7 July 2018

Larry, Victor, Karl, and Trey got here just before 8:30 (this being Saturday morning, they allowed themselves a late start) to form the two 11¼″ curbs (north and east sides of the building) and the two 31½″ “walls” (south and west sides – where the barn juts into the side of the slope).  The Goodro’s truck arrived at 9 bearing 10 pieces of 5/4 x 6 x 12′ pressure treated lumber for the wood walkway.  I had the truck go around to the backyard to unload, thereby testing the strength of the final section of wood walkway put in back in May.  The walkway moved not a bit as the truck drove over it (twice)!  Meanwhile, back at the barn-build site, all was going too smoothly (have we heard that phrase before?), with most of the inner walls in place, when Larry remembered that he needed to put bentonite water stop in the bottom of the forms.  That material swells in contact with water, thereby sealing the seam between the curbs / walls and the concrete slab.  Nothing for it but to take down the inner wall forms, lay down the water stop, and put the forms back up.  Did I mention that the hardest part of putting up concrete forms is aligning the form ties with the inner wall form tie holes?  There’s a real trick to that process but, even though Larry is a master former, it’s still a hard job.  As the forms were going up, Victor checked the diagonal and found that they were ⅟₁₆″ out of square.  Not too shabby!!!!  By just after noon the forms were ready for concrete, minus the wood electrical outlet boxes that I need to install inside the two walls.  Spent the afternoon moving wood walkway boards to achieve the optimal ³/₁₆″ spacing, getting the third section finished.