Finally after almost 2 years.............

[kneedeep]

You are most likely to get cracks around your posts and especially from the ones near the door. If you hammer the sharp edges off the post footings and lay a few last minute diagonal bars or ring bars around those posts it will help. Cracks radiate from inside corners in the pour.

Be prepared to bark at the concrete crew as they walk all over your carefully laid tube where it is unsupported by bar. And be sure it is under pressure during the pour!!!!!!!

You'll love the radiant! Good luck.

Diamond shaped cuts around the poles will control cracks

 

[Raspy]

Nawh......no sound and no red:dance1: I don't know if it was just luck or what, because I had to leave the building a couple timesullinghair: because I couldn't stand to watch it any more. The guys did the best they could to stay off the tube but it was impossible for them to work the mud and stay completely off it.

Oh man, is it ever so much better.:cloud9: Everything looks so different. I have been working in the building for months doing electrical work putting up walls, laying air lines and everything else you can think of, hop scotching around trying to not step on tubes and rebar. It's a wonder I didn't end up with a broken leg or worst as many times as I tripped over that stuff or caught a pant cuff on a piece of rebar driven in the floor that was used as a grade stake while carrying supplies or a ladder from one end to another.

My wife claims that I have learned a complete new vocabulary since I have been working on this building.:laughing: At first she would come down every evening after she got off work to see how things were going. I don't know why, but there for awhile it looked like everytime she came home and as she was walking down the drive to the building; just about that time I would miss a nail with the hammer and smash my thumb or knock over a bucket of paint or maybe even trip over a piece of rebar and I would let out a cussing spree that would make any sailor proud.:hissyfit: At first she would come in to see what all the fuss was about and try to offer a shoulder to cry on but after awhile she would just turn around and head back to the house without saying a word. Probably to say a small prayer because she knew it was nothing she could do for me when I get on a roll like that.:ashamed:

I'm not saying getting the floor done will completely cut out all of the temper tantrums but hopefully it will make conditions a little easier to work in and maybe even possibly cut down a few of these cussing spells and improve the chances of making it to heaven rather than the other option when I go away from this world.:laughing:

Soooo funny!!!! I know exactly what you're talking about! Man, I came up with some new words around here too. And some very serious high volume comments. When my wife begins to stand back and be quiet is when it's starting to get ugly. There's nothing like trying so hard for so long, while continually being thwarted by some little trip hazard, pinch or bumped head. Sheesh.

Now you can move on to the next problem filled project. It's all just as series of fixing problems all the way through. I tend to wing it on almost everything. The plans are just a suggestion to be modified later. Fortunately, I have a good relationship with the building inspector and know my reasoning for everything. And my place is a steel frame building with big trusses, so he's interested in seeing how I make it morph into a house.

Good luck with the next phase!

 

[rickshaw]

radient heat is great,it should"nt crack with heat if it is just scored . from Rickshaw

 

[mx842]

Soooo funny!!!! I know exactly what you're talking about! Man, I came up with some new words around here too. And some very serious high volume comments. When my wife begins to stand back and be quiet is when it's starting to get ugly. There's nothing like trying so hard for so long, while continually being thwarted by some little trip hazard, pinch or bumped head. Sheesh.

Now you can move on to the next problem filled project. It's all just as series of fixing problems all the way through. I tend to wing it on almost everything. The plans are just a suggestion to be modified later. Fortunately, I have a good relationship with the building inspector and know my reasoning for everything. And my place is a steel frame building with big trusses, so he's interested in seeing how I make it morph into a house.

Good luck with the next phase!

Boy do I know winging it!!:laughing: I really never had any plans when I started I just had a picture of the basic idea of what I wanted and then looked at my finances and decided it was going to be a long hard haul to the end. I started out with a 32X40 with a big door in the front and a opening in the back to fit my 20' into. I then decided to put a 10' shed off to one side with gravel floor to put my lawn mower, my gravely and a few pieces of equipment. Then I didn't like the way it looked with just one side shed on it so I put one on the other side to even it out. That was a good move cause I needed a separate space to put my mill and lathe anyway. I was going to add on later for that but decided I needed the space now so it is now all good.

While my buddy was there putting my roof back on after the hurricane tore it off he was a little slack so I got to put a 16X20' roof over the container in the back and a some additional work space along side. I had also planned to do later but now that it is done I'm glad he had the time because it will make my life much easier once I can finally go to work with my powder coating.

About this time as I was getting my floor ready to pour I started reading about radiant heating so right in the middle of all this I shifted gears and went to work designing a layout and spent most of the money I had left that I was going to use for concrete. At that point I knew it was going to be awhile before I could pour the floor so I just went about doing what ever I could do with the money I could come up with. Before I knew it I had done almost all my electrical work which led to doing a lot more carpentry work as I had to put 2x4's in the walls to run wires through and nail boxes to. I was going to do this anyway so I would have a place to put in insulation bats but the electrical rough helped speed that part up. That was okay though because it did break up the monotony a little being an electrician one day and a carpenter the next.

Now that I have a nice floor to work off of yesterday as I finished putting another coat of sealer on the center of the floor where the most traffic will be I was looking around to see if there was anything I could do but watch the sealer dry and I decided to put up a wall between the main shop floor and the machine shop part. All I needed to build was just 2, 8' sections between 2 poles in the main wall. Just a simple hour maybe two long job but ended up being the hour from h@ll. This is when I remembered the loose comment I made when I was framing the roof over the machine shop that went something like this....Awh heck with it I'll just leave it like that and let the trim carpenter deal with it. :ashamed: But it was getting late, they were calling for rain and I wanted to get the tin on it before it came.

There was this one post that was so crooked it looked like a pigs tail but the last four feet was close enough to put the header board on so I could place the rafters to if I just removed the attachment clamps at the base so I could move the post over about 31/2" at the bottom. I remember thinking, boy! am I glad I decided to put my post on piers this would be a pain if they were in concrete.:yuck: I justified this by saying I'll replace it later on but now I have to keep on a roll.

Needless to say I forgot about it , that is until yesterday after I had drilled 3 anchor bolts to bolt down the salt treated board on the bottom of the wall. I had the board all bolted down and then to my harrow as I put the first 2x4 along side the post I could see there was a slight miscalculation somewhere. At first I thought it was just the 16' 2x4 that was crooked then those words I spoke while framing the roof part, you know the ones..... "leave it for the trim man" popped into my head like a pig pile of bricks. I could have dealt with the crooked part down the sides but the 4" in and out from the bottom to the top was just to much to overlook, no trim man is that good.:duh:

As I was pondering my next move and thinking of all sorts of nifty ways I could fix this I decided this would take a little more action than just thinking of a jerry rig fix and I decided I would have to replace the whole thing and with those thought My tool belt hit the floor and I went to the house for a cool one.

I had to replace two other post on another wall and I made them out of putting 3 2x6's together so I'll do the same with this one, just a minor set back not a real game changer. Another trip to Lowes is in order but I would feel that something was terribly wrong if I didn't have to hit that store for something everyday for something.

 

[Raspy]

I love it!

I'm building a 48X60 with a 12' overhang out back, so it comes out to 60X60.

It has rigid beams for seismic strength that are 12" X 8" box steel and 8" X 6" box steel. They have 19" square pads that bolt on with 1" bolts. Well, no need to measure them before pouring the footings, right? I had to shorten both of then by 8" to fit the structure. Then I misunderstood the end wall design and decided the steel company had made a mistake, so I built a new steel post out of 12" X 3" channel with all of it's mounting brackets and base foot. Primed it and stood it in place. Only to realize it was my mistake and it wasn't needed. Etc, etc. Lot's of cutting and welding heavy steel. Breaking out concrete. Being creative at adjusting the design. Then my helper poured my porch slab too high and almost all the bolts became too short to set the rest of the posts and pour the main house slab. A few words and a few weeks later, that was worked out.

It's all part of the fun.