Still Hammering Away

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At last, the damage has been done to the blue BITCH granite and our wallets, as Chico finally raps up the excavation work at 71 Concordia, or rather, most of it. Chico was at it for two weeks straight, that's 80 or so hours to dig a hole roughly 9 ft. deep by 20 ft. by 40 ft. and remove about 800 cubic yards of rotten rock and bluebitch granite. Besides which we found precious little dirt or sand, or anything that wasn't back-breaking difficult to extract on that knolltop!

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We now move to phase two, getting the slab poured for the floor of the cistern and the hurricane room / safe place / future studio apartment. Whatever you call it, it gets a concrete slab; which in this case will be the finished floor, although I plan to score the concrete after it is poured. The scoring, about 1/8" wide by 1/4" to 5/16" deep, besides providing a decorative look, provides "relief" cuts in the slab.

You see, as the concrete slab hardens and cures, it shrinks, and, over time, cracks appear in the finished surface. A relief cut is basically a shallow notch or rabbet cut into the slab. This kerf, as it is called, relieves stress and encourages cracks to occur at that weaker spot, where the slab is thinner. The scored lines will dilineate or represent large "tiles", the joints, or kerfs, are then filled with a colored grout, just like an actual tile floor would appear, except these won't be terra cotta, ceramic or adobe tiles! My floor will be stained concrete, this is not like anything you have ever seen before, ever! But I go on...... check back next week when I will have more photos of our new home.