One advantage of digging is it keeps you warm when it is cold. Many ruts and potholes in the yard were filled so that it is much easier to mow now than it was. The remainder of the dirt was piled up at the back of the excavation for later backfill.
I have seen many wet basements and crawl spaces over the years, so I wanted to drain the backfill and seal the wall well. Here you see the sock-covered drainpipe that I fitted into the notch that I cut with mattock behind the existing concrete pad.
Next, I pounded in support stakes for the back of the form. I was not careful enough about how deep that I dug the area for the slab. This turned out to make a convenient place to make use of my cairn material instead of gravel and not have to haul it offsite.
Having taken out so many roots from the tree, having noticed that it was not an attractive tree, and knowing that Silver Maples shed constantly and copiously, I decided to take it out. I had begun building the forms but only the part below ground. If I was going to drop the tree, the time was now.
Building the forms out of 2 x 6's allowed me to make the footer eleven inches deep and 12" wide. The inner footer form I built up to 6 1/2" so that the slab would 4 1/2" thick. All of this underground, under concrete form would be permanent, so I backfilled it with more broken rubble from my piles.
I would have dug the back side of the slab deeper into the ground so that the front would not be so high, but the existing slab prevented that. I wanted some new concrete level on the old slab but not too thin. I decided that 3" was the minimum. This minimum determined the depth of the back wall and height of the front of the slab (about 14").
Now the forms are nearly complete minus diagonal supports for the front stakes. Concrete is seriously heavy. Later I was very glad that I installed the diagonals. The concrete definitely would have flattened the forms.
Under the tarp is a utility pipe to come through the concrete. The debris backfill was almost complete.
The cairn is gone, all used to fill in behind the forms.
I needed to calculate the amount of concrete to order. I was told to add 15% to be sure that I had enough for slab and footer. I didn't think that my calculations would be that far off, so I wanted to have a place to put the excess. I built the footer forms for the back and side walls of the carport. I should have taken more pictures. You can see a bit of it here. The picture was actually taken because I was amazed at the lack of crown and bow in the next board I picked up. It is rare. You can also see some of the tree I took down, cut and stacked.
Rebar was next on the agenda. Given that I am building a 16' x 20' workshop, I want 1/2' x 20' rebar. For most of it I borrowed a 24' trailer. I came up 9 pieces short. I made a way to carry the remainder on my pickup without scratching it, though I don't know why I cared.
Notice the jig to support it at the back of the cab.
I made a simple jig for bending it. It was quite the workout. Notice also that I epoxy coated the rebar to reduce rust.
Here is the nearly complete rebar set-up. The black plastic support structures are called chairs.
The corners should be stout.
I installed a screed base in the middle. We would have to screed the slab by half and bull float it smooth.
The inspectors showed up unannounced. You can see that I used available materials for the diagonal form supports.
One inspector felt that there might need to be a little final earth moving.
One of the neighbors stopped by for a going over.
Emotionally, though I had been at this project for many months now, I just now felt as though I was ready to begin. Phase 3, Forms was complete. The largest investment of time, energy, and money was about to commence. It was time to call in some help.
