Here’s some video of the two concrete pours that built the foundation for our new home. The first step involved filling the 37 holes dug for piers. Next, forms to make the grade beams were built and then filled.
Some things to note when you watch the video:
- It takes a multi-person team to execute this process. Not only are several people needed to manage the hose — it gets very heavy when it’s filled with concrete! — but you need to have people smoothing out the pour.
- Concrete is sort of like cake batter. You tap the pan — the forms — and use a vibrator to settle it, and you do a certain amount of hand-work to finish it.
- The bottom of the grade beams just sort of ooze out into the trenches holding the forms. A major portion of the overall strength of the structure comes not from the beams, but from the piers sunk into the ground, which are tied into the beams via rebar.
Pouring from Mark Olbert on Vimeo.
