Daily Home Renovation Tips

Today, we see the closing of the basement floor opening as part of this overall home maintenance project.

At this point in the project, this is what the opening in the poured concrete floor for the backup drainage system looks like:

It is now ready to have concrete poured into this opening.

The first thing Fitz did was to clean the edges of the opening in the concrete floor. This was to remove any dust or debris which may have accumulated in the 3 hours since he first made the opening. For this he simply used a brush with water which you can see in the picture below:

Ensuring the debris was removed would help ensure that in the long run when the cement patch cured it would not create cracks and minor spaces between the existing concrete floor and the concrete patch.

Next he mixed the dry concrete power until it reached the level of thickness he wanted. I would have no idea how to know if the concrete mixture was sufficient thick or thin; that’s why Fitz is the professional.

Then he poured the concrete mixture into the opening in the floor.

Following this he used the trowel to push the fresh concrete underneath the edges of the opening in the existing concrete floor. When Fitz made the opening for the back up drainage, he purposely positioned the jack hammer at an angle so that the edges of the opening in the existing poured concrete floor would not be a straight vertical; instead, the edges would be at an angle, say 30 to 40 degrees off of vertical.

What this will do is to provide a tighter seal between the freshly poured concrete when it cures and the existing concrete floor.

Once the fresh concrete patch was smoothed and level, Fitz then places loosely a piece of the Clean Space membrane on top. The purpose was to reduce the amount of subsequent debris which might find its way on top of the freshly poured concrete while he proceeded to complete the job. 

Select this link to continue in our foundation wall crack repair series where we start to look at the repair to the hole in the finished wall. Fitz used a few interesting techniques which can come in handy for any home maintenance effort by any DIY or contractor.