A Major Pour

Annotated panorama. (Click on the picture to see a larger view)

A lot of concrete was poured on Tuesday. The pour included the wall on the downhill side of the covered patio and garage and the stem walls for the shop, exercise room, and pool bathroom. The overall shape of the house is now much more apparent. (Well, apparent if you have the plans in hand; without the plans, it probably still looks like a bunch of concrete.) The next step is to start placing the fill but the concrete has to be given time (up to 2 weeks) to cure and gain strength before that is done. Once the fill is in place, the slabs for the covered patio, exercise room, and pool bathroom will be poured.

When we started the design process, one of the items I insisted on was easy access to the space beneath the shop. I didn’t need a full basement but at least enough space to make it easy to install a dust collection system and to run all the ducting under the floor. One of the side effects of the fixes for the expansive soil problem was a much larger shop basement; I now have a full sized, full height basement. I do have to share it with the pool equipment, however.

The shop foundation looking uphill

The big wall at the front of the covered patio and garage and the back of the shop