Greentongue

This last 2 weeks have been quite busy. We've been building up the floor structure and laying down the substrate flooring panels - 'greentongue' panels made from compressed wood-chips. It's a great product: very hard, weatherproof (can sit outside in the rain etc. for about 2 months).

The floor takes a lot of time to get level and plumb all the way along. I found it reassuring that Jacob has high standards of accuracy, though I think it comes from necessity to make the whole job easier to put together.

We also put up some of the wall bracing along the front of the house (below), which is basically plywood sheeting nailed all along the edges and through the middle of each sheet.

Clear as mud.

Wednesday. It's a bit hard to see in the picture but there are about 18 holes bored into the ground for pile footings. On the right-hand side edge of the picture is the auger-bit which attached to the end of a digger arm from the digger. Part of the digger itself can be seen in the bottom-left of the picture.

The mud was so sticky, I periodically had to scrape mud off the auger so that it could still bring up a decent amount of soil each time it drilled into the ground. Not to meniton doubling the weight of your boots by having stones encapsulated in mud stuck to the bottom of your boots.

We continued dwanging the floor and putting joists in. Dwanging is solid blocking.... Solid blocking is timber that goes in between the joists to keep them straight up and down and stop them moving side to side (bowing or buckling etc.)

Free draining.

On Monday the tailing were put in behind the retaining wall and down the sides. You can see the white sign-board sheets put up over the 'Ardex Shelterseal' for protection from perforation by the tailings.

The shelterseal sheets (lapped 50mm down to the slab bottom) are over top of a waterproof layer of tar-based paint called moleseal painted down to, and across the following channel). The grooved channel is cut from a step-out of concrete (down the bottom 150mm below the slab) forming the foundation and a 100mm perforated drainage pipe (wrapped in a filter-cloth sock) sits on the channel and takes any excess water round the sides to the front of the section. Overkill? (And that's not the whole story!)

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A touch of golden weather.

These pictures were taken on Thursday, and as you can see the floor is coming along nicely and we've ordered a rainwater storage tank to put in before we close up the floor. Below shows the view out of the office window! It sure is nice when the sun comes out. Snowy alpine peaks on one side a tawny brown and green hills across the valley.

The waterproofers have finished and the first posts (piles) for the north wing have been stood up and as I type Jim, the local earthworks contractor is piling up the tailings on site to go in behind the retaining wall.

Looks like Marmite..

Wednesday. We are progressing well and had the first decent bit of sun for about a week nearing the end of the day. The frames have been braced and bolted down, and we've nailed on the boundary joists for the floor.

At long last the waterproofers have come and put 'moleskin' (tar) seal on the back of the blocks, and stuck (heated on with a blowtorch) sheets of 'Ardex Shelterseal tanking' over the top. They're about halfway through and should be finished tomorrow.

Above is the view from the one of the guest rooms on the ground floor. Not bad, I thought.
Below Jacob is holding one end of his tape measure, checking where the SHS steel beam is going and I'm holding one end of my tape measure checking the length of the steel beam.

Visible progress!

The Saturday before last the first load of timber arrived with the frames for the ground floor. All last week I'd been rearranging the loose timber to make room for the frames to go in as there was nothing else to do on site. The weather ha been a bit off and on and it has not been easy getting the waterproofers on site, despite several opportunities when they could have come but did not.

Anyway this week the builders are back and we've been getting on with it, putting the top-plates on and the frames in and bolting everything down plumb. We've been cat-walking along the top-plates knocking in bolts and tightening nuts - just as well I don't suffer from vertigo!

The progress on Monday can be seen (above) with the first frame up and the top plates bolted on the block walls. Before the end of Tuesday all the frames are up for the ground storey (below).