them the sixteen thousand dollars."
We also enjoyed watching the cement truck operator use his rickety control panel to put the concrete exactly where it needed to be.
It was quite an impressive operation!
No comments:
Post a Comment