Roselea

Category: Build Progress

  • Steel Pieces Arrived

    This afternoon, the steel arrived and was off loaded. The lorry came backwards down the Loke.

    Steel-on-the-lorry

    Steel-on-the-lorry

    The big I-beam pieces were offloaded down inside the house itself, lying on concrete blocks with long length of 2inch by 6inch planks to support the 6 pieces.

    Steel-I-Beams-unloaded

    Steel-I-Beams-unloaded

    The rest of the pieces were offloaded on pallets in front of the house alongside the Loke, and then each piece was measured to verify that they were correct and present.

    All-Steel-unloaded

    All-Steel-unloaded

    Most of the pieces were carried over to the external rack to store them under cover while waiting to be processed. The only items left outside were the big fat box beams which are the legs for holding up the I-beams. These box beams are very heavy indeed, being 160mm by 80mm with thick 8mm metal walls and having a length of 5.4 metres long!! Steel is dense and it all adds up to high weight loads!!

    The next job is to drill holes in the giant I-beams where we are probably will need to hire a magnetic drill press to clamp the drill into place and make 13mm holes in various places. Also there will need dozens of 5mm holes too! the hire cost will likely be about £80 for a week hire time.

  • Steel Ordered!

     It was a fairly easy and quick decision to place our order for the Steel pieces with the one company that was pretty good on the price (not the cheapest but also nowhere the most expensive either!) but won on the grounds of having a crane on-board their transport. It is a local small business called Standley Steel in Wymondham and we already have a good rapport with them! We expect that the delivery will be early next week.

    So, to be ready for that event, we need to get the area beside the Loke levelled out and have blocks of wood and pallets ready .. and currently it is raining hard – Grin!

  • 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.

  • Steel Questions, Shopping List and Quotes

     The Steel requirement for the skylight frame has been sorted out into a shopping list and sent off to half a dozen different local suppliers in Norfolk, and beyond. We are getting Quotes from most of the suppliers and they are all running in around the £2300 mark but for one major difference, only one (so far) has said that their transport has a built-in crane, which would make it so much easier to unload the 3 tons of steel pieces we need!

    But, we discovered a situation regarding the Building Regulation and fabrication of steelwork, where in certain circumstances, one needs to show a certificate (or two) proving that the quality of workmanship and grade of steel meets the proper European Standard (as of November 2014). We made enquiries with our local building inspector and after leaving someone to look into this matter, and waiting a few hours, and a final telephone conversation answering last minute questions, they agreed that our design is neat and simple and well within our remit to fabricate and assemble the Steel framework  ourselves. Phew thanks goodness for that!

    We are now just waiting for one more final quote to come in and then we will probably order from the supplier that has the crane on their vehicle.

    In the meantime, we are tidying up along the Loke side, levelling up the ground so we will have a landing area for the delivery of the steel bits and pieces, as well as other material we will need later on.

  • 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.

  • Shopping List for the Central Steel Framework

     Also, while the tidying up task is being performed, we were also creating the shopping list for various steel parts to create the main structural central framework that defines the core of the building and the roof to support on.

    The list is 173 individual pieces ranging from 75 x 50 x 3 mm, to a beam 305 x 100 x 8200 mm and the steel will weigh over 2.5 tons!

    We will submit the list too a few suppliers in Norfolk too see how much it will cost (should be in the region of £2000)

  • 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!!

  • 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.