Cutting Holes in Concrete

I set up this website not because the husband needed to advertise for more work—he could clone himself three times over and still not get it all done—but because he is one of the few guys in the valley who does concrete cutting in addition to concrete pouring. We needed a way for people who had concrete cutting jobs to find us, as they are usually homeowners, not general contractors. (The general contractors all have the husband on speed dial.) As a result, I got sucked into the world of Google My Business.

Google My Business is a monster demanding to be fed regularly. I paid for an hour-long consultation with a guy who knows the ins and outs of it, and he gave me a whole list of valuable tips for taming the monster. Basically, in order to come up near the top of the rankings on a Google search—such as “concrete cutting Flathead Valley”—it is not enough simply to put up a website. Google wants to see that you are adding new content to the website. Constantly. One way to do that is with a picture gallery. Rather than just put up the pictures, though, I thought an accompanying blog with explanations would be more interesting. I need to give it a few more weeks, but I am curious to see if this blog changes our search engine rankings or if the monster wants something else.

I told the husband that I do not want picture-taking to become a hassle for him. His priority is getting the job done. I’ve seen too many businesses, especially ones run by creative people, where social media becomes the job instead of the business itself.

I have other thoughts about Google, but let’s talk about concrete cutting instead. The husband went into Kalispell on Saturday to cut an egress opening in a homeowner’s basement. If someone wants to put a bedroom in an existing basement—say, for an Airbnb—code dictates that there has to be an egress opening. This homeowner had to do some prep work before the husband could come and do the cutting. He dug out the area around the foundation where he wanted the opening and also had to cut some pipes in the interior of the basement. Once that was done, the husband was able to do the cutting.

This is the opening to be cut. That is what is known as a ring saw. It uses very expensive diamond blades.

I asked the husband what this next tool was called—because concrete tools have strange names, like “funny float,” which will be the topic of a future blog post—and he said, “It’s called a chainsaw.”

[Pray for me.]

So this is a chainsaw. It has a diamond-tipped chain which no doubt is also expensive.

He uses the ring saw to cut the straight parts and the chainsaw to do the corners so he doesn’t have to overcut them.

Once the block of concrete is out, it needs to be broken up. The homeowner is helping with that part. The husband doesn’t mind having the homeowners help out if they look like they won’t be a liability.

True story: About 30 years ago, back when we were living in Pennsylvania, the husband did a renovation/addition job for a couple about our age. He told the homeowner that he would knock off part of the cost if the guy wanted to help. The guy moved a couple of wheelbarrows of gravel but then lost interest. One afternoon, the husband was out there working when the guy jogged past him and said, “I’ll see you later—I’m on my way to the gym to work out.”

People are strange.

This is an interior shot of the basement. You can see where they had to cut a pipe. This opening will get an egress window and the homeowner will put in the exterior window well.

If the weather cooperates, the husband and his crew are planning to pour a foundation this week. We’ll see what happens and if I can get down there to take photos.