June, 2021 - Disaster Mansion

23/06/202123/06/2021

Someone dumped some gravel…

We’re not sure who put it there, but the plot thickens.

Yes it’s our gravel and it will form the sub-base for the concrete ground floor. We ordered 13 cubic yards (about 17 tons) and this should be enough to give us a 5″ – 6″ layer of gravel, main purpose of which is for drainage under the slab.

Shifting it will keep us busy but I think we’ll have it all done by the following weekend. My Dad used to order huge piles of soil, gravel, sand etc. so I’m used to the mental stamina required in moving it! Anyone fancy a workout?

I have to say that we were pretty impressed with the supplier, Denter Sand & Gravel. We ordered lunchtime and when we got to the house this evening it was already there!!!!

11/06/202112/06/2021

How to turn your house into a bungalow

And all in one evening!

This evening we took the staircase down to make it easier for the concrete pour. The new floor will be 4″ lower so this staircase wouldn’t have fitted anyway. It was decently made and we’ll use it as a guide to making the new one. That said the space seems a lot bigger with no stairs so we’ll see and it might be easier to get a certificate of occupancy without one.

So now we have a bungalow, albeit with a huge attic.

It also gave me a chance to beef up some of the footings before the pour. Probably difficult to see from the last photo, but you could stick your hand at least six inches under that supporting wall!!

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If I looked sweat drenched, I was. I think it was in the 90s outside with 100% humidity.

Now we have to work out how to heft the stairs out to our garage. Any volunteers?

09/06/202109/06/2021

Sub-floor electrical conduit installed

These past few weekends we’ve been chipping away concrete and putting down the electrical conduit which will carry the mains and low voltage (internet, phone etc.) cables into our house.

Our electrician, Tom Nash, told us what to do so we could save some pennies. I thought it would be a weekend job but it’s been more like three weekends, with at least half of that involving removing concrete from the underside of the footings which wasn’t a fun job, see first and second pictures.

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We felt the price increase that Covid has caused on building materials with this little lot of pvc costing close on $300.

Next task before concrete pour is to remove the staircase and do one last repair to the footings.