Blackmore House

I read that with my heart in my mouth! Good end result though.

I lost count of the number of times Harry said today "...and it was all going so well." Poor man - he's a lovely guy and didn't deserve a day like today.

Thar's one team of men who will sleep well tonight.

I have my fingers crossed for your powerfloat but think they're gonna need floodlights!

Been there, got the tee-shirt.

Our floodlit powerfloating experience was caused by concrete turning up late and the weather conditions. No floodlights, just the headlights of a MBC van. Brendan, MBC  working at 2200hr on a Friday, kept going with fish & chips

I forgot to say well done and  keep going.....

Great blog!

Great story that no doubt reminds all of us of our own builds. Mine was power floated in the dark and when I poured the garage floor (separate to house) the vibrating beam screed fell to pieces and consequently I have a very uneven garage floor that I just about smile about now. You will laugh and smile about all these things one day when you stand and look back at your lovely new home. (I hope)

True commitment from the guy who showed up straight from the airport. Image of flip flops, Hawaiian shirt, dropping his suitcases and getting stuck straight in!

Crikey, that sounds like an intense day all round.  Our MBC slab pour is not many weeks away and we have been following your journey as though it is our own.  I shall add to the 'to do' list sourcing a defibrillator for that day to deal with heart-stopping moments.

2 hours ago, HerbJ said:

Been there, got the tee-shirt.

Our floodlit powerfloating experience was caused by concrete turning up late and the weather conditions. No floodlights, just the headlights of a MBC van. Brendan, MBC  working at 2200hr on a Friday, kept going with fish & chips

 

I delivered a curry to Brendan at about 10:30 on the night ours was done. He was just sitting there in the cold waiting for the concrete to go off so he could power float it. Unfortunately, it was the next morning until that was possible, and we didn't get a decent power float because of it. Cold weather and unexpected rain didn't help.

....the machines were turned off at 11.45pm on mine when the batteries to the mountain bike head torches ran out....

There's a theme here...

 

Our concrete arrived late and Brendan was still power floating the slab will into the night.  The problem seems to be that the power floating  can't start until the concrete has partially cured, so it only takes a bit of a delay or bad weather to mean that they have to work on into the night to get things finished.

Our concrete arrived on time - literally started at 8 in the morning from memory, but the concrete just didn't want to go off.

 

I have a theory that the concrete in some sections of the slab contained far too much water (the concrete was mixed onsite by a truck then pumped via a boom). There were repeated calls from the MBC guys to the guy on the concrete truck reduce the amount of water being mixed in, especially earlier in the pour, but it kept creeping up. The worst areas seemed to be the earlier parts of the pour where this was happening, but that's completely unscientific speculation on my part.

 

Despite all the efforts, our slab was a mess in the end. This was the worst bit, a week or two after the pour, I think:

 

 

 

You can see that the fat has just disintegrated from the top (possibly not helped by frosty nights in the days following the pour).

 

To his credit, Joe (MBC's owner) dropped by when I raised the issue and immediately offered to raise the frame by a small amount and pay for a liquid screed. In the end we decided to go with a concrete floor instead, so offered to hold back some of our final payment to make up the difference, which Joe was happy to do.

3 minutes ago, jack said:

To his credit, Joe (MBC's owner) dropped by when I raised the issue and immediately offered to raise the frame by a small amount and pay for a liquid screed. In the end we decided to go with a concrete floor instead, so offered to hold back some of our final payment to make up the difference, which Joe was happy to do.

 

I am a big fan of contractors who come up with a solution rather than just the standard shrug of shoulders.  Pouring and curing a concrete slab is a hell of a task and lots can go wrong - deliveries, mix, weather, poor prep, poor site operative, broken equipment.  On most housebuilder sites nobody cares, unless it is civil engineering, in which case it is all inspected, cube tested etc.

 

A few years ago near Brighton I watched a reinforced concrete bridge being built, then a couple of weeks later the main supports were torn down by a huge demolition excavator. Apparently the concrete supplier got the mix wrong.  Mucho £££

The concrete in my foundation didn't go off because of the conditions on the day. Late August, warm, very humid, little sun, lots of cloud cover and no wind! The  late concrete  deliveries pushed everything back.  We managed to float it until  we finally called it a day when we ddecided we couldn't get it any better.

To be honest,  the worst area was the garage ( the last area to get concrete fill) but  it was not too bad and  you would never know, now that resin floor had been applied (after a good grind and resin filling of minor imperfections where the odd piece of aggregate was loose). The rest of the floor was reasonably level  and we laid 110m2 porcelain tiles straight on top  for most of it and 50m2 engineered oak boards on the rest-   10mm max   out  worst across 15 x 12m or so

Looking good. Don't be afraid to put a tape across the diagonals and check for square. Same goes with checking for level across the floor. A few buckets of water threw over it in a day or two will do it no harm but can show up bad bits very quickly.

If it turns out it's all gd then happy days on to the next bit with confidence it's 100% right at the bottom.

A good show of tenacity as usual. Having the right crowd makes all the difference TBH, and bucketing concrete in the digger is a show of grit 'n' determination. 

Excellent end to what must have been a very long day for the MBC guys.