Blog

Monday, we did two and half layers in building up our wall inside the Entertainment Room, that is over seventy blocks! We completed layer 4, then number 5 and number 6 and a little bit of layer 7.

Tuesday, it was a half day because we are reaching the limit of lifting up the 20kg concrete blocks high enough to get on to the progressing walls whilst being able to see if they were in the right place. We finished layer 7 and a section of layer 8, for which we had to use one of our mobile platforms so we could use up most of the mortar mix we had. The remaining of Tuesday and Wednesday was spent building a safe, spacious working platform for us to stand on and continue building up the wall and finally put on the roof without compromising our effort and muscles. The platforms were made from the same basic frame work as the external one used for the roof, we just adjusted the length of the legs to suit.
The last part of Wednesday was spent moving 121 concrete blocks and making four piles in the middle of the room, ready to be lifted up onto the platform. We couldn’t immediately start a new mortar mix because it was far too late in the afternoon as it generally takes three hours to apply that amount of mortar to the 50 blocks or so. So instead, we moved enough blocks to finish off the final three and half layers (number 8, 9, 10 and 11) before we reach the critical twelfth layer.

Thursday saw us put up over eighty blocks to finish off layer 8, get layer 9 and 10 done completely and on Friday morning, to did layer 11. We also put on the lintel over the doorway.
For the rest of Friday, we laser surveyed the height of the wall to find minimum and maximum variations so we can adjust the height of the final twelfth layer. As the result of this survey, we sliced up 27 blocks of 135mm high, 9 blocks of 185mm high and a couple of 70mm thin ones over the doorway (sitting on the lintel).

We test fitted all these blocks in “dry” mode, including cutting down those blocks in corners and around the windows so everything was ready for the final stage in completing this twelfth layer.
So finally on Saturday afternoon, we mixed our usual load of mortar and proceeded to stick down all these shortened blocks and again, using the laser level , we made sure that they all finished up nice and flat.

So this concludes the building of the concrete walls and on Monday, we can start the massive job of lifting the ten 120kg concrete beams up and plonk them on our new wall!! No Sweat!

For this new week, we started the task of building the concrete shell that will sound proof our Entertainment Room. The first task was to make a template to help us align the rows of blocks so we put together a piece of plywood with a straight CLS timber to stiffen the board and stop it from curling. Then marked out two lines set apart by 225mm which is the height of a block plus a layer of mortar. Then we marked along the lower line with marks spaced at 450mm (the length of a block plus a mortar).

Then, in the mid-afternoon of Monday, our Concrete Blocks Arrives. We had ten pallets to unload!
So on Tuesday, we could start laying out the first layer of blocks around the room, making adjustments, and then tackle the job of slicing concrete blocks to the required size. For this we created another jig, see Jig to Slice Concrete Block to help us.
On Wednesday, our Ten Concrete Beams Arrive very early, but we had other tasks to do in the morning and the afternoon was spent dealing with the beams.
So we didn’t actually start putting our blocks into mortar until Thursday and it was a very long day. We got all the equipment out, the cement mixer, wheelbarrows, the plasticiser, water hose and measuring jug. We got our first load of mortar done and didn’t finish that load until well past 2pm. We had a quick lunch and resumed at 3pm. The second load got us all the way around the circuit of the room plus half the second layer, and we finished 7:15pm! We had put down sixty blocks, each weighing 19kg each!


The next day, we got the second row done, including stopping and starting either side of the door entrance (we created a quick wooden guide to ensure that we had a 50mm clearance to the door frame, so we can insert a vertical plank of timber to create the inner framework). We got all the third layer done too and got further around on the fourth layer, but this time deliberately avoiding the window area as that needed special attention.

The final day, Saturday, we tackled the job of putting an extension of our concrete shell out towards the window. We found a heavy duty angle iron in our supply, a left-over length from when we were building the steel framework up in the skylight. We sliced off two length of 2050mm each, de-rusted them thoroughly, and then drilled five clearance holes. Both were painted with a rust protective zinc paint and then the first one (with the holes) was placed onto the concrete outer wall underneath the window.

Five holes were duly drilled and five concrete screws were driven in. we also put in a good amount of PU glue to stick the metal bar to the concrete wall to provide extra security and load bearing capabilities.

Then we got two more concrete blocks and sliced them with a sticking out bit at the back. These blocks are the start of the vertical sides of the window alcove and they rest on the metal support and have a little sticking out bit at the back to reach the wooden framework of the window. we left a small gap and that will be filled up with expanding foam later on. Then we sliced up two paving slabs to create a shelf across underneath the window. These paving slabs are very, very hard and the diamond cutting blade had to work very hard, even just to slice 10mm deep into the 50mm thick slabs! We eventually sliced both sides and hit the slab with a club hammer to break it apart. We needed pieces 345mm wide and width in total of 1845mm wide. We made three pieces from our 600mm by 900mm slabs.
Finally, we were ready to stick all the pieces into place, so mixed up a small portion of mortar and using some left-over Stixall glue (on the metal bar and between the paving slab pieces), we got it all assembled, including finishing off the fourth layer around the window.


We can on Monday to continue putting up the next eight rows in reasonable ease (apart from the growing height), until we reach the top when the next complicated bit needs special treatment, the ceiling!!

This week, we started on building our timber Stud Wall that surrounds the concrete shell that encloses the Entertainment Room. But before that, we created another piece of equipment down in our Great Room area, to help us chop up the various timber planks into precise lengths required for each wall around the house (see Chop Saw Plank Slicing Station).
We marked out on the footplate the spacing for all the stud posts for each section of the wall, requiring a 400mm separation of the posts for the 89mm wide walls (the left and right sides of the room joining the Utility Room and hall leading from the front door) and a 600mm spacing for the end wall opposite the window. We duplicated these marks on another set of horizontal planks we made, ready for the top plate that goes on top of the stud posts.
We then chopped up twenty-one 89mm CLS and eleven 63mm CLS planks measuring 2638mm long, then two 2600mm long pieces, both being the 89mm CLS width and finally, an one off 2804 length of 63mm CLS.
We proceeded to nail each post into place using 90mm ring-shank nails and put on the top plate planks on too. We also glued two of the 63mm posts to the steel leg (holding up the Skylight and roof).

The last job of the week was to nail up sheets of the fermacell boards on the inside surface of the stud walls to improve the sound deadening potential of the whole Entertainment Room. We placed each sheet horizontally, over two and bit rows and applied to all the edges with PU construction glue to ensure a continuous uniform and solid barrier.



We are now ready for the concrete blocks and beams which will hopefully will be delivered Monday and Tuesday, just before the lock down is enforced. That will keep us busy for a few weeks.