Roselea

Author: Shaun

  • Continued With Site Reorganisation

    We continued with our reorganisation of our site, completing the pile of the
    63mm by 38mm CLS timber. We have graded the timber into “good”, “so so” and
    “rubbish” to make sure that we maintain the quality of our building work. We
    felt that we needed to get on with the work so we put on our heavy duty
    waterproofs and carried on out in the rain, which was light to medium rain
    falling straight down in zero winds. We had only about 2mm of rain in the 3
    hours of our work.

    Next, we will create a tarpaulin covering along the length of the swimming
    lane to keep the rain off the timber and allow it to stay dry, and then
    after that, we deal with the 89mm by 38mm CLS timber.

    Yes this is taking time, but it is good to tidy up our site, move various
    piles of timber that are lying here and there, and this will create extra
    space for future delivery and easier car parking etc.

  • Rain Stops Play!

    At 4pm this afternoon, we had a lovely big thunderstorm roll over us and
    interrupted our work. We did wonder if it would miss us entirely as we could
    see the dirty black cloud off West of us and it was rolling Northwards,
    shouting at us with lots of deep booming angry crashes! But alas, there was
    another one behind it and that one was more on target!! We dashed indoors
    with huge raindrops slamming down upon us!

  • OSB Sheets and Half the CLS 63mm Timber Moved

    Today, before the thunderstorm arrived, we managed to move over the stack of
    OSB sheets (we have 34 of them left) including the protective house covering
    the wood. We also moved half the pile of the 63mm by 38mm CLS timber over to
    its new location.

    The picture below is the “Before” image of our timber yard just outside our
    front door, we are going to move everything around to the new swimming lane
    to store them there.

    Storage-area-before-clearance

    Storage-area-before-clearance

    Blocks-ready-for-timber

    Blocks-ready-for-timber


  • More Dirt Up Against the Fence Behind the Back Wall

    This afternoon, after the rain interruption in the morning, we moved few
    more tons of dirt over to the gap between the back wall of the swimming lane
    and the fence to our neighbours. It is now full and heap a little bit higher
    than needed so it can sink down over the coming months.

    Filled-to-the-top-behind-wall

    Filled-to-the-top-behind-wall

    Hopefully, this will stop any further floods and rivers of mud coming off
    the neighbouring higher grounds and causing a mess in our land.

  • Damaged Cement Bags

    Today, during our tidy up of the site, we were moving the last 18 bags of
    cement, and discovered that several of the bags, 4 of them, were damaged.

    Damaged-Cement-Bags-2

    Damaged-Cement-Bags-2

    Damaged-Cement-Bags-1

    Damaged-Cement-Bags-1


    We think that the fork lift truck driver missed his aim and rammed into the
    bottom layer of the bags and ripped two great big holes and two minor holes
    into the next bags above. Even the wooden pallet was damaged too.

    We have no idea when it happened, somewhere along the line from the Blue
    Circle factory to our builders merchant, it had a coming together with the
    tongs of the fork lift machinery!! We have reported this incident to our
    builders merchant and we await for replacement bags we hope.

  • All 420 Concrete Blocks Moved!

    Today, we finished off moving the concrete blocks, all 420, yes all four
    hundred and twenty concrete blocks on 7 pallets. These are the narrow 140mm
    hollow blocks and we moved them all over to our swimming lane to serve as
    support piles for holding stacks of OSB sheets and the CLS timbers as well.
    Plus also the odds and ends we rescued from the dismantling of the old
    little cottage, and any other bits and pieces we have around the site like
    old pallets etc.

    But first, as you can see in the picture below, some of the support piles
    are taller than others and the reason for this is to allow us to lay a sheet
    of OSB on these taller piles and bridge the gap to the dirt behind the back
    wall of the swimming lane. This will allow us to use the mini digger to dump
    more dirt without spilling any into our nice and clean swimming lane! The
    gap needs filling up again after the soil has settled down and washed down
    in the recent rainfalls. This is exactly what we wanted to see and therefore
    we are putting more dirt up there to make sure it is all settled and solid
    to hold the fence posts sturdily, especially the workshop section where we
    need to rebuild the fence again.

    Blocks-moved-to-swimming-lane-2

    Blocks-moved-to-swimming-lane-2

    Blocks-moved-to-swimming-lane-1

    Blocks-moved-to-swimming-lane-1

    Blocks-moved-to-swimming-lane-3

    Blocks-moved-to-swimming-lane-3


  • Tidy Up After Wall Building!

    This afternoon, we started the tidy up process. We have finished building
    the walls of the swimming lane, as part of this stage of construction goes.

    We are now using the excellent space for storage and we are re-organising
    the site to move various items around.
    Like for example, all the concrete blocks we got delivered the other day, they will be very useful as “piles” to make sure our materials will stand clear of any water that probably will accumulate in the swimming lane!

    Blocks-Stacked-for-OSB-Storage-1

    Blocks-Stacked-for-OSB-Storage-1

    Blocks-Stacked-for-OSB-Storage-2

    Blocks-Stacked-for-OSB-Storage-2


    We have blocked off the other end of the lane with the rest of the fat 215mm blocks to stop (hopefully) the mud and dirt from leaking in the swimming lane, off the workshop’s higher grounds. The DPM is long enough to stretch right across the end and wrap around the front wall. We now got 3 columns of blocks, stacked up 7 high, with the DPM plastic sandwiched in between them.

    at the Beginning of the lane, we will put the OSB sheet stack, followed by two
    stacks of the CLS timber (the 63mm and 89mm pieces). Then a stack of the odd
    and ends timber that came from the old house, and finally a stack of old
    pallets and other equipment.

    We can really have a good old tidy up and sort out where future delivery of
    more timber and sheet material can go. This will maximise flexibility of
    storage.

  • Third Row Completed on Front Wall!

    It is nice to see the 3rd row all completed! It is looking neat and tidy,
    especially with the black DPM plastic sheet covering and protecting the
    mortar joints from any rain showers at the moment while the cement set and
    cures.

    The final 24½ blocks went in smoothly, taking us 4 hours to lay them in
    place.

    Front-Wall-3-Row-All-Done

    Front-Wall-3-Row-All-Done

    We have decided that it would be much more practical to NOT have tall
    reinforcing bars sticking up along the front wall and basically potentially
    be in the way for the next 2 years. We will just lay flat two rows of the
    narrow 140mm blocks to gain extra height (just laid dry without any mortar
    etc) and then place the DPM plastic and hang it down the wall, in front to
    provide a waterproof barrier against any dirt and rain water.

  • Third Row Commences on Front Wall

    We grabbed the morning to start the 3rd row of the front wall, doing 25
    blocks before the rain came in the afternoon. This is our last row of the
    fat 215mm wide concrete blocks – at last!! Well at least, for this stage of
    the swimming lane construction, as we got the pond and the final couple of
    metres of the lane to build later on after we have built the house itself!!

    On this row, we inserted a reinforcing steel bar horizontally to improve the
    strength in the direction of “bowing” outwards under the pressure of the
    water.

    Front-Wall-3-Row-Half-Done

    Front-Wall-3-Row-Half-Done

    We protected our wet joints with a plastic sheeting, from the rain. Which
    turned out not to be so heavy as forecasted after all!!

  • Second Row of Wall Completed!

    With our early start this morning, we managed to finish off the 2nd row of
    the front wall before we had to stop for other tasks and commitments. A 9am
    start saw us doing the final 16 blocks before 12:30pm, which also included
    the delay of our mortar guide breaking apart under the strain of having done
    over 400 blocks! It was a half an hour quick and nasty repair job to get
    going again and finish off the final 6 blocks!!

    Front-Wall-2nd-Row-Complete

    Front-Wall-2nd-Row-Complete

    Stephen improved the design in the afternoon, to make it stronger and also
    more flexible as we will be switching over to the narrow 140mm blocks soon,
    and there is another 570 blocks of those to do too!!!

    So we just got another 50 blocks of the fat 215mm blocks to do and then we
    look at doing one row of the narrow blocks for the 4th row.