Foundation Arrives!

7:55am - Concrete pumper & concrete truck arrive from Milpitas Materials

After 3 weeks of watching meticulous excavation and formwork, our foundation was poured today. VERY exciting to see stuff actually DELIVERED to our site rather than taken away.

I was only able to catch the first hour or so of the pour - Cathy and I had to leave to go to the West Coast Green tradeshow in San Jose. However, it was plenty long enough to see that it continued the theme of backbreaking work. These guys work awfully hard for their money. I can only imagine the beating their bodies take doing this kind of work day in and day out.



I think part of the job description is "contortionist" - there were often 2 or 3 guys under the floor, climbing over piles of dirt, wrestling the concrete pumper hose.



It's about 8:30am and this guy is already sweating, wrestling this pig of a hose, which weighs a ton (100' of 4" hose, filled with concrete) and convulses every 2 seconds because of the way the pumper operates.



And some video:



The good news is that one (lucky) guy gets to hold the remote control unit for the pumper to turn the flow off and on. He doesn't have to wrestle the hose, but something tells me that he spent a few years at the business end of the hose before they gave him the controls.



Here' s a slide show with some additional pics.



Here's a glimpse of where the front door will be: