Monday July 27 / Tuesday July 28 How would you like your concrete served? Concrete is available in a variety of finishes. You can choose to select different colour and size aggregate (bits of stone) in the concrete mix if you are going to grind a concrete slab – it all depends on the effect…
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Saturday June 20 D Day The two weeks leading up to this morning had caused some very stressful moments: uncertainty due to bad weather coupled with hasty arrangements for gravel deliveries and finding a bricklayer last minute. But the day had finally arrived to pour the concrete slab of 60k House – just 3 days…
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Thursday June 18 Many Hands Make Light Work With the pouring of the concrete slab scheduled only two days away a couple of extra workers were brought in for the day. Like the day before the weather was wet again, making things muddy and miserable. There was still lots of work to be done… …
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Wednesday June 17 Getting down and dirty For a slab on ground construction such as 60k House, the concrete slab needs to sit on a solid, level base. Because the site is on a slope we needed to raise the level of the base within the perimeter blockwork with fill. The excavator was used to…
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Monday June 15 Fill it up The blockwork is to retain the fill beneath the concrete slab so the blocks needed to be filled with concrete. This is known as ‘core-filled’ blockwork and is used when a blockwork wall will be retaining something, such as fill (in this instance) or earth (in a retaining wall).…
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Saturday June 13 Dial a local We had a very wet start to winter. I knew Greg (the builder) was nervous about the weather. We had waited anxiously as the start date rolled around – thankfully the time coincided with the rain clouds rolling away and the sun and wind coming out to play. The…
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Friday June 12 Solid base Footings, or foundations, are what buildings are built on – they stop buildings from sinking into the mud or sliding down the hill. If you were to use the human body as an analogy, the footings would be, um, the foot. The rest of the building is literally built up…
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Thursday June 11 A little to the left Many projects will be setout (accurately marked) by a surveyor, so you build exactly where you want to (and where you told the authorities you were going to build). This is especially important if you are building on or near a site boundary or other important features.…
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Thursday June 10 Rain rain go away We had a very wet start to winter this year. Concrete trucks are very heavy. You can see where this is going… In order to get access from the road to the building site we had to construct a driveway around 70m long. This involved first…
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Timber! Several trees needed to be removed on my site for bushfire protection – they were also dropping limbs so they were potentially dangerous. The trees were identified in a Bushfire Hazard Management Plan – what it is, and its implications, will be discussed later in a separate post. Even if you own…
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