Pour Day! Log Home Floors and Walls

This was a crazy and productive day! If you’ve never ordered concrete trucks in the past you’ll need to know first off that you do not keep these trucks waiting. Concrete companies are on a tight schedule, many will charge you for their driver’s time on the site, and (I think) concrete has a lifespan of how long it can stay viable in the drum.

ICF Contractor and Team – Professionals Beyond Measure

Jason Hoover and his team were on the site, ready and waiting for the concrete deliveries as well as the pumper truck a full hour before scheduled. Again, this is a measure of an excellent contractor. We’ve seen nothing less than perfection coming from the team even though we’ve only used them for our basement ICF Logix blocks installation. I can’t recommend Jason enough, nor the people he chooses to work on his team.

As for us, the home owners, we were seriously late. We had set our calendars to be up and out of the house by 7 am, yet we didn’t hit the town of Bancroft until 8 am and still had supplies to pick up! We saw our truck (the one we were responsible for as it held the concrete for our basement floor), leaving town and heading for Boulter as we entered town. Needless to say this caused an incredible amount of stress to all three of us.

We had to pick up trowels, ABS pipe (for something which I cannot remember as I write this), one of those long handled smoother/finishers, return a movie, and run other errands. During this time Ben Kyle (one of Jason’s workers) was frantically trying to call us from the site which has ‘iffy’ cell reception.

Don’t tell the OPP, but we headed out of town and sped along the highway holding the truck to 140+ km/h for approximately 30 miles. Thankfully there were not many other vehicles en route.

We arrived on site just as Jason’s team were finishing off the styrofoam/concrete walls that would hold our log home for many generations. Missing the wall pour was unfortunate as we wanted to video tape the process for you – but fortunate enough as we didn’t hold up the concrete drivers or the pumper truck one minute more than necessary.

I had no idea what my day would entail. On the way to the site Eric informed me that I would be raking concrete and judging high/low spots as the pumper released the concrete into our basement area. Discovering later that this meant I would be up to my ankles in concrete, I was relieved to glance into the back seat to see my fun rubber boots forgotten from the last day we dug at the property. Eric, on the other hand, had forgotten his boots in our rush out the door…

Start Pouring the Basement!

Before we knew the task upon us, we were being called to take over the pumper hose. Eric turned to Jason for some fast, last minute tips on concrete floors as we entered the area. This was about the same moment that Eric sliced through his pinky finger with a new Xact-o knife as he set up level and 2×4 for first pass smoothing of concrete.

I’ll tell you more about first blood spilled on our log home building site, later. For now you should know that Eric simply wrapped black electrical tape around the 2 inch gash that exposed the finger bone below – and we got to work! Yes, that’s Eric and I working below on laying out the concrete.

While all this was going on, Jason and his team decided that we could use a few extra hands. They jumped right in, sneakers and all, to help us get the basement done.

If you’re not one of our personal friends you won’t know this, so be sure to understand that Jason is our contractor for ICF walls only. When we arrived at the site today, his job was done. Yet Jason and his staff lent a hand freely and without promise of compensation of any sort. They did this after already putting in a 5 hour day (including traveling time to the site) of glaring sun, scorching heat, and thick mosquitos. Each of them gave over and above the call of duty, without even being asked!

Where else does this happen?

Where else will you find such kind and conscientious builders?

It is true that I have a special fondness (in a mother/son manner) for one of Jason’s workers, and that Eric and Jason had attended the same high school (way back when), but neither of these are reason enough to explain how these three men so easily and quickly gave of their time, expertise, and strength.

Loving Your Contractors

I’m certain that a large part is the way we’ve treated this team right from the start of the operation – all too often not the norm. Many contractors and home builders have told me horror stories – where the home owner has treated the workers without respect – often to rudeness.

Treat your team – even if they’re only on your property or job for 1 day – with maximum respect and kindness. You’ll be minimally rewarded with conscientious workmanship – and maybe even a little extra!

At any rate I’ve spent more of this post talking about our ICF (Logix blocks) contractor than about the work we performed this day. See my next post for photos and information on pouring the floor of our new log home.

Oh yes, one little photo to end this post with — a not so little dog. Below you’ll see Kizzie, short for Kizmet, our 8 year old Great Dane. She’s a part of the build and was certainly an attraction for the concrete drivers and team on Tuesday.