Basement Slab - One Week Later

I planned to leave the slab covered for two to three days. Due to rain and a busy weekend it ended up covered for six days (pretty much what the concrete book recommended). So, off comes the visqueen cover and to my surprise it is still wet under the plastic, something I really didn’t expect since I hadn’t added any water for five days. Only one small crack had formed, and it was located in a spot where it wouldn’t be seen. I was quite happy with the results of my first slab pour. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s plenty usable.

That same day I started removing the forms. Some were easy to remove and some were not. Excess concrete had spilled over on the outside of the forms in a few places. I didn’t notice it during the pour and after six days of curing it was quite hard. So, the excess concrete had “locked” the forms in place. I tried to pry them out, no luck. I had to get the forms out because the form boards occupy the space where the expansion material between slab and block wall will eventually go. Since I couldn’t get the form boards out, I needed a way to at least cut them off level with the footer. After considering every tool I owned I decided to take my circular saw and slice the form boards into thin slices that I could pry apart and break away from the slab. This took a lot of time as I had 16 feet of form board to slice. I know that I totally dulled a Dewalt circular saw blade, but the blade was old already, and more importantly it worked.

Oh the joys of solving problems that you create for yourself by not noticing things that you should have noticed earlier. But, then again, no one said building your own house would go smoothly… or easily.