Category: Build Progress

 We finished off the tidying up task by removing the last lengths of shuttering and putting all the loose pieces back under cover in our Timber Storage. The used pegs (which are no longer usable) and broken boards we took to the bonfire corner up on Mount Sod ready for a day of wet showers to have our bonfire.

Shuttering-Removed

We also opened up one of our impromptu concrete block molds to see if it had worked. The resulting blocks are a little uneven but seem to be fine.

Concrete-blocks-removed-from-mould

Tomorrow, we will move the piles of concrete blocks into strategic locations so that the 700 blocks will be in easy reach when we start building the wall!!

 We finished the preparation tasks, in readiness for the ready mixed concrete coming Monday.

We went around all the trenches and making sure we can work alongside every stretch of it with our new patting and scraping tools. Plus we sliced off the excess “sticking up” bits of the pegs that are holding the shuttering in place.

And finally, we went around double checking the depth and where necessary, adding more sand to make up the level properly, it was quite a lot actually, probably about 100 to 150 litres of extra sand we had to put in which means reducing the risk of running out of concrete.

But we will see on the day!

Foundations-ready-for-concrete-1

Foundations-ready-for-concrete-2

Foundations-ready-for-concrete-3

Foundations-ready-for-concrete-4

Oh yes, we made two more patting tools, this time, 1 metre wide versions to do the pads and the front trench, both being a metre wide.

 Today, we put together a series of tools for scraping and patting down the liquid concrete in the trenches. We have a range of different height of shuttering so each one needed a different tool made.

Concrete-tools

Also we discovered that the bottoms of the trenches seems to have “sunken” downwards since we had scraped and compacted the soil last week. We were testing our new tools for ease of use and making sure the gap from the flat bottoms to the level of the soil was correct at 150mm but we found it more like between 160mm and 165mm in quite a lot of places. We think this was caused by a week’s worth of water evaporation (we did double check the height  and position of the shuttering itself and it is within a few millimetres so that hasn’t changed) so we will have to go around again and put in more sandy soil to bring up the required depth of 150mm.

We have ordered the concrete and they will deliver exactly 12 cubic metres as they would prefer to use just two lorry loads, rather than split it into three loads and have that extra little bit spread across all three. They will be willing to go and get another load but a minimum of 1cubic metre or more only.

We will play by ear on the day next Monday morning and if one of our independent pads doesn’t get filled, then we will just mix some concrete ourselves and pour it in on top to bring it to the correct levels.

The concrete is graded at Gen3 strength as this is what we need for our foundations, this does cost a little bit more but it makes for a better quality and we want to get it right in the first place (and only time!!).

 Today, we started organising our new viaducts shoots so to be ready for the arrival of the ready mixed concrete, but discovered the “heavy” truth  of concrete and how it sluggishly works!!

The representative from the concrete supplier came this morning to discuss and advise us on what will and .. what will NOT .. work! If we wanted to use our new viaducts to guide the concrete from the edge of our site from the Loke, then unfortunately, the concrete would only dribble into the trenches and sluggishly move only so far along the channels, thus requiring massive amount of manual pushing to get the concrete to where it needed to be ALL around the foundation trenches. There is well over 120 metres of it all together! Phew!

So .. we have to hire a concrete pump with a boom arm to carry the concrete through pipes and deliver it directly into the trenches. This means that we don’t have to use the more expensive free flowing formula and use the more cheaper standard grade. This would help to offset the cost of the pump itself, not completely but that’s life in the world of house building!

Apparently, the boom arm can reach about 30 metres from the pump, fully supportive all the way without any legs!! Wow!

Concrete-Pump

So this means that our lovely newly created viaducts won’t be necessary after all, or perhaps only needed if even the huge reach of the pump isn’t quite far enough to reach the far corner furthest away, then we can just chuck down one of our viaducts to complete the journey!!

The pump and concrete will come Monday morning. So in the meantime, we are doing other jobs inside and around the site that has been neglected in lieu of getting the foundations done sooner.

 Today, in the lovely sunny weather we are still having here, we constructed a homemade mobile viaducts to help carry the ready mixed concrete from the lorry up on our Loke, down to the various locations across the whole site.

It is constructed from our supply of 18 mm OSB sheets, sliced up into 300 mm wide strips, which are in turn covered in strips of DPM we had left over, along with vertical 89 mm CLS timber to act as the major support struts. These formed a channel of 300 mm wide and 200 mm high sides, with a “socket” on the beginning to allow one section to “plug” into the next one down the slope.

Concrete-shutes-1

The first one is made slightly differently to act as the collector to interface to the cement mixer’s own metal shoot, where our collector is wide at the start and narrows down to the more regular 300 mm width.

We made 4 modules, and we just need to make one more that has a clever little side door that can be released to dam and divert the downwards flow of concrete and make it shoot out sideways for doing our front foundation strips.

Concrete-shutes-2

The building inspector has to check on the construction at certain critical stages and poring foundations is one of them…

So today he came and had a look at our finished foundation trenches, asked some questions and gave us the nod of approval!

 The last stage of preparing the foundations have been completed. There are two places that need reinforcement, the entertainment room (beacause of the heavy walls and roof) and around the tunnel allowing the air from the earth tubes into the house. We chopped up some steel weld mesh we had already, this has 6mm rods at 200mm grid spacing, and managed to go right around the Entertainment room’s foundation.

Foundation-Reinforcement-2

We pinned it down and tied the joins together, all sitting on 50 mm thick concrete little blocks to make sure it is fully held into its correct location.

Then, we took 3 pieces of 10 mm reinforcing bars, each being 3 m long, and bent them all right angled half way along. Using some left over pieces of the weld mesh, we cable tied the three rods so they were placed 200 mm apart and again sitting on their 50 mm rocks, and also pinned down too.

Foundation-Reinforcement-1

And, as they say,that is it!! Next is to order the ready mixed concrete, the free flowing kind, approximately 12 cubic metres of the stuff!