Basement Slab Formup

I have to pour the basement slab in two separate pours. The concrete truck has a three yard capacity, and that isn’t enough for the whole slab AND the remaining basement footers I have to pour. So, the plan is to do the remaining footers and half the slab; which totals about 2.5 yards.

The slab will sit on top of the footers, it also sits “inside” the concrete block basement walls. Between the slab and the wall will be expansion material similar to that tarry looking stuff sometimes used in driveways. I could build the bottom layer of the block wall and use that as my form, but then it would be almost impossible to get the expansion material in afterwards.

So I built 4” tall wood forms for the pour. I used little wood spacer blocks to hold the form still and to prevent the form from bowing out with the weight of the concrete. I used a screw and zip tie to hold things still. This might be overkill, but when you pour concrete by yourself you really can’t afford anything to go wrong.

On the left side of the pic above is a basement footer and one of the vertical rebar for drystack wall construction. On the right will be the slab, poured inside the plastic sheet.