Final slab

This is it, the final slab of the house (There's still the slab for the shed to cast!)


A little reinforcement

A little bit more

And keeping just one step ahead with your prep work

Results in the kitchen and dining slab. I'll go and check out the finished slab first thing tomorrow.

This could be it for 2010, the digger has gone off site, the contractors talk of nothing but Friday (the day they finish for Christmas) and the weather is due to turn by the end of the week.

We'll just have to wait and see.

And carry on

After a 2 week break work starts again.

Fingers crossed we'll beat the weather and get the slab poured on Wednesday, just ahead of Thursdays predicted heavy snow.

Building in the Winter is not a great idea.

Snow Progress

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post and theres been very little progress in that 2 weeks due to snow.

Here's the last day of work as the snow really started to fall.

The next day the site looked like this!

and then it snowed again, so walking home from site wasn't much fun.

All this has resulted in the timber frame being delayed until the New Year.

This week we are against it again to get the final slab poured before the next bout of freezing weather at the end of the week. More photos to come soon.

Snow problem

Who says you can't pour concrete in the snow.

8 days until the timber frame arrives! Honest.

Concrete is coming

we're getting closer. The formwork is coming on and lounge slab is now ready, although you wouldn't guess from this photo, for concrete tomorrow.

It's taking shape

The lounge slab is excavated and weather permitting will be cast on Saturday

Formworks going in ready for the basaement lid to be cast early next week
All of this has been good news and great progress, but todays other activity has been unblocking next doors drains.

That's right, next doors foul drain was weeping into our site, that puddle is not rainwater, I know because I've smelt it and then lifted 4 of nextdoors manhole covers to find the blockage.

It wasn't the best morning I've had.

Filled to the top

Atlast the hole is filled and there's more site to work on. This afternoons job is to excavate the lounge slab.

Things are looking up, there were 7 men working on site today. The most we've had since we started.

Different digger ..

... same old crane

Concrete (Take 2)

Here we go again, more concrete being pumped into the basement walls

That's it, the walls are full . . . . . .  and standing.

Cut and run!

Who needs a crane?

Insulate and drain

Visqueen and insulation are both on, the drain mat's going in and this afternoon we back fill.

Tank 'eavans

At last the basement is taking shape with the Tanking primer in place. Another day or so and we can start to back fill this ever increasing hole in the ground.

Fill your Blocks

Finally the basement walls get filled with concrete.

More Blocks

Look very carefully and you can now see it from the road. Just under that lovely red sign.

 By next Wednesday it'll be concreted and thne it's only 2 and half weeks until all groundworks are complete.

Blockwork's going up

Now we see real progress.

CONCRETE!!!!!

Real progress at last. You can tell it's exciting by the number of photos Julia took.

Starter bars are up

Starter bars are in and the concrete comes tomorrow. Just wondering when they'll get all the rubbish cleaned out. I don't remember specifying a layer of leaves, clay and water in the slab.

Countdown to concrete

Sorry, been away for a long weekend as it's the kids half term.

After what seems days of rebar fixing we should be ready for concrete on Thursday. The groundworks contractor is still telling me he'll be off site by the 26th November. I have a meeting in the morning to discuss progress so hopefully we should have a better idea tomorrow.

Fingers crossed the concrete goes in on time and the blockwork can get up next week.

Shuttering and Visqueen

Who'd hae thought such things could be exciting?

Well they are to me at the moment.

Progress at last.

The shutters are going in, the Visqueen is due in today/tomorrow and the rebar comes on Thursday.

I like progress, it makes you feel good.

Still digging

They've now taken to working in the bottom of the hole. Who knows when this will end.

Fingers crossed we'll have a slab next week, and maybe the start of some walls.

it just keeps going

When we thought there could be no more excavating they confirm that the hole is 1m short and there'll be another 2 days fo digging and muck shifting.

So far we're upto 28 wagon loads removed from site, with an ever increasing mound of muck growing as I type.

Whose idea was it to build a basement?

Wagons roll.

The digger's fixed and the wagons are rolling. First load already away, just another dozen and the spoil heap will be no more.

At last I can see how things can progress after 2 weeks of delays.

Work stops on site

With only one wagon load of spoil removed from site work stops again as the digger breaks down.
Things were looking so promising until it broke, now we're back to sitting around with a huge digger in the way.

Maybe tomorrow will bring better news.

Things are moving

Namely spoil from the site. Hopefully by the end of the week we'll have a slab.

And the scores are in.

It's not squeaky clean, but it's not hazardous.

Now it's down to the landfill sites to confirm they'll take my muck.

To be honest I've looked at the test results and I'm non the wiser. All I want is work to continue on site.

No news is .....

...good news?

Well, it's not quite no news. Early indications are that the site is clean, but final results are out tomorrow. 

Hopefully we'll get the spoil removed on Wednesday and then it's time to crack on and get out of the ground.
Velfac have confirmed our windows arrive in 9 weeks. So that's 9 weeks to get the envelope up. Hands up if you think it's achievable?

And STOP!

3 days into the build and it's tools down. The basement dig has created so much spoil that the site is so full that we can no longer work safely.

Soil test results are due back on Monday so hopefully work can start again on Tuesday.

Please be clean!

.

The samples for testing have been taken today. All we can do now is cross our fingers and hope they're clean.

He said 'it smells clean' so I'm taking that as good news

Also paid the first installment on the windows today, so only 12 weeks to go until we have windows on site. Lets hope there's something to put them into by then.

It gets deeper.

Still digging. Should be completed sometime tomorrow, then we'll see if there's any contamination to deal with

Basement dig!

No going back now, the basement is being excavated as I type. By the end of today there will be one very big hole in the ground and an even bigger pile of earth to remove from site

A big digger and ....

... and soon to be big hole

.

Work finally starts.

After months of planning it's started!

The site has been cleared, Alex has had a sit in the digger and the fence is up.
Monday sees the basement being excavated