Category: Groundworks

 With the rise of the sun  (;-), we started work early today at 9am, it was a very humid and stuffy morning with no breeze to keep us cool. But we got on with the 4th layer of our Perimeter concrete block wall and did 51 blocks before lunch time at 1pm.

After lunch, with a little breeze and clouds hanging over head, we completed the loop by putting down 56 blocks, our afternoon load of mortar didn’t quite reach the end so we had to mix a small extra quantity to finish off the very last 1¼ blocks.

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It was a long day, from 9am to almost 7pm and doing 107 blocks which smashed the previous record, but it was well worth the effort as it is very pleasing to see it all done! So This Concludes the block laying for the concrete Perimeter Wall which took us 11 days!

The next job is to spray bitumen paint on the outer surface to provide that extra protection against surface water and rising damp from the soil.

Later when we are pouring the floor slab we will also fill the hollow columns with concrete.

 A long day of doing the 3rd course of the block wall and going onto the 4th layer with our morning and afternoon sessions. The morning one saw us doing 49 blocks and in the afternoon we laid 47 blocks – a total of 96 blocks! A New Record!! Phew!

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We have 104 blocks left to do in the final layer to complete the whole job! We will have to put in a little extra sand into our mortar mix to make it extend to doing those extra blocks. Tomorrow WILL be an even longer day but well worth it as the job will be done at last! We might start an hour early to avoid running late into the evening!!

We started early this morning to try and do as many concrete blocks on our 3rd tier of the Perimeter Wall before lunchtime and the predicted rain coming this afternoon. But before laying any blocks today, we marked the walls where the 3 doors will go as there are no blocks in rows 3 or 4.

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 The block laying went quite nicely and we laid 49 blocks with the one mortar load. Therefore if we had the afternoon to do more work ahead of the approaching rain (which would ruin any mortar joints done in the afternoon, not having enough time to set), we would have been on course for a new record of just shy of 100 blocks!!

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Maybe, on Monday, we will get another chance at beating our record when we continue to do the 3rd layer and move on to the 4th and final layer, which in total, is about 210 blocks left to complete our Perimeter Wall – about 2 days of work left to do!

 We set a new record today of putting down 85 concrete blocks in two sessions! This morning, we carried on with the 2nd layer and completed the Great Room, the Kitchen and started on the front extension by 2 blocks, doing 39 blocks all together. The afternoon session saw us completing the circuit, finishing the front section and the back door side of the building. We put down 35 blocks to join up the circle!!

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Then we started the 3rd level and managed to do a further 11 blocks before we ran out of mortar. This was a total of 46 blocks for the afternoon!! We probably achieved this higher rate because we reduced the amount of mortar we put down on the layer.

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We have a day off tomorrow, but on Saturday, we carry on with the 3rd level, remembering to leave a gap for the doorways (the French doors in the Great Room, The front door and the side door in the Utility Room). Wonder what record we can break then? Grin!

 We finished off the 1st layer this morning and then started the 2nd layer around the back of the building (Bedroom 3 and just into Bedroom 2) before lunch. That was 28 blocks in that session.

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Then this afternoon, we zoomed along Bedroom 2, Bedroom 1 and half way around the Great Room before we ran out of mortar, plonking down a further 40 concrete blocks!

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That is a total of 68 blocks for the day – WOW!

Tomorrow, we hope to complete the 2nd layer, doing a further 70 or so blocks, which should be feasible judging by this afternoon’s speed!!

 Today we carried on doing the 1st layer of the blocks, filling in the straight portions between the corners. Even though we had a delayed start (due to a haircut session!) we still did two loads of mortar, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. We did 49 blocks in total and have completed all the way around the Great Room, Kitchen, Hall and Entertainment room, and almost the front section of the Utility Room.

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So tomorrow, Just got the one more block to finish the front wall, and then the long run of 19 blocks to the back and to the beginning of where we started yesterday! We had used quite a lot of mortar for this tier of the wall so when we do the 2nd (plus the 3rd and the top 4th) tier, which will have a much more controlled mortar thickness (a thin 10mm thick instead of a rough 20mm), our mortar will go much further indeed and we may run out of time before the mortar goes off. We will see!!

 Today, in a mixture of sunshine and clouds but no rain, we finished off the final 9½ corners to complete the 4 tiers we got designed for our Perimeter Wall, this adds up to 19 blocks mortared in place.

We then started on doing the straight parts of the perimeter wall, using a new template tool we quickly knocked together to provide a way of applying  two even strips of mortar onto the concrete foundation

Plus a string pulled tight between the corners to provide a nice ruler  straight line to alight the blocks! We did a further 40 blocks to go around the 1st layer, completing about a third way around. This first level is slower because it needs more mortar and time to make sure it is set properly on the rough foundation strips, but we should speed up once we get onto the 2nd layers and beyond!!

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Tomorrow, we resume and hopefully will do about another 50 to 60 blocks and finish the complete circuit!

 Today, under a cloudy sky and swirling winds, we finished off the 3rd tier of concrete blocks, doing 12 corners to complete the loop around the building, each corner having 3 blocks mortared in place.

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Then we sliced off 75 mm off of 14 blocks (see image below) using a diamond disc in the angle grinder.

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To start the 4th and final layer our perimeter wall will have one of these shortened blocks in the corner with the cut off piece around the corner. We completed 4½ corners, this time each has 2 blocks!

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On Monday, we will finish off the remaining 9½ corners and then we can get on with filling in the straights between all the corners!! Phew!

 We carried on with doing the 2nd course of concrete blocks, working around the 9 corners. We decided to split the mortar amount in half so that we could control when and how far the mortar reached before stopping for lunch or the end of the day. Today, we had events to attend to in the late afternoon so we worked through lunch until we had finished the 2nd load of mortar. That was 5 hours straight (with plenty of water breaks!).

We managed to do the 9 corners and then 2 corners of the next level up.

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Tomorrow, we will try and finish the 3rd layer and hopefully go a long way to finishing the 4th and final layer too!!

 In the morning we finished off the front 5 corners to complete the set of 14 corners our building has, and this allows us to get a consistent and accurate construction of our Perimeter Wall.

After lunch, we assembled our next template tool to help us apply a uniform parallel strip of mortar on top of the blocks

Motar-Bed-Application-tool

We then started on the second layer of concrete blocks, using our new tool as shown above, and we did 5 corners before we ran out of time and energy in this very hot day!

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We resume on Friday and carry on doing the second and (third and fourth) layers at each of the corners.