We’ve made a lot of progress on the Sustainable Village this week—framed the first floor of the northwest house, started building the deck for the second floor, and poured concrete slabs for the two east homes.
The first floor of the first house was framed in a day. The 1,500-square-foot home has four bedrooms, a downstairs bathroom, upstairs kitchen, and big south-facing deck on the second story.
The beginning of the week was cold with scattered showers, so the concrete contractors waited until Thursday and Friday to pour slabs. The process took about two hours—the mixing truck and the pumping truck showed up and one of the guys poured the coloring (Santa Fe) into the mix. Then five guys worked together on the floor, spreading the “mud” from a rubber hose, moving it around with “mud sticks,” leveling the slab with a screed (or flat board), and smoothing and sealing it with a bull float (a long-handled tool with an aluminum float). Once the slab set up a bit, they went over it with a trowel (a flat, metal-bladed hand tool), which gets rid of any bumps and gives it a smooth finish. The slab is 1.5 inches with a pretty adobe color.
The crew is currently framing the second story. Next week students begin helping out on site.
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- pouring the concrete slab for the southeast home
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- radiant tubing within the concrete slab
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- spreading the “mud”
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- mixing truck pours cement into concrete pump
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- pouring cement-a team operation!
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- screeding, or leveling, the slab
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- bull floating, or pushing the gravel to the bottom and the “cream” to the top
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- smoothing and sealing the edges of the slab
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- slab after 24 hours
