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