The Aurelian Walls of Hanmer

We have put blockfill (concrete) in the walls, after inserting and tying up length after length of high-tensile steel for excessive reinforcement. It would take a truly biblical earthquake to break this wall down now. The concrete did spill out in a couple places but strangely only on the very last bit of wall we filled. We only lost about 0.2m3 of concrete so it wasn't a biggy.

Blocks. Step Two.

The second day of blockies working on the block walls can be seen in the picture. They are making good progress, however its been a bit slower going than I would've liked. Then again the builder is at another job fixing up some facilities at a chicken farm, and a mushroom farm too, so there isn't much else that can be done anyway. The shapes are starting to have somwhat of a presence on site and its pretty cool to see it grow.

Lego!

After a weeks break the blocklayers arrived yesterday to start the block walls. They look to be making good progress, despite the freezing weather. It's exciting to see that finally the 3-dimensional is taking shape after the house has only been 3d in the imagination, on screen, and even 2d on the slab. Of course, there is no doubt we will be moving in as soon as the cellar has been closed in with blocks.

The slab is down.

The pour went well last Thursday, and the slab looks great, as far as I can tell. I noticed we have a few too many starters (vertical bars sticking out). Part of the internal blockwallis supposed to stop short so that one may walk into the cellar, however the starters seem to block off the cellar completely! The extra ones will have to be angle-grinded off. Hopefully the flooring we put on top will cover the ends of the steel.

There will be a week gap as we wait for the block-layers to become available. In the meantime, I've been sorting out the framing, and other business.

Pre-placer-pour

The floor-placers are coming tomorrow to pour the ground floor slab. We have spent the last 2 days preparing for it by laying polythene, bending 'starters' (vertical reinforcing steel, bent flat into the slab), laying mesh, wire-tying, boxing up, laying down, running round....

The inspector has been through and all is good for the pour. Pray it doesn't rain or snow.