Roselea

Category: Build Progress

  • Concrete Filling Begins on Back Wall

    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

    First-Two-Columns-Filled

  • Platform and Ramp

    The platform and Ramp is now ready for helping us get the concrete into the
    “hollow tubes” in the wall.

    The ramp is 12 feet long as we found that having only 8 feet produced a “too
    steep” angle on the ramp while trying to push up two concrete blocks as
    samples of the kind of weight we will be struggling to get up!!

    It is much easier with the extra 4 foot extension!

    Ramp

    Ramp

    Modules-and-Ramp

    Modules-and-Ramp

    Tipping-Barrow-on-Platform

    Tipping-Barrow-on-Platform

    Barrow-going-up-Ramp

    Barrow-going-up-Ramp


  • High Platforms x 4

    This afternoon, we built 4 wooden platforms to help with the next stage of
    pouring concrete down the hollow columns in the ball wall of the swimming
    lane.

    In order to make them as mobile as possible and also fit into the gap
    between the diagonal struts, we made them 450mm by 550mm oblong modules so
    they can be joined together in different arrangements.

    They are 1330mm high (4 feet 4 inches) to reach the top of the 6 rows of the
    concrete blocks.

    We will use a 8 foot long ramp, or maybe a 12 foot long one, depending on
    where the position is and how much soil there is heaped up near the swimming
    lane.

    We probably keep these platforms for other jobs in the main house when we
    need to get up high somewhere.

    Tall-Platform-Modules

    Tall-Platform-Modules

  • Ballast Arrived!

    Our 13 tons of 10mm crushed ballast arrived today, in two separate loads of
    4 tons and 9 tons!

    13Tons-of-10mm-Ballast

    13Tons-of-10mm-Ballast

  • Fifth Row Completed and Sixth Row half Done!

    Today, we finished off the 5th row and did as much of the 6th row we can do.
    That is another 38 blocks used! This is a total of 289½ blocks we have laid
    down these last couple of weeks!!

    The next job is to mix up concrete to pour down into each of the hollow
    columns.

    Row-5-Done-and-6th-As-far-as-possible-2

    Row-5-Done-and-6th-As-far-as-possible-2

    Row-5-Done-and-6th-As-far-as-possible-1

    Row-5-Done-and-6th-As-far-as-possible-1


  • Thirteen Tons of Ballast Ordered!

    Today, we ordered 13 tons of 10mm gravel and sharp sand ballast. This is the
    quantity we think we need to make the concrete to fill up all the columns in
    our hollow blocks we have been building the walls with.

    Each “column” will need about 18 to 20 litres of concrete, depending on
    whether it is 5 blocks high or 6. We can mix a medium sized load in the
    mixer using a half bag of cement and 40 litres of the ballast.

  • Fourth Row Complete and Fifth Half Done!

    We did well today! We had finished off the 4th row left over from Monday,
    and started the 5th row.

    We laid down 48½ blocks in two sessions of 23½ in the morning, and 25 blocks
    in the afternoon.

    The 5th row is the highest we can go for the section that still has the
    support structure in place to shore up the bank of soil, but for the other
    half, we will do the 5th row and then also do a 6th row as there is nothing
    in the way!

    Row-5-Mostly-Done-2

    Row-5-Mostly-Done-2

    Row-5-Mostly-Done-1

    Row-5-Mostly-Done-1


  • Fourth Row Progresses

    We only did half a day of work today, so we did another 22 blocks on our 4th
    row of the back wall of the swimming lane.

    We had another commitment suddenly pop up and therefore the afternoon
    session had to be postponed. Tomorrow is forecast to have heavy rain! So we
    will do other tasks in the garage in the dry instead.

    Row-4-Mostly-Done-2

    Row-4-Mostly-Done-2

    Row-4-Mostly-Done-3

    Row-4-Mostly-Done-3

    Row-4-Mostly-Done-1

    Row-4-Mostly-Done-1


  • Fourth Row is Coming

    This morning, we finished off the 3rd row (7 more blocks), and then started
    on the 4th row.

    The end wall had another set of reinforcing bars placed horizontally and
    then 3 more wide (215mm) blocks in a line, except that the last one near the
    front wall needed to be cut down because the front wall on the 4th layer and
    above are only using the 140mm wide blocks instead of the 215mm blocks.

    We got the diamond cutter disc and our angle grinder, to slice an end off a
    215mm standard block (we removed 75mm – the difference between 215mm and
    140mm!).

    Then We managed to do 14 blocks before we ran out of mortar. That is a total
    of 24 blocks this time!

    End-of-3rd-Row

    End-of-3rd-Row

    Start-of-4th-Row

    Start-of-4th-Row


  • Third Row almost complete

    We did two loads of the cement mixer today, one bag of cement in total. This
    allowed us to do a further 39 blocks. 20 this morning and 19 this afternoon.

    The steel bars lying horizontally in this row, does make it easy to lay each
    block down and just wiggle until it hits the two bars. It does means that we
    are using slightly more mortar for the joint as the bars are around 12mm
    thick, but we would normally do 10mm thick mortar joints, hence why we have
    only done 39 blocks today.

    Most-of-3rd-Row-1

    Most-of-3rd-Row-1

    Most-of-3rd-Row-2

    Most-of-3rd-Row-2