Roselea

Category: Site Maintenance

  • Water Pump Blockage Sorted and Rain Tent Abandoned!

    This morning, after the thunderstorm and lightning we had from 4am to 6am, and collecting 22mm of rain in that time too, we had to go out and see why the water wasn’t draining away from our floor slab, plus also why our rain shadow tent had a huge bulge in the tarpaulin roof!

    Water-bulge-in-Tarpaulin

    Water-bulge-in-Tarpaulin


    First of all, the pump was running and seems to have been doing so since the early hours! The reason for the water not being suck up was .. lots and lots of wooden rubbish blocking the input vents at the bottom of the motor!! The whole thing was wrapped around with a plastic netting which is where the blockage was so we took off the netting and promptly all the remaining rubbish we couldn’t get out of the water got sucked up and blocked the inside of the pump instead! Argh!
    We unscrewed the bottom plate and after a while of scratching our heads, realised that another piece also came off the bottom to reveal the impeller .. and the blockage of rubbish!! We cleaned it all out, flushed it backwards using the garden hose and put it back together but with an additional metal mesh to try and keep the finer plastic mesh away from the pump and its input vents. The motor went back in the sump hole and it merrily pumped away and within a couple of hours or even less than that, most of the water, which we estimate to be about 7000 litres, was flushed away down into our underground rain soak-away module!!
    Updated-pump-filter

    Updated-pump-filter


    Next, dealing with the bulge in our tarpaulin tent roof, we tried lifting it and pushing it from below, but it was far too heavy. It is likely to have been about 400 litres or more which means it weighs 400kg! It was amazing that the tarpaulin was able to support that amount of water and weight! We solved the problem of shifting the water by the old fashioned trick of syphoning it off with a hose and sucking on the end to get it started (and suffering a mouth full of water!!). It gushed out quite quickly and soon the bulge was no more!
    Syphon-hose-in-water-bulge

    Syphon-hose-in-water-bulge


    But, we discovered that more rain water managed to get inside between the layers of the tarpaulin and the whole thing was sagging in many spots and also some of the eyelets that had rope tying them down had ripped completely out too!
    So we decided to abandon the whole tent idea and take the tarpaulin down. It was much simpler to wrap the LVL timber in another tarpaulin instead to protect it from the rain! Oh Well! That’s Life!

  • Tidying Up and Planning the Next Stage of Work

    We did some miscellaneous tasks around the building site this afternoon, at the same time, talking about what we needed in terms of tools, jigs and templates to help us with the manufacturing of our roof rafters.
    The tasks were as follows:
    • Fixed and cleaned out the water pump non-return valve.
    • Tidy up the workshop of all the polystyrene foam waste bits and the tools
    • Sprayed weed killer around different areas of the building site
    • Trimmed back the old hedge along the Loke
    • Repaired the Sabre Saw where the blade wouldn’t hold in place anymore(a little spring clip has been knocked out of position).
    • Emptied Rubbish

    The tools and templates we talked about are as follows:
    • A squashing tool to ensure a tight joints between the plywood webbing and the flange of all the rafters
    • A measuring jig that hooks up on the steel I-Beams and the outer walls to allow us to check the distance down to the outside walls.
    • A rafter template to hold the long lengths of the timber and plywood in place, ready for gluing and nailing.
    • A birds mouth jig for making the notch in the flange
    • A jig to create an nibbed scarf joint (long diagonal joint with stepped ends) to join up two CLS pieces together making the required stronger lengths.
    • Planning the logistics of materials and workshop layout for supply of parts and placement of finished items.

    On Monday, we can start in earnest with all those items of action points above!! Grin!

  • Enhanced Sump Drainage Hole For Rainwater Extraction

    This afternoon, we did a small job while we had other family commitments to attend to, and enhanced the depth of the existing sump drainage hole in the middle of our concrete floor slab for removing rainwater falling inside our building.
    We used our SDS drill machine to drill down another inch at the bottom of the hole and then chisel the lumps away to make a reasonable smooth bottom. But while trying to remove the buried original plastic foot (this held up the bucket during the floor slab pourings), the rest of the concrete down below started to break away so we had to remove all the concrete all the way down to the DPM layer.
    We then mixed some fresh concrete with a high cement ratio and made it very dry so we could mould it into a neat flat bottom with vertical sides to fill in all the sides and hollows and make it waterproof again.

    Upgraded-pump-sump

    Upgraded-pump-sump


    Now the water pump with its built-in automatic liquid level sensor will operate at a lower level in the sump hole and drain more water away from our concrete slab. We Hope! Grin!

  • Quick Tidy Up

    We also spent some of the morning tidying up and doing minor servicing tasks around the site. We dismantled the painting tent and framework. We moved the 7 painted steel legs to around the house so each one is nearer to where they will be standing up.

    We also cleaned out the drainage sump to clear out the muck and cleaned the filter wrapped around the pump and replaced a rain protection bag over the ends some of the conduits etc.

  • Final Flood Preventive Measures in Place

     We finished off doing our flood preventive measures this morning, by putting more sand along the Loke boundary to block off several point of access for the rain water gushing down the Loke from entering our garden.

    Edge-of-loke-filled-in

    Edge-of-loke-filled-in

    We also built another Berm across the edge of our driveway to join up against the garden shed to prevent any excess water from entering our house footprint which is still vulnerable to flooding as it is still 500 mm below ground level.

    Driveway-to-Plot-Berm

    Driveway-to-Plot-Berm

    Finally, we constructed a little diverter at the end of the upper section behind the swimming lane, to make the rain water flow into the swimming lane itself instead of pouring over the edge and down into our building plot. This would collect the rain water coming off the workshop.

    End-of-Swimming-Lane-Diverter-2

    End-of-Swimming-Lane-Diverter-2

    End-of-Swimming-Lane-Diverter-1

    End-of-Swimming-Lane-Diverter-1


    All these preventive measures seems to be much needed this year compared with last year, much more so because we now have sensitive constructed modules and other building work that needs to be protected. But it (last year) didn’t seems to be so heavy with sudden thunderstorms!!

  • Constructed a Berm Across Driveway

    We resumed our work after our little holiday by constructing a berm to stop the rain water that flows down the Loke from entering our driveway and our house etc.

    Loke-Driveway-Berm-1

    Loke-Driveway-Berm-1

    Loke-Driveway-Berm-2

    Loke-Driveway-Berm-2


    It is basically made using 4 lengths of 2×6 inch timber, slightly buried into the surface in the upright position and then a double line of bricks laid flat to slope upwards to meet the top of the timber from both sides. The bricks had a gap between them to allow the sharp “fines” to embed between the bricks and lock the whole lot together.

    Now, we hope the rain water will flow pass and find somewhere else for it to soak away – smile!