15th - 19th February 2010

Monday
A day off for the builders but Dave still went back for more - more floor levelling and more concrete watering.

Tuesday
An action packed day with 5 vehicles and a digger - shows what happens if you offer to pay people lots of money.

The builders returned to continue preparing the house floor for the concrete .....

... with Dave still on levelling and watering the sand.


... while the plumbers returned to install the water tank and stormwater drains ....



They had to dig out the site of the water tank

and then await the arrival of the tank.

We'll have the enormous one please.

Wednesday
On with screeding the floor for some .....

and then it got serious with a stereo effort.

But the main excitement came from trying to get that huge tank down the hill and into its correct place.

It was clear they had done it all before...

but still fun to watch.

I'm not quite sure what Dave thought he was going to do but at least he was willing.

Having got it on one side, they just had to get it down the hill (but not too far). A big heave ....

and then the wait to see where it where it would stop.

It was all good and with a final bit of fine adjustment .....

... it was nicely tucked out of the way.

Add some pipes and yay we have a water tank.

And meanwhile yet again, the real work of the day was taking place in the veggie patch where I turned my effort to the next section of the flax border and turned this ....

... into this. And yes, all but one of the flaxes that were hidden in the grass were still alive and thriving.

Thursday
Dave was given the job of dismantling the boxing around the garage floor. This was much harder that he anticipated as the supports were rather well fixed in some places. Still, it looked rather good when it was done.

The others were putting the final touches to the house foundations - at least with the sand all covered it no longer needed to be watered.

Just about ready for the concrete. This was to have been delivered on the Friday but bad weather had delayed the previous job so Monday it is (weather permitting).

8th - 12th February 2010

Three days off for Dave and on Monday he was back on full duties. Had to get everything ready for the big tomorrow...

Tuesday
The concrete truck cometh.

Lots of action ...

and some very skilled work.

With a little help from a laser ...

and other machinery ...

it all turned into a rather fine flat floor.

which had to be prevented from drying out too quickly. So the task of the moment was dam building so the floor could be kept covered with a centimetre or so of water.

Wednesday
Moving day! Dave was allowed a day off to move from our lovely old home of 22years to a small rental house near our new section. It was all so hectic though that there was no time to be sad or nostalgic. It also meant that from now on Dave would be able to report for duties at 7am rather than 8am.

Thursday
Dave's time was split between ponding the garage floor ...

and redistributing the sand on the house site. Still about one third to go and two enormous piles of sand to shift.

Up the other end of the house, Neil had been making great progress.

but then the weather turned very wet and though Neil pressed on regardless for most of the morning, even he was forced to take a ten minute breather at the height of the downpour.

This was all good for the garage though.

Friday
The first part of the house site was now ready to be covered and it was a big relief to get this done before any more sand blew away. It has thicker polystyrene sheets at the front for better insulation as the concrete floor is to be left exposed to absorb the heat from the sun.


Dave continued to soak the garage ...

and was greatly relieved to discover that Neil had to stop early, which gave him time to erect our new post box - given to us by the neighbours and with a temporary number while we await the artwork commissioned from niece Katie.

1st - 4th February 2010

Everything had gone so smoothly last week and great progress had been made but then a storm arrived at the weekend, with gale force winds, to set things back a bit. The packets of polystyrene that had arrived last week had scattered themselves across the neighbourhood and Dave spent much of Monday retrieving them. Incidentally this gave him an excuse to have a close look at some of the neighbouring sections and saved him from a bit of digging, so it was all good. Several of the sheets had attached themselves to blackberry bushes, another was at least 300m up the gully and at least one was never found.



Meanwhile, back on the site, the sun and wind were blowing away the sand foundation and needed constant watering.

Because of this problem, and because labourer Richard was away on holiday, it was decided to proceed with the garage floor first and get that covered and concreted rather than waiting until the whole site was ready.

Tuesday
The sand on the garage floor had to be raised to the correct level. It was clear that the original floor preparation was slightly too low, so more sand had been brought in and Dave had spent his time distributing it evenly and bringing it up to the right height.

Once done, polystyrene was put on the inside of the foundation wall and covered with black polythene.


Wednesday
The garage floor was ready to be covered.

And Dave had to turn his attention to the enormous job of raising the height of the house floor.

By the end of the day, the polythene on the garage floor had been covered by polystyrene sheets ....

and reinforcing metal laid on them ....

and it was all tied down, just in case.
Thursday
Nearly ready now. The metal reinforcing has been lifted up on its supports and nicely tied into the metal around the edge wall.


while Dave had developed his own implement to compact down his redistributed sand and had completed about a quarter of the house site. Quite hard work, I'm reliably informed.

Friday
Well everything stops for the rugby in this part of the world! The sevens had come to town and that meant a welcome day off for Dave. Although the sun and wind meant he had to visit to water the house site, at least he didnt have to get there by 8am.