Sidewalk Complete!

Cendy's was surprised to be woken up on her day off by the Camocrete crew on Monday. I'm glad she was home, because she was able to take some good pictures to document the last day of work. I came home from work at lunch time to watch the finishing touches. Here are some pictures.

Jesus holds the guide board steady as Rich sawcuts a control joint in the sidewalk.Rich power washes the patio to remove the excess form release powder.
Rich uses some Tide and elbow grease to remove some more of the colored release powder that is embedded into the concrete. A little of the brown/black color is good, but not too much.
Jesus uses a blower to dry the concrete in preparation for sealing.
Rich uses a foam brush to apply concrete stain to the compass.
Rich applies concrete sealer with a roller. We chose the matte finish, as opposed to a high gloss. It looks shiny upon application, but dries to a nice low gloss finish.
Cendy inspects as Rich applies a second coat. A foam paintbrush is used to apply sealer to the edges. Rich also would go back and apply sealer to the patio side in the foreground.

Final picture coming soon once it's stops raining!

Sidewalk Construction - Day 4

Yesterday was a big milestone for our sidewalk project - concrete was poured! We raced back after the Blue Hen 5K so we could witness the pour. Kudos to Rich Camaroto of Camocrete for rescheduling the concrete truck so we could watch after our race.

Immediately I noticed the color of the concrete. After seeing my share of concrete at work, it was a little bizarre to see brown concrete. Actually, the color is "sandstone", which is the tint we chose for our project. Rich and Jesus worked hard throughout the day to place, finish and stamp the concrete. Here are a few pictures.

Rich rakes the concrete into place.
Jesus runs a wheelbarrow full of concrete to the new patio.
Rich "vibrates" the concrete into place.
Rich and Jesus screed the patio concrete.
Rich finishes the sidewalk concrete as Jesus works to place more concrete ahead of him.
Jesus uses an edger to finish the patio concrete.
Jesus uses a steel trowel to finish the steps.
Here are their stamping tools. The "skins" are used to add extra texture. The ashlar slate stamps are underneath the skins. Also note the bucket of stamp release powder (dark brown with charcoal color), joint chisel, roll tool for joints and paint roller (for smoothing joints).
Rich throws the colored release powder on top of the finished concrete.
After about an hour, it's time to stamp. The compass is the first stamp to be placed. Rich did his best to center it on the patio.
The slate stamps are placed around the compass.
Rich tamps the stamp pattern into the concrete. The concrete hardened quicker than expected, so it was a race against time!
Rich uses a fiberglass trowel to finish the concrete steps before stamping.
After the steps were stamped, it's time to put up the caution tape. Rich told me a story about how he learned the hard way that you should put caution tape around the entire project. He learned his lesson when a UPS guys walked all over the fresh concrete on a previous project. Rich had put caution tape only near the sidewalk entrance, but not all around the project. Needless to say, it was a painful job to fix.
Here is the pride of our project - the compass! I kid Cendy that she needs all the help she can get with her sense of direction...so now she can have a daily reminder!
After a few days of concrete curing time, Rich will saw cut control joints into the concrete. Control joints are necessary to control the location of cracks in the concrete. During the next sunny day, they'll remove forms, powerwash the concrete to remove the extra release powder, stain the compass to add contrasting color and then finally add a coat of clear concrete sealant.

Can't believe it's been 10 years...

Tomorrow is a big day - our concrete sidewalk pour is planned for the morning. Although it is bad timing as it coincides with the UD Delabration weekend, it is the only day in the next 2 weeks where we'll have a 0% chance of rain. We'll be running the UD Alumni 5K on Saturday morning at 8AM... and after we cross the finish line, we'll run straight to our car and hit the road so we can watch the pour! Stay tuned for more pictures.

5K Course Map:

View Blue Hen 5K Run/Walk in a larger map

Speaking of the Delabration, I'm looking forward to the enginerd cocktail party tonight, the mug night on the "Green" (or the "Mall", as we old-timers call it) and hopefully running into some of my fellow classmates with whom I graduated with 10 years ago last week.

Sidewalk Construction - Day 3

As we enter the third day of construction, the crew had a few loose ends to tie up before concrete can be poured. Some additional support was added to the patio forms, the sidewalk steps to the driveway were formed and additional gravel was placed as needed. Now the waiting game begins... we need a 0% chance of rain forecast for one full day in order to pour. The weather looks iffy - lots of 20-30% chance of rain forecast for the rest of the week and into next.


It's frustrating having to wait because the critical path runs right through the sidewalk. We have to wait a week for the concrete to cure before we build the retaining wall which abuts the sidewalk steps. Then we can finally plant our flowers and shrubs that were mail ordered and are currently waiting patiently after being repotted in larger containers.

Sidewalk Construction - Day 2

The crew decided to work on Saturday to catch up on our project. It was a very productive day as all of the old concrete was removed (a new saw blade really helped), and most forms were installed. All new concrete will be installed, except for the patio. Since the existing patio is in pretty good shape, they'll cast new concrete on top. But, instead of having one step near the house, and the second step to the sidewalk, we'll have two steps to the sidewalk in order to increase the patio size. There were several inches of gravel under the side patio that we'll re-use for the retaining walls. Tomorrow the guys are going work a half-day to finish up the forms in preparation for the concrete pour. With the weather, I anticipate that'll be Friday. We've decided on a ashlar slate pattern, sandstone concrete color with a dark brown release. The best part will be the compass stamped on the patio.

Sidewalk Construction Begins!

After weeks of anticipation, our sidewalk contractor, Camocrete, finally started work on our new patio and sidewalk. Work began with removing the patio slab adjacent to the house. This patio was added by the previous owner. After living with it for a year and learning that we were not front patio types, we decided to have it removed. More importantly, we having our cracked sidewalk replaced. Here are some pictures. After a full day's work, one half of the side patio was removed. It's definitely not easy work, especially given the thickness of the slab. The goal tomorrow is to remove the rest of the patio and sidewalk, and hopefulling start building forms.