Last week, the underside of the slab took shape. The earth around the stem wall was pushed in cover more of the wall and then compacted. Some very large piles of gravel were scooped inside of the walls and compacted.
The girls playing in their bedroom
A huge amount of effort went into laying pipes and conduits for water, waste and wires. Once that slab gets poured, nothing is moving, so they had to get those pipes located right on the first try! This is one way a house with a crawl space is easier- you can lay the pipes once you have something to connect them to instead of the other way around.
Once Dave was confident about the pipes and the inspection was done, the next layer of insulation went down- 2 inches of foam covering the gravel and butting up against the foam that wraps around the inside of the stem wall. Together they create a thermally isolated valley for our concrete floors to be poured into.
Insulation wraps around the interior and covers the bottom
Next came plastic and rebar to get us ready for the next concrete pour.
Of course, Murphy's Law toyed with us this last few days. After a state of emergency level drought all year and a dry hot summer, we finally got some much needed rain.... just when we needed it to be dry.
Almost ready for concrete
We sponged out buckets full of water from our new swimming pool. The water kept accumulating in big puddles, an inch or two deep- you would think a mop would be easier but the rebar grid made it a pretty tedious task, best performed by hand with sponges (for me) and water guns (for Astrid).
Getting rid of puddles the day before the concrete trucks arrive
After spending the afternoon sponging it dry, Dave covered it with humongous tarps just in time for the night's rain.