Category: Uncategorized (Page 6 of 10)

All the downstairs pipework for the underfloor heating has been installed today.  Just over 700m.  The floors will be screeded next Tuesday.

There is over 700m of pipework on the ground floor alone.

The pipework downstairs was all installed in a day. The piperwork is cliped into a holding strip that ensures that the pipes are evenly distributed.

The spacing of the pipework varies room by room depending on the heat loss. This has been calculated in advance using the architect’s drawings.

Despite the weather first thing this morning, we have managed to get a lot more blockwork finished today……

We have just taken delivery of our third wagon load of blocks!

A sample door arrived today.  It was ordered a couple of weeks ago.  It is an oak Mexicano door.  6ft 6 x 2ft 9.  It is a fire door – even though we don’t need to use fire doors the extra weight makes them look and feel great.

The only problem is that 6ft 8in doors are specified in the layouts.  This size seems much harder to find.  Oakwood doors who supplied this door, do not produce a taller door.  So this will require further investigation.

Another good day on the blockwork, but at least another 4-5 days to go before it is all up to the level of the new concrete slab. I reck0n it will be next week before we are in a position to pour the concrete slab.

Nice weather today. Hence the shorts. Rain tomorrow.

We have put quite a bit of manpower onto building up the blockwork – 2 brickies, one apprentice and a labourer (in addition we have had 3 underfloor heating engineers and a carpenter on site).  So today has been busy.

The cement mixer has been going all day trying to keep up with the blockwork.  Even so, it is going to take at least a week before we are ready to lay the concrete base.

The mass of blocks is starting to diminish as the walls for the base are built up.

We have made some good progress on the block work today. With have had 2 brickies, one apprentice and a labourer working on this all day (in between the rain showers). You can see the block work for the porch has been completed in the background (including the drain for the downstairs cloakroom).

With the footings sorted out at the weekend, we can now move on to starting on the blockwork.

It took most of the day to do the marking out and check all of the levels.  The blockwork will be brought up to the specified height.  The outside of the trench will then be back filled with subsoil.  The inside will be levelled, stone added and then steel mesh will be installed before the concrete base of the building is then laid.  The level of the floor is level with the top of the block work.  I reckon we will be in a position to lay the floor in the next 10-14 days.  There is quite a bit of work here (as you can see from the amount of concrete blocks) plus there are quite a few changes in floor level.

It took most of the day just to mark out where all the walls are going to go, but by the end of the day a row of blocks has gone up along the line of the new kitchen.

All of these blcoks will be used to build up to the floor level of the new extension.

A big day today – the footings have gone in for the extension and the porch. Around 20 cubic metres of concrete in 3 separate loads.

The steel mesh has been put into the bottom of the trenches to to reinforce the concrete. It is held up off the bottom by putting half bricks under the mesh.

Ensuring that the steel mesh is not pushed to the bottom when the concrete is poured in.

The concreate is added to highest point of the footings and then pushed around by using a spade (ensuring that the concrete doesn’t go over the top of your wellies!).

A full mixer holds around 8.5 cubic meters of concrete. This weighs in at around 30 tonnes.

It is going to take three loads to fill the footings.

Although the concrete flows downhill, it does need a bit of encouragement!

We couldn’t dig the footings for the porch until the first two loads of concrete had been delivered. Otherwise, the cement mixer would have fallen in the hole. So the porch footings have to be dug in an hour (as this is how long it takes the mixer to re-load).

Matt in action pouring the footings for the porch

With the boss (Richard Battye) from HD9 Construction on holidays, Jo took the opportunity for a “team photo”.   Sorry Richard! I snuck into the photo.

From left to right…..Andy (carpenter), Daniel (apprentice), Nick (builder), Matt (builder), Richard (labourer) and me (goodness knows what I do!).

We have had an excavator on site for the past couple of days and it seemed like a great opportunity to remove a tree stump in the top field.  It has been a nuisance when mowing the top field, particularly when the grass is long (and I mean long – sort of knee-length!) as you can’t see the damn thing.  Hitting it with the mower, or the tractor, isn’t fun.

A 2.5 tonne excavator won’t pull the stump out of the ground in one go, but what it will allow you to do is to dig around it.  You can then dig out the roots as you go and eventually the stump will give up.  It can be a bit unnerving as the roots do wrestle a bit with the excavator.  Eventually though, the excavator wins.

The trick is to dig around the stump and eventually it will come free

This stump has been a real pain when mowing the top field

It isn’t pretty, but the tree stump has now been removed