MORE Precariously Placed but all systems go

Well, under my house looks a bit like a labyrinth at the moment. They've dug more than 3-4 feet down and the house now looks particularly unstable on the square blocks of dirt underneath the railway sleeper stacks. The tradies have to walk across planks (the one above has a bit of pink paint on it) that span the footing channels so that they don't cave in.

Sorry, this second picture is a bit dark. It's looking towards where the front stairs will go up. I've included this one to show you that my builders have also done some landscaping...they moved the palm tree (it's now in the top right of the picture rather than against the house).

The plank of wood in the picture (going up to the roof from the ground) is for the 3 possums that were in residence in the ceiling of my house.... Before the house was raised, I put 2 possum boxes up in the mango tree out the back. The builder thinks 2 possies have moved in to them....we're not sure about the 3rd possum. We won't know if it is still in the roof space until the old roof comes off.

Although the soil is good - underneath is a heck of a lot of red clay but lucky for the footings and foundation, we've hit weathered rock. This means there is less drilling down required (so will reduced some of the costs.....hopefully this will mean the cost of concreting the driveway can be absorbed by the current allowances).

The steel posts (blue ones in the first picture) will actually be inside all the walls - they are not yet fixed in the ground supporting the house yet.....they are just resting on the steel reinforcing until the concrete pour.

Concreting was meant to start 2 days ago (Thursday) but the 20yo engineer at the footing site inspection was being purist by the plans and wanted the builder to take out all the steel posts and reinforcing and dig down a further 900mm (through the weathered rock). The plans specify digging down xyz distance or until hitting weathered rock.

This would have been a huge set-back in time (it's about a week of extra work) and additional cost, so my builder asked for a second opinion from a more senior engineer. Thank god the senior engineer agreed with my builder and so it's now all systems go again.....

My builder rang me late yesterday, the concrete pour is now scheduled for monday (5 June).

My builder keeps telling me about the views I now have from 'upstairs' - soon I'll go up the ladder into the house and take some pics and give you a peek-preview......

Forgot to mention. A toe wall has also been put in down the driveway/garage side of the house so they can level off the block somewhat...