Concreting

Last post, my trench was full of snow. Now, it is full of concrete. This is apparently much better at supporting buildings.

I finally got to use the breaker I had hired. The machine was electric, but it had the form of a traditional pneumatic road drill. I spent the whole of a day breaking stone out of the trench (ably and enthusiastically assisted by the beautiful Rob Probin). I suspect the extension would have been just fine built on the rock that was there, but I guess it is probably better to do things right...

So anyway, then I put the steel reinforcement (yes, a 2:1:1 concrete mix just isn’t strong enough for my house, the foundations have to reinforced too), then jammed some bits of wood across the trench to indicate the level for the concrete. Typically you would use pegs driven in to the bottom of the trench to show the level, but that is not an option when the bottom of the trench is solid rock. So after that, the trench looked like this.

See that big pile of bags of stones basking in the sun behind the dustbins in the photo above? That was not nearly enough to make all the concrete I needed. I got a mixer and hired a guy called Malcy. Malcy worked like a Trojan and I had to go and buy another half tonne of materials to finish the job. But it all got done in a day, and now looks like this:

Okay I know, it is all covered up, you can’t actually see my lovely foundation. But anticipation is half the fun... at least you had the anticipation. What do you mean, unfulfilled? Okay, sorry. But look, you can see the frost on the cover. It NEEDS to be covered, okay? I’ll uncover it next week and take a picture for you, okay?