We woke up to a thin layer of snow on some of the raised objects (off the wet ground) where it didn’t melt. The temperature is hovering around the freezing point, which is not good for concrete. So we wait for the warmer spell that is supposed to be coming soon!
Snowy-Ballast
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
The truck now starts! We have Noise and Action again!
The wire had corroded and come off the connector to the starter button
circuit. We conclude that there is enough conduction when rain gets in, with
the 12V and the differences of the metals (copper wire soldered (lead and
tin) onto a brass spade terminal connector), to allow the copper to
“oxidise” and turn into dust.
We had already started coating other joints with the plumber’s LSX to
provide a waterproof protection, but this one was an old joint and we had
missed it!
Our 13 tons of 10mm crushed ballast arrived today, in two separate loads of
4 tons and 9 tons!
13Tons-of-10mm-Ballast
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-1
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.
Oh Dear! Our dumper truck “starter” button doesn’t work anymore! It seems
that something has disturbed the wiring inside when the last maintenance was
done on the truck last week.
We had to resort to our newly mended platform trolley to transport over 3
loads of 10 blocks and an odd quick load of 4 blocks!
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-1
We repaired the bent wheels! The front two wheels suffered under the strain
of hoisting the concrete blocks! We were (and still are) loading 10 blocks on the trolley (this weighed in at about 270kg!) and that started the problem but really it was when we put on 13 blocks (a total of 351kg!!) .. that did the real Damaged!
I welded on some extra steel pieces to reinforce the axle to the
flange of the wheel. We only hope now that the ball bearings will survive!!!
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-3
Row-4-Mostly-Done-1