Author: Shaun

For this new week, we started the task of building the concrete shell that will sound proof our Entertainment Room. The first task was to make a template to help us align the rows of blocks so we put together a piece of plywood with a straight CLS timber to stiffen the board and stop it from curling. Then marked out two lines set apart by 225mm which is the height of a block plus a layer of mortar. Then we marked along the lower line with marks spaced at 450mm (the length of a block plus a mortar).

Then, in the mid-afternoon of Monday, our Concrete Blocks Arrives. We had ten pallets to unload!
So on Tuesday, we could start laying out the first layer of blocks around the room, making adjustments, and then tackle the job of slicing concrete blocks to the required size. For this we created another jig, see Jig to Slice Concrete Block to help us.
On Wednesday, our Ten Concrete Beams Arrive very early, but we had other tasks to do in the morning and the afternoon was spent dealing with the beams.
So we didn’t actually start putting our blocks into mortar until Thursday and it was a very long day. We got all the equipment out, the cement mixer, wheelbarrows, the plasticiser, water hose and measuring jug. We got our first load of mortar done and didn’t finish that load until well past 2pm. We had a quick lunch and resumed at 3pm. The second load got us all the way around the circuit of the room plus half the second layer, and we finished 7:15pm! We had put down sixty blocks, each weighing 19kg each!


The next day, we got the second row done, including stopping and starting either side of the door entrance (we created a quick wooden guide to ensure that we had a 50mm clearance to the door frame, so we can insert a vertical plank of timber to create the inner framework). We got all the third layer done too and got further around on the fourth layer, but this time deliberately avoiding the window area as that needed special attention.

The final day, Saturday, we tackled the job of putting an extension of our concrete shell out towards the window. We found a heavy duty angle iron in our supply, a left-over length from when we were building the steel framework up in the skylight. We sliced off two length of 2050mm each, de-rusted them thoroughly, and then drilled five clearance holes. Both were painted with a rust protective zinc paint and then the first one (with the holes) was placed onto the concrete outer wall underneath the window.

Five holes were duly drilled and five concrete screws were driven in. we also put in a good amount of PU glue to stick the metal bar to the concrete wall to provide extra security and load bearing capabilities.

Then we got two more concrete blocks and sliced them with a sticking out bit at the back. These blocks are the start of the vertical sides of the window alcove and they rest on the metal support and have a little sticking out bit at the back to reach the wooden framework of the window. we left a small gap and that will be filled up with expanding foam later on. Then we sliced up two paving slabs to create a shelf across underneath the window. These paving slabs are very, very hard and the diamond cutting blade had to work very hard, even just to slice 10mm deep into the 50mm thick slabs! We eventually sliced both sides and hit the slab with a club hammer to break it apart. We needed pieces 345mm wide and width in total of 1845mm wide. We made three pieces from our 600mm by 900mm slabs.
Finally, we were ready to stick all the pieces into place, so mixed up a small portion of mortar and using some left-over Stixall glue (on the metal bar and between the paving slab pieces), we got it all assembled, including finishing off the fourth layer around the window.


We can on Monday to continue putting up the next eight rows in reasonable ease (apart from the growing height), until we reach the top when the next complicated bit needs special treatment, the ceiling!!

This week, we started on building our timber Stud Wall that surrounds the concrete shell that encloses the Entertainment Room. But before that, we created another piece of equipment down in our Great Room area, to help us chop up the various timber planks into precise lengths required for each wall around the house (see Chop Saw Plank Slicing Station).
We marked out on the footplate the spacing for all the stud posts for each section of the wall, requiring a 400mm separation of the posts for the 89mm wide walls (the left and right sides of the room joining the Utility Room and hall leading from the front door) and a 600mm spacing for the end wall opposite the window. We duplicated these marks on another set of horizontal planks we made, ready for the top plate that goes on top of the stud posts.
We then chopped up twenty-one 89mm CLS and eleven 63mm CLS planks measuring 2638mm long, then two 2600mm long pieces, both being the 89mm CLS width and finally, an one off 2804 length of 63mm CLS.
We proceeded to nail each post into place using 90mm ring-shank nails and put on the top plate planks on too. We also glued two of the 63mm posts to the steel leg (holding up the Skylight and roof).

The last job of the week was to nail up sheets of the fermacell boards on the inside surface of the stud walls to improve the sound deadening potential of the whole Entertainment Room. We placed each sheet horizontally, over two and bit rows and applied to all the edges with PU construction glue to ensure a continuous uniform and solid barrier.



We are now ready for the concrete blocks and beams which will hopefully will be delivered Monday and Tuesday, just before the lock down is enforced. That will keep us busy for a few weeks.

For the start of our new week, for the start of the work inside the house, we got on in sorting out the area where the Entertainment Room is situated. There is going to be a concrete shell to provide some level of sound proofing so the rest of the house is not disturbed by crazy noises, loud bangs and awful discordant sounds from musical instruments etc.!
But we have to make some adjustments to the framework around the window first, to make room for the 100mm wide concrete blocks that will go up on either side of the window to form a barrier to keep the noise in. We moved a pair of inner (63mm CLS) legs sideways 150mm and glued together three layers of the 63mm CLS timber horizontally going over the window that forms the lintel to hold up the first floor. Also, we sliced away some pieces of the insulation to make room for these concrete blocks too.

Next, we decided that we needed a larger tool to help mark out the layout of the stud walls (see Created Large Right Angle Framing Tool ) and using this piece of equipment, we marked out the outline of the wooden stud wall that surround the concrete shell.

At this point, we put out our laser level gadget and proceeded to measure the relative height differences around the perimeter of the room, to judge where the highest and lowest points were. We had set of numbers ranging from 108 to 122mm which means a different of 14mm between the highest spot and the lowest spot.
Then, we measured and cut up a series of 89mm and 63mm CLS planks to form the bottom layer of the stud walls where we drilled clearance holes through and then using our SDS mains powered machine, drilled the required holes into the concrete, ready for the self-tapping concrete screw bolts.

Next, we blasted all the holes with compressed air to clear the drilling rubbish out, collected up a trug full of soft sand (from our own sand pit, using a medium holed sieve to avoid larger stones) and got a bag of cement we had lying around that hadn’t gone hard yet. We started with four scoops of sand and put in two scoops of cement, a couple of finger pinches of fine plastic fibre and got it nice and moist. But we discovered that there was too much fibre in it, it was clumping together!
So, following the earlier survey results, we decided to put in 2mm of mortar at the highest spot, just enough to wet the surface and sit the plank down. We put in enough underneath and then thumped the wood down along the length and using our laser level machine again, settled the whole plank flat. This spot is then the reference point to get all the other pieces of timber footplate all at the same flat level. This was duly done and left it to set hard overnight.

In the morning, we came along to scrape any excess mortar away, to tidy up the surfaces on the timber and on the concrete alongside where the concrete blocks will be placed. The next task was to slice up more planks to form the second layer, making sure to overlap all our joints to reinforce the total strength of the footplate. We proceeded to drizzle PVA glue over the wood and screwed the two layers together.

We had finished by early afternoon and we spent the rest of the day looking at making another piece of equipment to help us produce regular and precise lengths of timber, for legs, posts and top plates that will form the internal walls of the house.