Post Tension Stuff Installed!

Whew! I'm glad this day is over. It was a success, but it was stressful. Because of the last-minute things I remembered the slab crew hadn't done last night, I worried that my one-sub-after-the-other schedule wasn't going to work out. I started the day by waiting at the lot for the slab crew. Neither the owner nor his son was with them. But the other guy who leads their workers was there. I asked him about the styrofoam in the rear garage and raising the level of dirt under the level parts of both garages. He seemed a little confused or annoyed (after all they were only coming to cut off the tall pilings), but they did the work.

The pest control sprayer hadn't gotten my message from the evening before where I said I'd need to push him back from 7:30 to 8:30. So he showed up at 7:30 along with the slab crew. He said he had to go off to another job across the lake and that he'd be back around noon or 1pm. It was forecast to rain alot later in the day, so I figured I'd have to postpone all the day's work until tomorrow.

Then I called the post-tension slab company. I had left them a voicemail yesterday evening telling them to push back from 9:00 to 10:00. The lady who answered today said she thought I had left that message two days ago. Their crew had already left Slidell to get down here for 9. I was told that if they called them back it would cost me more than if they got down here and waited idle for a while.

So I let them come, and I called the pest control people to try and get the sprayer guy back. They sent me another guy in his place. The owner, who I had left the message with the evening before, apologized that he hadn't gotten the message to his employee. He had been sick when I called.

So the schedule went like this:

• 7:30 - Slab crew arrived & started work. First termite sprayer leaves for other job.
• 9:10 - Post-tension crew arrived. Started laying out materials and marking where tendons would go.
• 9:50 - Second termite sprayer arrived & began spraying from back to front.
• 11:20 - Spraying completed. Poly layer being laid down from back to front. Plastic was down before any of the haevy rain started.
• 11:30 - 2:00 - Post-tension cables laid out, along with rebar cage in the bay window areas. Sporadic periods of heavy rain with breaks in between.
• 2:00 - Post-tension crew finished laying highway wire in the areas where I plan to have tile or wood floor. They left at this time.

The bottom line is that everything was installed today that I had hoped to install. There was heavy rain for a few hours after the work was done. I worried about the rain messing up the termite barrier that was sprayed in the trenches (where there is no plastic layer). An uncle of mine who has built lots of houses went out to look at everything afterward and said I was fine. The termite protection wasn't broken.

So I'm relieved that everything got done. Tomorrow, the slab crew should be coming in the afternoon to install the floating forms (forms inside the perimeter like the sunken utility room, and the ledges in the garages, etc. After that, I get the inspection. Then I'm ready to pour.

Here are some pictures of the house as of today: