Roselea

Category: Site Layout

  • Inserted More Batter Boards and Anchors for all Foundation Trenches and Pads

     Today, we finished off chopping and slicing points on about a hundred pegs, carried over from yesterday. They are short 500 mm long pieces using spare 63mm by 38mm timbers from our stock pile.

    The-pile-of-about-100-pegs

    The-pile-of-about-100-pegs

    Then, we inserted two more batter boards which defined all the foundation square pads to support the metal legs for the roof light complex.

    One-of-the-Batter-boards-for-Pads

    One-of-the-Batter-boards-for-Pads

    These were on the Left and Right sides of the house.

    Then, we went around all the batter boards screwing in all the anchors needed to allow string to be hooked on and strung from front to back, or side to side, to form the layout of the foundation trenches themselves.

    We actually started doing this on the back portion of the house footprint, using four set of strings to define the back two foundation lines and moved a pair of string from each of the front to back batter boards, which then overlapped the other 4 strings and we drove in steel rod at the appropriate intersection. These steel rods, with their protective green caps on, will be used to guide us when we start laying in the shuttering, starting tomorrow.

    The-pins-marking-Back-wall-foundations

    The-pins-marking-Back-wall-foundations

    We will use our old stock of 89mm CLS timber to form the shuttering for the back section of the house (we will have 2 of them stacked upon each other to form a 178mm high sides), but for the front to back foundation trenches, the shuttering will be 300mm high OSB boards to provide “channels” to make it easier to push the “free flowing”  concrete ready mix down towards the back section.

    Here’s a timelapse of today

  • Put Batter Board “L2” back and Verified all positions

     Skipping lunch, we put back the batter board, L2, that was moved to allow the mini-digger to dig and pile up all the excess sand soil mixture from the excavation of Energy Module Number 5.

    We then verified all the batter boards to make doubly sure that they were all in positions and hadn’t moved. The Left side matches up to the Right side and the diagonal distance between L1 and R4 and L4 and R1 were very similar (within 10 mm) so that was good, very good.

    Then the Front and Back were measured and they were holding good too. Only F5/B5 was mysteriously out of alignment and we will make adjustments when we come to construction of the shuttering for the foundations.

    Finally, we drew out 4 set of string to form the complete outer limits of the house, and measured all 4 sides and both diagonals, to reveal that the long front and back were 21.300 meters and 21.310 meters (within 10 mm!), and the left and right were 13.860 and 13.870 (only 10 mm different again!), and the two diagonals reported in as 27.300 meters and 27.320 meters so only a 20 mm of a difference (within the side length errors). Not Bad!!

    Strings-pulled-to-confirm-dimensions-of-building

    Strings-pulled-to-confirm-dimensions-of-building

    We are happy with that and we will now proceed with the construction of the foundation trenches, ready for just over 12 cubic meters of ready mixed concrete.

    P.S. You can see the strings if you zoom right in on the picture ….

  • Drawing house outline in powder

    We used the newly placed batter boards to string out and mark (with cement/plaster powder) the outline of the house and all the ground floor rooms. The marked line s are the center of their respective walls. View the video to see a 64 times speeded up video of the work.
    The rooms are (top to bottom, left to right) are

  • Great Room
  • Kitchen, Bedroom 1 (Shaun’s),
  • Hall and Stairs, Cloak room (with linen cupboard), En-suite 1, En-suite 2,
  • Entertainment, Cupboard 1, Bathroom, Bedroom 2 (Stephen’s)
  • Cupboard 2, En-suite 3
  • Utility, Bedroom 3 (Daphne’s)

  • Second and Last Set of Batter Boards are Inserted!

    We finished off inserting the back set of batter boards. These were L2 and R2 which defines the foundation line running from left to right, near the back of the house, that are the sides of bedroom 1 and bedroom 3. L1 and R1, which are already in place, defines the furthest foundation line at the back of the house and delineate the edges of the Great room and Bedroom 2.

    All the B1 through B6 (Back) batter boards are duplicates of the Front boards have been inserted too. This now allows us to string a line from back to front to guide us to where various building features are.

    Back-row-of-batter-boards-21

    Back-row-of-batter-boards-21

    Back-row-of-batter-boards-11

    Back-row-of-batter-boards-11


    There is a total of 20 Layout points on 18 boards. We got three extensions in our house plans so lots of ins and outs and corners!!

  • Batter Boards Inserted – The Front Row

    Today, we calculated from our technical drawings on the computer, the positions of the front set of the Batter Boards. These Batter Boards are a horizontal board supported on two legs, which allows for nails to be placed, to delineate the edges of building features (for example, Walls, foundations etc). These define the two foundation strips that supports the front walls of the house namely the great room, kitchen, front door, entertainment room, and the utility room. These are marked as L3, L4 (the left side) and R3, R4 (the right side).

    Included in this front set, are the markers that defines the “front-to-back” foundation strips as follows:

    • F1 – Left side wall
    • F2 – Great Room / Kitchen
    • F3 – Kitchen / Hall
    • F4 – Hall / Entertainment Room
    • F5 – Entertainment Room / Utility Room
    • F6 – Right side Wall

    Site-Markup-Started-2

    Site-Markup-Started-2

    Site-Markup-Started-1

    Site-Markup-Started-1

    Site-Markup-Started-4

    Site-Markup-Started-4

    Site-Markup-Started-3

    Site-Markup-Started-3


    We sprouted a lovely collection of Batter Boards!