Terra firma time

Floor finishing

Amazing sense of anticipation now that the new floor substrate is ready. It’s been a big push to get to this stage. Now just one thing missing…

Big day today, as I’m expecting another truck delivery. Not any truck, mind you, this one’s delivering over seven cubic metres of concrete to the site today!

Manual muscle

Although the concrete arrives on site via a truck, it needs to be manually moved into the building. For once, it’s time for me to actually do something useful and lend a hand with a wheelbarrow to help get it brought in.

With a steady turnabout of filling wheelbarrows, running them into the building, dumping the concrete and then repeating the process, gradually the concrete lorries slowly diminished, as the floor slab level rose.

Whilst I was part of the crew involved in the concrete transferring process, the groundworks guys had their wellies on and were busy spreading and levelling out the concrete. All hands to the pump at this stage.

Strength sorted

Samples of the supplied concrete are taken during on-site delivery for off-site cube strength testing.

Testing involves casting sample cubes, then curing and crushing them first at seven days and then at twenty-eight days, to see the point at which they fail.

Cube testing of concrete measures its compressive strength to ensure the load it can withstand is correct to specifications. The indicative strength on the 7th day of testing shall be greater than 60% of the target strength on the 28th day.

Mine passed with flying colours, you’ll be pleased to know.

Bubble busting

Once the required depth is reached for the slab, the pressure is really on. You get an hour or two window of opportunity to sort things before it starts to harden.

First thing is to get rid of any trapped air in the slab’s concrete mix. Trapped air causes the concrete slab to weaken. No one wants that.

Flat finishing

To alleviate this, a Powerscreed vibrator is run over the surface. This causes any trapped air to rise to the surface of the slab and dissipate.

Next up: a first pass with a power steel float to help level things off, then switch to a plastic float for a second pass. This won’t be the final floor finish. That would be way too easy. I’ve got a more complicated and quirky option in mind for that!

Concrete complete

After a few hectic hours, it’s all done. It’s been months/years to get to this point, and then in a flash, it’s done. Hard to take it all in, really.

I now have a proper, solid, insulated, reinforced concrete floor in the building. Terra firma at last. All I have to do now is let it cure and harden.

In a couple of days, it will be safe to walk on. For now, I have to wait. Something I’ve been forced to learn to get better at. It’s not a natural skill set I possess.

Rapid recap

So who wants to see or remember how we got to this point?

If you’re interested in following the progress and adventures, feel free to subscribe to receive updates, or follow (Instagram, Facebook or YouTube) to join the journey – no catches, no spam!

Rest assured, there’s absolutely no AI-generated churn here; it’s just my own quirky outworking of ideas and dreams, as I look to renovate a derelict Small Mission Hall in the Outer Hebrides.

PS: Video vault updates

I’ve got around to putting together another couple of videos from the vaults for the Bought Me a Mission Hall part of the renovation, along with Good, bad, worse… in case anyone’s interested to go check them out…

They’re on my Small Mission Hall YouTube page – Feel free to subscribe to boost my fledgling single-figure YouTube following!