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University of Maryland 2005 Solar Decatholon
Building Footer Forms in Golub Warehouse
 

Footer Concrete Pour

April 21, 2005

On Thursday afternoon, members of the team met at the Golub Warehouse for an exciting occasion, the pouring of concrete for our house's footers. After receiving a short tutorial on how to pour and smooth concrete from Mr. Magnani and Mr. Reds, the team was ready to work.

When the concrete truck pulled into the Golub Warehouse, the small group of students gathered there all had jobs and worked as a cohesive unit to get the concrete into the forms as efficiently as possible. Some team members hammered on the sides of the forms to make the concrete settle to the bottom, some shoveled spilled concrete into empty forms, and some used trowels and two-by-fours to smooth the top of the concrete.

While the team worked, Mr. House supervised and told the team interesting facts about concrete. "The longer concrete takes to set," he said, "the stronger it is when it's finished."

As usual, the team's hard work was accompanied by a jovial atmosphere. Media Team Leader Drew Harmon joked that he wanted to "etch [his] initials plus S.H., for Solar House, in a big heart in the wet concrete."

A moment of panic occurred later in the day, when the mixer trunk ran dry with three more forms to fill. But after a quick trip to the hardware store and some hand mixing, all the forms were filled.

Once the forms were all filled and smoothed, all that was left was to cover them with plastic and clean up the warehouse.


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