This afternoon, we began the task of filling up 101 hollow columns in the
back wall of the retaining wall of the swimming lane.
We got things organised and place the newly created platforms and ramp in
place to take up the wheelbarrow loads of concrete.
We are using pea sized ballast to get the concrete to wiggle down the tight columns that has a reinforcing rod up the middle as well as layers of horizontal steel rods every two layers of blockwork.
The vibrator machine is very good for knocking the pocket air out and make
sure we got a solidly packed column of good quality concrete.
We filled nearly 2 columns, learning how to get the mixture up and tilted
into the tops of the blocks, how long to mix the concrete (3 large builders
buckets of ballast, about 40litres, against a smaller bucket of cement,
about 8.5 litres, to make a half load in the mixer plus about 6 litres of
water)
Tomorrow, we can really get a routine going with 4 wheelbarrows to take the
load of a completely full mixer (a whole bag of cement and 6 buckets), run
them up and emptied into four columns and repeat. We can hope to do about 15
columns per hour, so about 6 or 7 hours to do the 101 columns in total.
First-Two-Columns-Filled