Spur Wing Shed House

Wall is now finished and concrete fill poured into hollow blocks with heaps of reinforcing metal. Everyone did a neat clean job of it. THe bright green concrete pump is an amazing piece of gear. It's reach is quite phenomenal.

Wall should be finished tomorrow. This is after 5 days of work. Erecting the wall is just the start. We still need to fill the hollows with concrete, waterproof the back, insert drainage pipes, fill behind with aggregate and top it off with a surface drain. There will not be much change from $100k when finished.

I took the drone for a spin now that after 3 days the wall is about half way built.

Day 2 of the retaining wall build and they have found their rhythm with three times the blocks laid today than was laid on the first day. The block-layers I was lucky to get have the reputation of being the best in town. The wall is perfectly neat, clean and straight. I come up to the block almost every day at sunset. This morning I came at 5:30 to see the sunrise as well because I needed to make up the orange electrical mains conduit so that the block layers could cut a hole in the wall to let it through. You can see it poking up in the above picture. This evening Paul and Fiona came up, and for the second night running we stayed well after dark as Paul and I discussed the perennial problem of how we are going to handle the storm water. Building the house will be a piece of cake compared to the effort we have put into the groundworks to mitigate the storm surges. Erosion is the enemy of living on a side of the hill, but I am confident we will have it sorted, thanks to Paul's ...

Finally some above-ground erections! The 85m retaining wall has begun! ...And the waste water plumbing....

The final footings for the retaining wall behind the shed and tanks were poured yesterday. Earlier I managed to solve the puzzle of cutting pipe to the correct length, and selecting the correct angles to make this conduit that goes under the footing. It took a couple of hours, but was not an unpleasant weekend task, apart from the wounds and scratches from the unforgiving rebar. The conduit is to house a water pipe so that I can get water up to the terraces behind and above the house. The council people have delivered and installed my sewer system. It is an LPSS (Low pressure Sewer System) which is a tank with an integrated grinder and pump so that the contents can be forced through a narrow 40mm pipe rather. The whole suburb around me has them, and their combined effort is to push the shit up and over the hill. I have to pay for the power to make it work. The council workers are very critical of the system. Many fail after just a few months, and others last for years. They...

The footings for the southern retaining wall were poured last Thursday. Preparations for the northern retaining wall are well advanced. The wall is over 80m long with an average height of around 1.6m. Note the massive storm water pit. One of two planned in the apron area between the house and shed. Commercial grade pits. The shed kit has arrived. The weather has been fine over the last week and sunny and warm over the next week. Hopefully this will accelerate these final groundworks, and get the wall started. It is a race against time to get the wall finished to secure the slope before the storm season.

This is a 3D model of the structural elements. Slowly getting there... The rear footings have been poured, after a delay of 24 hours due to rain.

I spoke too soon. Just 7 days after we had 35mm, we have just had another 42mm, and the trenches are flooded again, delaying the project once again.

Sunny days are back again. The excess water pumped out to allow for big footings for the house columns to be poured. That is over three cubic metres per footing, or over four tonnes, bolted to each column.

There was 35mm for rain at the block last weekend, so without all of the drainage in place, the water found its way to whatever holes that were around, resulting in an unplanned lap-pool.

The first slab has been poured! This is for the shed, although it will be three months before the shed builders get around to completing the structure. Some uninvited vistors last Saturday night, probably of the youthful variety meant security at the entrance needed beefing up. Consequently the large rocks I had in inventory were put to good use in creating a barrier as well as an interesting first impression.

At last there is no more dirt to move. Some gravel has arrived, which hopefully will reduce the burden of mud that results from the tiniest of rainfall. The grass on the bank is becoming quite lush in the places where most of the seed landed. Footings are dug.