Currently, I am working on a residential project – a really large modern residential project. It’s unique compared to our other projects because it is basically commercial construction – cast in place concrete, steel superstructure, and composite floors (steel decking and concrete).
Did I mention it’s 4 stories and on a lot that is 50′ wide and 225′ long? There aren’t a lot of residential sites in Dallas that have those dimensions – oh yeah, it also is hemmed in on 3 sides and slopes down from the street about 10′. Getting water off this property is difficult – can you say “bathtub”? There are dozens of architectural firms who wanted this job and rightly so – it’s a fantastic commission and the site is physically a challenge which makes for an exciting project. I have already been on this job for almost a year and we have about another year of construction left so I’ll put up some isolated progress photos from time to time.
Today, I thought I’d show some of the concrete form work and illustrate some of the concrete texture patterns we are trying to achieve.
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Rebar Tunnel
Hard to believe but this is a tunnel that connects the lower levels at the front and rear of the site. There is an underground parking garage and we have 12′ high of cast-in-place concrete wall for the entire perimeter of the house. The picture above was taken about 3 weeks ago.
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Form-work Tunnel
Fast forward 2 weeks and the form-work is just about completed. Part of the design includes a wood grain pattern on the concrete so as the site slopes down, the wood grain will become exposed as the site falls away. This is the same tunnel as earlier.
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Form-work Detail
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Heavy Duty Form-work
I have to admit, this is the first residential job where we needed this level of bracing – crazy looking isn’t it?
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Installing wood for pattern
So here is a picture of the wood boards being installed on the inside of the form-work. This is the surface that the concrete will be cast against. When the form-work is taken down, these boards will leave behind the pattern that we are looking to develop.
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wood boards - detail
This picture is taken at the transition between the portion of the basement wall that becomes exposed as you move towards the rear of the site.
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Concrete Pour - Pumper Truck
If I remember correctly, there were 20 concrete mixers spaced to make deliveries 15 minutes apart – that’s 5 hours of constant concrete trucks coming and leaving the site. The contractor did a good job of orchestrating all the moving parts on this day and we didn’t have any complications or missteps.
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Concrete Texture
This is a picture from approximately 2 weeks ago after the form-work had been removed. I am standing on the outside of the building – on the right is the retaining wall for the site and on the left is the basement wall running around the perimeter of the building. You can see the intent of the wood pattern on the concrete – that despite concrete having a reputation for being gray and cold, the wood grain and pattern of the boards goes a long way of softening the final look.
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Concrete Texture - detail
A close-up look of a portion of the wall – I think it looks pretty good and I think once this material gets married with the remaining materials (dark zinc metal siding and stucco), I think it will come together really nicely.
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I don’t have the money to pay someone else to do it so this is a DIY project
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My house is approximately 2,000 square feet and almost all of it is exposed stained concrete floor. To help visualize the task, I added a floor plan of my house and shaded all the exposed concrete in orange
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I don’t like manual labor anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I never loved it but now a days, my ability to bend over and “put my back into it” are gone. I’m sure it’s because I’m getting old smarter because I would just as much prefer to hire someone else to do this type of work.
that's a lot of orange...
See what I mean? That is a lot of orange. Since I don’t own a concrete grinding machine, nor do I know how to operate one – that’s out. They make grinders now that can do a job like mine but like I said, I don’t have a few thousand dollars to spare. So I made some calls and asked about acid washing the floors with muriatic acid. I know that we specify this type of acid when refinishing concrete sidewalks and patios so why wouldn’t it work for me? I spoke with a contractor and a landscape architect and after they both stopped laughing and making jokes about melting my fingers down a joint or two, they both gave me a melted thumbs up! Nothing left to do but to get to it!
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I started off by picking a test spot in the utility room, basically underneath the washing machine. I did this because if I majorly screwed something up, the washing machine would hide the evidence from the next sucker person who would buy this house. This was also a good spot because the floor here looked terrible…If I wanted to see how this was going to work, this was definitely the spot. I did some spot cleaning to get everything ready with my wet/dry shop vac (an awesome tool, highly recommend picking one up if you don’t already have one).
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Will you just look at that spot!? Erghh – I never seen a bit of concrete that needed to have acid poured on it more deserving than this bit right here. I also used a metal wire brush to make sure that the concrete score lines were nice and clean…mostly. C’mon, throw me a frickin’ bone here, there was like 50 years of shamasazam in there.
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Okay, I got all the surfaces ready to go and I prepared my mixture of muriatic acid (5% aka 20:1) mixture with water. Oh yeah, unless you really do want melty fingers, get a pair or rubber gloves – the kind made for protection from industrial strength chemicals, not the ones that will work against dish-pan hands. In my case, and I would guess yours as well, when I bought my muriatic acid from Lowe’s, they just happen to conveniently place a box of the right kind of gloves right next to the acid. Way to go Lowe’s! *Air Punch*
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So I poured the 5% solution on the concrete and waited for the magic to happen. Right away there was a chemical reaction and the concrete started to hiss and steam just a little bit. Oh yeah…(rubbing gloved hands together)…like taking candy from the kitchen drawer…so easy. At this rate, I would bang this project out in 2 days max (what?!?…I mean, awesome!)
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What??! That looks terrible! It’s going to take a years to get this project done with this plan…. I have a good mind to take my gloves off, let one or two fingers get a little melty and wag them in the faces of that contractor and landscape architect as I tell them what idiots they are! Now what am I going to do??
(get a beer)
(go back and look at floor…….stupid floor)
My wife tells me to just pour more acid on it – well, not really more, just a higher concentration - full strength (melty fingers be damned!!) No thanks, my back hurts after doing that one….stupid….tiny….little…spot.
(get a beer)
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yellow is the color of defeat by the way
To give you an idea, I change the spot I acid washed to yellow so you can see, you know, how much further I have to go. Beer is never the solution, it’s just a diversionary tactic and eventually, a real plan is going to have to be put in place. But what? What is it that I need to do?
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Thaaat’s right……roller skating. You can always count on roller skating.
(and the banana stand, there’s always money in the banana stand)
