Pouring Concrete

This is the big day.  They are pouring the concrete for my catch basin.  Contractor Kevin Anderson has ordered the concrete.  The big truck on the right has the material, not yet mixed.  There are separate compartments for cement, sand, and water.  The material is mixed as it is dispensed from the truck. This avoids the ticking clock of a ready mix truck, which absolutely MUST dispense its wet concrete before it hardens.

The smaller truck on the left has brought a concrete pump.  They will use this to pump the freshly mixed wet cement to the work site in the back yard.

The concrete delivery truck is set up to dispense freshly mixed wet concrete into the pump.

Here is the hose from the pump, delivering wet concrete into the form.  Kevin makes sure that the concrete fills the space in the form, leaving no voids.

Here again, wet concrete is being pumped into the form.

Kevin finishes the top of the walls while more concrete is being pumped into the bottom area.

The finished product.  It took the crew about an hour to pour and finish the concrete.

A lot of things can go wrong when you are working with concrete.  None of them did.  I was glad to have professionals doing the work.

They used three and one half cubic yards of concrete, or about 14175 pounds.  According to my calculations the basin will displace about 175 cubic feet, or 10,472 pounds of water.  This means that it would not float.  More importantly, it should not pop out of the ground if it is empty and the surrounding ground is saturated with water.