Rain rain, go away....but in a drought?!

As promised, some photos of the newly laid concrete slab and my many mud puddles.

The slab is now curing for a few days while the builders are out of the wet stuff finishing off some internal jobs at another worksite...back on Monday! The builder informed me that the slab is ok to walk on after 24 hours, is strongest after 3 months and then it's all down hill after there.... Despite the rain, the concrete pour went well, that is, except around the edges...think there may be a few minor repairs.

This is not the complete slab finished - this is only stage 1. It will be done in 3 stages. Firstly all the plumbing in the backyard has to be completed (including a gravel pit as I don't have storm water drains). The concreting out the back (along the back of the house under the L shaped extension) will then be done. After this, they will concrete the double garage area (on the LHS of the house) and the driveway. Of course they need to wait until all the digging and the bobcats are gone from the backyard before they concrete this final stage (as this is the access point to the back).

I think the slab now makes the area under the house look a heck of a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Friends of mine have confirmed this phenomenon (phew)....they said the space miraculously appears to increase once the walls are in place. So, I'm looking forward to having some walls.

Mud Pies and Concrete

I've been a bit slack about blogging lately but visual progress on the house has been SLOW so pictures would have been a little boring. for example, the picture below highlights the current earthy visual of my backyard.

The plumbing (in the concrete slab) was laid on Saturday and they continued to dig dirty big holes in my backyard (which doesn't seem to matter now as my lawn has disappeared). They are replacing all the pipes (storm water and sewerage) as I have previously been enjoying the additional health benefits of rusty water from all my taps. Was a big problem when washing....'soaking my whites' was an impossible feat.




Picture 1 above - pipes down the RHS of my house to the back corner (where the plumbing connects up the main council system).
Picture 2 above - the plumbing assembly for my bathroom and toilet downstairs (and if you look hard in the background, mum is illegally watering my transplanted sick camellia with a hose......worth a $100 fine if caught under stage 3 water restrictions - we can only use buckets for watering now).

Now the news today is that the concrete slab downstairs was poured yesterday. Of course, it can't be done in sunny drought stricken Queensland weather.... no, no, no - this week we've had some rain....don't get excited, it was piddly light rain, actually "intermittent showers". This basically means no rain - not even enough for me to consider walking to work with an umbrella (I did take a rain jacket, just in case)....... but enough to make laying the slab a bit of a challenge and a mud city is born. Murphy's Law, I guess!

So, stay tuned. I took some lovely pictures of the slab and mud this morning so will download them tonight.

that house got skinny 'legs'...

The house lifters came on Thursday and removed all the styes (or sties...not sure the spelling), that is, the stacks of wood that were holding the house up. The house looks very funny with it's new skinny 'legs'.

On Thursday, the RHS of the house (when you look at it) has now been dropped down onto it's permanent steel posts. The steel posts for the LHS of the house have now been put in place and reinforcing added (ready for cementing in). They have also welded in some temporary steel 'stumps' to keep the house stable. The permanent ones are blue in the photo and the temporary ones are steel grey colour.

The cementing was meant to happen yesterday, however, it appears the cement truck didn't turn up as there is no additional concrete since the initial pour (on Tuesday 6 June). The reinforcing is ready to go (see above picture) and, of course, more dirt has been dug out......there always seems to be piles of dirt everywhere..... the picture below shows where the driveway is going to be....they have already dug out footing/reinforcing channels (for stumps for garage walls) but you can't really see them in the picture separate to the dirt piles....

It came over wet late yesterday afternoon (Friday) and it's been lightly showering here all day today - just enough to wet the top of the ground, nothing heavy....not even enough rain to give my car a bit of a wash. Brisbane is heading into Stage 3 (of 5 stages) water restrictions on Tuesday due to the drought - this means NO hoses at all - you have to bucket the water onto all plants and also use only buckets for car washing (no trigger hoses).

I'm looking forward to new changes to the house next week... Monday is a public holiday here (think it is the Queen's Birthday) so it all starts again on Tuesday. Will have to have a slab celebration with my friends once this stage is done....

I went and saw the Da Vinci Code with 3 girlfriends last night - I enjoyed the movie but my girlfriend who has read the book was disappointed....guess I'll now have to read it to make a judgement call.

Delays are the name of the game....

The house raisers were meant to return to my lovely house today to remove some of the wood stacks and large steel beams that are currently holding the house up.....as the builder wanted to finally settle half the house down onto it's new steel posts today (the posts were cemented in early this week).

Well, this was not to be as the house raisers didn't turn up. No phone call, no nothing! My builder called them and they will come tomorrow.

So tomorrow, half the house will finally be settled onto the new 'stumps' and the concreting of the other steel posts and footings (not all has been done yet) will start to occur.

I think the house will be resting in the more elevated position on it's new steel posts by Wednesday next week..........yay!

....then the real adventure begins with the pouring of the downstairs concrete slab.....

Concrete jungle

The concrete pour started yesterday morning. Basically they have filled up all the footings and the reinforced channels with cement - this includes around the steel posts. Here are some pics:



Picture 1 shows a temporary wood bracing that is keeping one of the steel post vertical iin th cement (I know the steel posts look out-of-whack in this photo, this is not a structural thing, it's due to my poor photography). The second photo shows the depth of the concrete pour - the young pup of an engineer came out to the site again on Friday and told my builder he had dug down too far (by about 1 foot) and wanted more drilling down (compared to his previous comments about wanting the footings dig in a further 900mm through the rock....so much for consistency).

Here is a picture from close to the front of the house - it gives a bit of a perspective of actually how high the house is off the ground.

Finally, here is the new view of my house across the valley (the red roof under the red 'my house' text. Previously you could only see a teeny-tiny part of the shabby red roof - now you can see most of the first floor. I'm thinking there are going to be great views from my (soon-to-be) kitchen window and back deck.

No action at the workside today - they are obviously waiting for the concrete to set and harden. Maybe tomorrow......

must go....my garlic and herb encrusted rack of lamb with roast vegies is now calling me to eat it...