Root cellar: the floor is poured

The ready-mix truck arrived about 8:30 this morning with 4.5 yards of concrete for the root cellar floor and footers. I figured it would be simplest to do a monolithic pour rather than separate pours for footer and floor. Besides, doing so would’ve involved smaller batches of concrete and extra hauling fees ($75 if I received less than 4 yards at a time).

The driver was able to get the truck right up to the edge of the root cellar excavation and pour it all from one point. I had made sure ahead of time that there would be access from two different sides so that the driver could decide the best point(s) for unloading the concrete. It took less than 15 minutes to dump the concrete into the forms. I then spent five hours finishing it.

The excess concrete was not very much, and it was screeded over the forms at the far end of the pad. My dad helped spread the concrete as it was unloaded from the chute on the truck and then helped me with the screeding.

I constructed two bull floats for floating the surface of the concrete after it was poured. They worked well for this purpose. One was made out of an old mop, a board screwed to it’s end, and an extra handle attached. The other used a 10 foot long piece of 1/2 tubing and a larger board attached to its end.

I inserted sections of rebar with a J-bend into the concrete along the back wall and the side walls. These are spaced to fit within some of the block cavities. In these cavities, I will insert more rebar once the walls are up and fill them with concrete. I’m going to dry stack the concrete blocks and then use surface bonding cement on both sides. This method is supposed to be stronger and easier for a novice than traditional mortar masonry.

Once the concrete set up enough, I was able to trowel the surface to smooth it out. This went quite well. The cellar was in shade while the concrete was poured and floated. Then, the sunshine worked its way across the floor gradually. The area in the sunshine set up faster while that in the shade took longer. This was good because it gave me plenty of time to trowel the surfaces that were drying faster rather than having the whole thing setting up about the same time.

After finishing with the trowel, I covered the slab with plastic and an old tarp so that I won’t dry out too fast and will hopefully cure better than it would otherwise. I’ll leave it alone until Monday or Tuesday. The blocks for the walls are scheduled to be delivered Monday afternoon. So, if the weather permits, I may be able to start laying some block on Tuesday.