Roselea

Category: Phase 3

Construction begins on main house, groundworks, energy modules, swimming lane, foundations, block wall and floor slab.

  • External Ground Levelled Continues

    Today, the work of smoothing out the ground around the outside of the house continues, working alongside the Garage and the side door of the house.

    Leveling-surrounds-Utility-n-Bed3

    Leveling-surrounds-Utility-n-Bed3

    Leveling-surrounds-Back-before-work

    Leveling-surrounds-Back-before-work


    Then, around the corner, finishing  off the patch at the beginning of the Swimming lane and continued along the back alongside Bedroom 2 and Bedroom 1. It is surprising that the large mounds of soil is disappearing in filling up the gap next to the External Wall and so far there is next to nothing “left over” to have to get rid of – Phew!!

  • Levelling Soil Around the House!

    Today, before the steel arrived, the soil around the perimeter of the house and it’s wall, continued to be levelled, covering up the rainwater pipework and making it smooth and relatively flat.

    The area around the corner of the Swimming lane and the Garage was sorted out and made level, and will continue along the back pass Bedroom 3 towards the Great room.

  • Last Stretch of Pipework Completed

     We finished off the installation of the pipes (running around the whole perimeter of the house) that [will] collect the rain water off the roof.

    End-of-Rainwater-ring

    End-of-Rainwater-ring

    The last stretch is along behind Bedroom 2 and in the corner with Bedroom 3 and towards the end of the Swimming Lane. We put in the 8th and final down pipe spur in that corner of the building and it is now all finished, ready for the Filtration Module which will sit at the end of the swimming lane, we will assemble it later on when we have the roof constructed.

  • Clearing Away Left Overs of Floor Slab Formation

     These last few days, we have been clearing and tidying up the left overs bits and pieces created from the formation of the Floor Slab a week ago. All the spillage of excess concrete around the outside of the Perimeter Wall is now all picked up and moved inside ready for collection. Also all the concrete blocks are loose and also ready for collection. The rain keeps coming and going and our Floor Slab has a constant thin layer of rainwater all over, which actually helps with the curing process so we are not in a hurry to drain the water away.

    We also are doing other tasks too like sorting out the remainder of the roof’s rainwater guttering pipework, plus also the process of ordering the steelwork as well.

  • Tidy Up After Floor Slab Creation!

    Today, in lovely sunshine instead of the wet rainy day we had yesterday (typical!!), we started the tidying up task after the concrete has set enough overnight, for us to walk on it. We loosened all the concrete blocks that was holding down the wooden framework, extracted the two sump moulds and started chipping lumps of concrete along all the framework.

    Removing a sump mould

    Removing a sump mould

    Also started going around collecting up the small amount of concrete that has spilt out during the filling process of the hollow cores in the Perimeter Wall. We also cleared away the left over pile of concrete we asked the pump operator to dump out of the pump’s hopper on our Loke (we needed some of it to finish the floor). Fortunately, we had thick plastic laid down for this exact purpose!

  • Floor Slab is Poured!

     What A Day!

    7 AM

    We started at 7am at the crack of dawn to clear away as much as possible the rain water still puddling on the DPM plastic by using our home made contraption, a blend of a vacuum cleaner extended upwards with a powerful water pump sitting inside it!!

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-1

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-1

    We got about two third of the area cleared before the first of the heavy vehicles arrived, the pump engine with its 30 metre boom arm (time was  8:21am) and soon after the technician chap also arrived in his van, closely followed by the first 6½ cubic metres of the special crushed granite with nylon fibre mixed in a high cement content and special emulsifiers to make a very liquid flowing mixture!

     9 AM

    We started on the Perimeter Wall, filling all the hollow columns using our (another) homemade deflector tool. It worked rather well, with only small amount of dribbling cement and small crunchy bits escaping outside rather than inside the wall. We managed to do almost all of it using the boom arm pumping the concrete, only missing out about 15 hollow cores because the boom arm couldn’t reach that far!

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-2

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-2

    That was also the end of the first load of concrete too! Most of it went inside and about half filled all the hollow columns.

     10 AM

    That was the slow bit done and now the pump could go much faster indeed, and when the 2nd lorry load of concrete parked itself next to the pump (this lorry and the 3rd lorry were already arrived and waiting up on Beccles Road!!), the whole content, another 6½m3 of it, came gushing out all in 10minutes flat!! The boom arm went around all over the place to try and load some concrete in each cellular region so the dividers won’t feel overstressed. The same happened to the third lorry load and by 10:30am they were emptied and gone!

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-3

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-3

    11am

    While we were waiting for the next two lorry loads of the concrete, we went around cleaning off the dribbles of cement and the crunchy bits off the bitumen coated exterior surface using the garden hose with the spray nozzle. Our technician chap helped by filling in the last 15 hollows columns in the far corner of the wall too!

    12pm

    Finally, the next two lorry loads of concrete arrived, the 3rd 6½m3 and a 3m3 and started filling regions right to the top. Then we were getting worried that we wouldn’t have enough as it was looking rather the strong possibility that we would need extra but we also were wondering why this was. Then, we discovered that we had overfilled the Great Room and in some places it was more than 10mm extra thicker. Oops! This encouraged us to slow down and be more careful with the 5th load of the 3m3 load.

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-4

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-4

    The technician chap was working hard in dabbling the concrete to make it smooth out and find a good level, and then spraying the surface with wax to slow down the evaporation.

    2pm

    After we had levelled and smoothed the regions that has been filled up, we than calculated to approximately what extra amount of concrete we needed to finish off the job. It came to 2½ m3 so we phoned the Norwich office to order that and of course having to wait again for it to come all the way from Norwich.

    3:45 pm

    Finally, the 6th and final load of concrete arrived and got the rest of the Floor Slab poured in, carefully making sure we didn’t overfill anything this time and it went well!

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-5

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-5

    4pm

    All Finished!! The pump Machine cleaned itself and dumped it hopper load of concrete that it sucked back up it pipes, on the plastic we laid there just for that purpose, and using wheelbarrows, we scooped up about 7 loads and took it over to the front door region to tip it in to finish off the very final bit of filling up. Then, we washed down everything and coiled up hoses and washed our boots and staggered back indoors!!

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-6

    Pouring-the-floor-slab-6

     

    The Movie

    Here is the time lapsed movie of our whole day compressed down to just a 20 minutes!!

  • Rain, Rain, Rain – Before Floor Slab is Poured!

     We woke up to the news that we had well over 10mm of rain overnight, plus the 5mm we had the day before and thus making 15mm of rain! Oh My! And Tomorrow, it is the day of the Floor Slab being poured with just short of 30,000 litres of concrete!!

    Rain-lying-on-Sunday-Morning-3

    Rain-lying-on-Sunday-Morning-3

    Rain-lying-on-Sunday-Morning-1

    Rain-lying-on-Sunday-Morning-1

    Rain-lying-on-Sunday-Morning-2

    Rain-lying-on-Sunday-Morning-2


    But after inspecting the plastic, it is not that bad at all actually. It seems that there is still plenty of “holes” in the plastic layer, namely all the various pipes (all 40 odd of them!) sticking up and the concrete blobs around their bases doesn’t make an absolute watertight seal and the rain water is able to leak out slowly.

    This is good news – Thank Goodness!! Or we would have to clear out well over 3500 litres of water if it had been perfectly sealed! Phew!

  • Day 2 of Installing the Pipework for Rainwater off Roof

     This afternoon, we continued with installing of the pipework running around the perimeter of the house, connecting to the downpipes from the roof and the guttering.

    We went along the front, past the Great Room, the Kitchen, The Hall and Entertainment Room, and around the Utility Room, past the back door and alongside Bedroom 3. That is 3 more downpipes connected up to the “ring” circuit, so only 1 more to do tomorrow, the one next to the back of Bedroom 2, giving a total of 8 downpipes. The two “ends” of the ring circuit will finally be meeting together again and  joining to the Filtration Module at the end of the Swimming Lane.

  • Installing Pipework for Rainwater off the Roof and Guttering

     Today, while we are waiting for the arrival of the ready mixed concrete on Monday, we carried on with the preparation and installation of the pipework running around the perimeter of the building, with 8 separate connections to the roof and the guttering (when that is built!).

    Pipes-for-rainwater-ring

    Pipes-for-rainwater-ring

    The pipework is standard 110 mm diameter sewage underground pipes, with down-pipes from the guttering in all the internal corners of the building (except  the one beside the back door near the garage, which is along a straight section)

    Rainwater-pipe-along-back-of-building

    Rainwater-pipe-along-back-of-building

    Rainwater-downpipe-and-connection-to-the-ring

    Rainwater-downpipe-and-connection-to-the-ring


    We managed to do behind bedroom 2, bedroom 1, and around the Great Room (including the conservatory) doing 4 down-pipe sections. The depth of the main “ring” around the house is set to 350 mm below ground level, running 50 mm above the foundation strips, tight next to the Perimeter Wall.

    On Saturday, we will hopefully finish off the front of the house and down the side back toward the Swimming Lane and the Filtration Module where the rainwater pipes will terminate.

  • Laser Level Check and Final Adjustments of Cellular Framework of Floor Slab

     This afternoon, we went around checking the height of all our cellular framework that divides up the Floor Slab. It is rather satisfying that we didn’t get more than 10mm up or down and mostly within 5mm of required height all over the Floor Slab’s framework.

    We made some adjustment to one that were a little low (by propping up the framework on flat pieces of hardboard) and gently thumped down the highest points so we ended up with nothing more than 5mm out anywhere.

    Checking Cell Heights

    Checking Cell Heights

    As the picture shows, we used the laser level equipment to analyse the absolute height, by putting the sighting pole on top of all the concrete blocks lying on all the “T” junction points.

    We also wrapped a double layer of plastic around the buckets that are in the two sump areas so that we will have a fighting chance to get these buckets out of the concrete after it has set!!