Day 31 - setting the beams

We finished drilling the holes through the ends of the beams and through the bearing plate.

Once drilled, we removed the beams from the footings then painted the bearing plates on the top of the posts and the cellar with a preservative (one of the few places we will be using a harmful chemicals) and cut damp-proof course for each bearing. The bearing plate and sheet of plastic were then attached to the underside of the beam with the threaded rod and welded washer. Once all of the beams were ready, we filled the hollow concrete blocks with concrete, placed the beam back in position and tapped the threadded rod and washer down into the wet concrete. This is the easy way to make sure that the bolt is in the right place for the beam. Once the concrete is set, we will bolt the beam to the post.

Thankfully, Dave volunteered to help us out at the right time - some of the beams were heavy - and we usually get visitors dropping by in the evening, and some of them bring beer!

One of the perks of working late!

Day 27 - post collars

Pat worked on Saturday to mix a few loads of concrete to build up collars around the base of each of the posts. He also filled the holes of the first block. We were worried about the stability of these posts, especially with the super-size bed of mortar, and about these blocks being knocked off their footing during construction. When in doubt add more concrete!

Day 25 - more concrete

When ordering the concrete we specified that we needed a conveyor, so that we could reach as many of the perimeter footings and as much of the holes in the concrete block walls as possible. We anticipated this being a slow tedious process, and had a trailer ready to take a load of concrete to fill some of the walls by hand. But we really lucked out.

The concrete truck driver/operator ended up being a friend of Pat's from his home town! He ended up spending over 2 hours methodically placing small amounts of concrete exactly where we needed it. Pat was even able to leave the site to go to most of his daughter's 2nd birthday party.


Pat made this hopper, with removable sections, that made the filling of the holes in the concrete block wall very easy and clean.

All of the holes in the wall that had rebar were filled with concrete to create vertical posts/beams within the wall. This strengthened the cross fin walls that carry most of the lateral wind loads in the two houses. We also filled holes points ever 900mm along the long walls, into which we inserted threaded rods with washers welded to the ends which were spaced in pre-drilled bearing plates.



Once set, we will remove the bearing plate, and put on a damp-proof course between the blocks and the wood. The ground floor structure will be bolted to the foundation wall.

Day 21 - rebar in pad foundations

Another partial day on site - a lot going on these days and it is hard to get in a full work day. The next load of concrete is not coming until next Tuesday, so we have not been pushed.

Pat was able to cut up all of the rebar mesh for the pad foundations, and we set up all of the pads. Once we get the vertical rebar bent and in place (which will tie the concrete block piers to the concrete pad) we will be able to

Day 20 - preparing pad foundations

We were only on site for a couple of hours today because of the rain, the kids being around and needing to sort out some of the details for the next phase of the project. But we did accurately lay out the positions and base height of the perimeter posts - using the old fashion methods of triangulation with two long measuring tapes, and a long board and level.

We then prepared the basic formwork for the 15 pads - most of them 1m x 1m square, with a bit of extra digging in some places and some filling in in others.

Day 6 - concrete

The start of the concrete pour - made with Ecocem GGBS cement.

To fill the main foundation we needed 2 truck deliveries, and a fair amount of moving the stuff around.

This is what 14 cubic meters of concrete looks like (at 30cm deep). Two phrases come to mind - "over-engineered" and "ecological footprint". Ecocem is better than typical concrete, but it is still not good enough.

Frames of rebars were assembled and inserted into the wet concrete once it was leveled. These vertical rebars tie the footing base into the vertical walls of hollow blocks, the holes then filled with concrete to make one continuous structure for the base of the building. This was seen as necessary to deal with the horizontal and racking loading of the building (primarily from wind), and it allows us to use less structure on the perimeter of the two houses.

Robbie the donkey came for a visit to see what was going on.

The completed primary slab, with vertical rebars in place.

View of one of the cellar rooms with rebars for the perimeter wall and the structural fin walls.

Day 6 - finished formwork

A 6 am start this morning shows the work we finished in the dark last night - the two plastic sheets lining the pit. Unfortunately we had to slice the plastic to work it around the cross bracing of the formwork.


Two layers of mesh rebar in place, with. an additional 11 lengths of rebar was placed on the lower layer of mesh to add more strength to the slab over the softer patch in the centre of the dig.

The finished formwork ready for concrete.