15 Steps – Working with Wayne: Construction in the 1970s

This week you will get a chance to see what home construction was like in the 1970s. Most if, not all, of these anecdotes took place in and around Palm Springs, California. In case you are unfamiliar with Palm Springs, it is about two hours east of Los Angeles, in the Coachella Valley. It is desert. Wayne and I met on some job and wound up working together for several years.

When Wayne was first starting in construction, he worked for a company that set the forms for pouring concrete. In most of Southern California, homes are built on a concrete slab, basically a three- and one-half-inch layer of concrete poured over the ground (after the lot has been levelled.) Until the concrete hardens, it is held in place and shape by the form boards. The form boards are pieces of lumber built into a shallow box to hold the wet concrete in the desired shape.