Week 1-3: Diggers! Site preparation and piering (28 Apr - 15 May)

WEEK 1-3: MAY 2015 SITE PREPARATION

Week 1 (28 April - 4 May) saw us with a muddy puddle as shown in my last post.

Week 2 (5-8 May)

We thought maybe a couple of wet days could be justified with soggy earth 

which basked in beautiful sunshine all week drying out

 but by Thursday 7/5 and Friday 8/5  with still no action on site we thought something was not right... then came the email saying our supervisor had been replaced. 

Fortunately the new site supervisor (SS) was quick to get things moving 

By Saturday 9/5 JD Concreting were back on site doing more leveling. 

 and we could start to see our built up side for the drop edge beams emerge. 

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Week 3 (11-15 May) 

We could see our SS was a man with a plan, with contractors on site early Tues 12/5 to drill piers. We are yet to find out if we exceeded our 120 lineal metres - surely not! Same to be discovered on the import/export of fill to find out if our allowance of 110 tonnes import/20 tonnes export. 

 Here you can see the rows of piers underpinning the garage (foreground)

And here is our built up wall on the low side 

showing piering underneath where the drop edge beam will go. 

I just couldn't help myself... I snuck into the site after dark, found the pier that goes deep underground and underpins the very core of the entry to our home and wrote our initials J, J, A, C, D into the wet cement. It's trespass and vandalism, sure, but it's mostly sentimental! 

New Site Supervisor

We met our new SS on Wednesday and he seemed like a really reasonable and approachable guy. He's fairly snowed under with 16 builds, but hoping handing over a few of those at completion will free up some time for him to progress ours. 

We would love it if he kept our job until the end, even if he's travelling from the central coast to do it. We asked if we were dreaming to be in by Christmas (current 40 week timeframe more like end of Feb) and he didn't rule it out (although I'm not holding my breath as that is only 34 weeks!). 

Retaining Walls

We also asked about the retaining walls needed on the high side of the block. We have a 1,5m setback and we thought there was a risk hubby would be out there digging the walls outwith a shovel for a year of Sundays after the build if the landscaper couldn't get a machine down such a narrow side. The conclusion after speaking with a couple of landscapers is that the machines can fit down 1.2m and the risk of having to do it manually was better than building the wall now and it being damaged during construction.

What's up next?

We saw some formwork up by Friday, a promise of things to come with the slab going down next Friday 22/5. Before then there is a silt fence and plumbing (external drainage and internal plumbing) to happen.