Day 67 - finishing the ground floor structure

We had a fair amount of rain overnight, and we have found that our strategy for keeping water off of the wood floor slab is not working. We lifted the plastic in a few places and found some water sitting on the surface of the OSB board. At the moment it does not seem to be doing any damage, but it will eventually leak down into the hemp/lime insulation. We can't wait until the rest of the frames are up and the roof on before doing something, so we have decided to finish putting in the first floor joists and structure and then to cover the entire frame with a big sheet of polytunnel plastic.
We spent the day finishing putting the top plate into position and preparing for the joists.

Day 64 - part 3 - covering up

While a few of us continued to work on securing the framing that had been temporarily nailed together, Pat and the rest of the crew that continued to help out set to work laying heavy builders' plastic on the floor in anticipation of rain. Having pulled up the one large sheet of plastic earlier in the day, we needed to make sure that the wooden floor slab did not get too wet. The solution we came up with was to create shallow pans or tanks in each of the spaces of the houses, from which the excess water would drain away through the door openings. Though not an ideal or perfect solution it is the best option we have, as it will allow us to continue to work, while protecting the floor.

Once again we have been blessed with he weather! About an hour after the main sections of the floor were covered with plastic it rained!

Day 29 - water and plastic

We rented a submersible pump to remove most of the water from the cellars and the pit outside the cellar walls - about 30-40 cm of water in total was pumped out very quickly.

We then layered heavy gauge plastic sheeting around the entire perimeter of the cellar, temporarily securing it to thie top bearing plate. This plastic overlapped the sheets that came up from the base - a 'poor man's tanking' which will probably keep out most of the water, we hope. If not we will have to rent that pump again!

The site is ready for back-filling all of the excavations.

Flooding

A huge amount of rain fell yesterday, and most of the excavations for the posts were flooded this morning.
As was the cellar. One of the houses had more water than the other - indicating that there was a leak somewhere. Hopefully the plastic lining will deal with that.



We used a few hoses to siphon the water from the perimeter excavations into main pit (which is almost 1m deeper. It was a slow process but we managed to get all 15 pits cleared of water before the concrete truck arrived in the afternoon.

Day 15 - more than half way done the blocks!

Pat did a lot of work yesterday, and we continued today to build up the wall, completing the fourth course of seven (these photos were taken the following morning).



There has been a fair amount of rain lately, and we have had to scoop out water from the floor of the foundation in order to be able to work. The level of the water in the main pit on the outside of the cellar wall is just below the level of the concrete slab.