January 2008 Backfill Concrete Pour

After a couple days of cold and rainy weather, we had a good day for our back-fill pour. It was a little cold, but the sun was out so that made all the difference. I pulled into the driveway to find everyone in action. Dan was there as were all the New Stone Age guys. Truck after truck of wet cement pulled in to keep the flow going. It is expensive to rent the concrete pumper, so Dan made sure that everything happened in the right order and started first thing in the a.m. to minimize any risk of wasted time or man-power. 

The pumper truck came from Mobile. We wait to pour as many rows of concrete blocks as possible due to the expense in having the pumper struck here. 

On Saturday it was back to rain again. You can see that they covered the tops of the DACART blocks with tar paper when they left on Friday after the pour. Then the G-P joists from Swift Building Materials were delivered. These are the supports for the top floor of the house. First step is to epoxy bolts into the concrete blocks and attach a wood band around the inside perimeter of the building. Joist hangers will be attached to the wood band. This floor has a more complicated joist pattern that first floor, so you see members of many lengths. We have the stair opening to work around and se had to add additional support for the heavy encaustic cement tiles from Villa Lagoon Tile that are to come. 

Some of the ones I bought have a very art deco look, like this corner which has some sort of stylized bird in its pattern. The seller called them 'antique' but I think they are not the official 100 yrs old as required by customs to be called an antique. Hard to tell the age since this type of flooring is still very much in production allover the world, just about every country except the States.  

I think they'll look really interesting as a group hanging on a wall in the living room. And since it am going into this kind of tile business because of the Villa Lagoon project, they are thematic. 

See how Encaustic Cement Tiles (Mosaico Hidralicos)  are made here.

            The fan shaped patterns would have been dropped into a square mold, so there was no need to make the outside straight lines to form the square edges. I was surprised at the size of some of these. I think I expected them all to be the worldwide standard size which is about 8 inches. Instead, some are close to seven inches, and some are about 4 inches. They are made to even numbered centimeters, not inches. They have intricate patterns. Imagine how long it would take a man to hand pour different colors of tinted slurry into each area. 

Worldwide, the terms that are used to describe this type of concrete tiles vary by region. Terms include: Cement Tiles, Hydraulic Floor Tile, Encaustic Tiles, Hidraulico, Hydraulic Tiles, Ladrilhos Hidráulicos, Ladril, Carreaux de Ciments, Spanish Mission Tilee, redondo tile, Rajoles hidràuliques. Baldosas hidráulicas, Baldosa Hidraulica, Pasta Potosi Tile depending on the language and the country.

First Slab Pour

Composite
Decking

Concrete FloorTile