New Joist

          We had the new 'through anchor bolts' delivered through the mail, and Josh put in a solid few hours today attaching some more piers to concrete. It was pretty perfect weather for it, quite cloudy so not as hot as it could have been, but still sweaty work! The house now has a new joist put up.

     There aren't too many piers left to be done now, hopefully will get some more work done this week.

Brackets

     Today Josh put in a steady few hours and drilled in the brackets for the floor supports. Unfortunately the cordless drill is not very happy about being recharged with the generator, so we had to have to generator on and use the big drill.

     Unfortunately the big drill is too big to fit between the brackets, so will have to figure something else out in order to drill the brackets to the floor supports when they are fitted.
     Ran into another problem - we seem to be short over 20 dynabolts from what the kit home company have supplied us. We have looked everywhere but no luck. How can we be sure that they weren't supplied and that we haven't just misplaced them? I am wishing now that we had gone through everything supplied and written some kind of list, oh well - too late now! Tomorrow we will see if we can buy some from the local hardware store (40 minutes on the bus) for a reasonable price.

New Drill

      Two more piers have been attached to the concrete, at the corners so that means a critical part of having everything lined up has been achieved. Josh is super-happy with his new drill, as it makes drilling the concrete so much easier. It is still hard work though, and exhausting walking up and down the hill on its own.

      I kept myself busy moving big rocks off the construction site for ease of walking and safety, and putting little rocks in a bucket and carrying it over to the driveway. Then I mixed them with clay chipped out of the roots of felled trees and used this to fill some holes in the driveway. Hopefully this will make the driveway less slippery the next time it rains.

      The other day I kept myself busy by rolling out the triticale mulch to make garden beds, and layering it with leaves raked up from around the shed and trundled down in the wheelbarrow. There is also a lot of weeding which needs doing around the clearing, as many weed seeds were brought in on the excavator which had never grown on this property before. I am trying to keep on top of it so that the first flush is removed as quickly as possible, but some plants are definitely getting away from me. Just some of the work that is indirectly involved in building the house.

House Site Defined

Some attaching of long bearers to make it look impressive for only a couple of hours work. Also, new drill!

The two far left corners still need to be squared and drilled into the concrete but the house site looks a lot more proper now there is a defined edge of the building. Also, the peaceful doves thinks it's a lovely place to perch.

Two more piers

      Yesterday we both didn't have to work for the first time in months, so we convinced each other to go down to the clearing and do some building work. The set-up to start work takes a bloody long time in itself - taking down all the tools that will be needed, a big bottle of water, running electrical cable from the generator shed, and starting the generator. All in the blazing hot sun. Then the really hard work starts.

      Previously all of the piers had been lined up both ways along the house site to ensure it was straight, and the metal pier had been cut to the right height.

     Step 1: Drilling with a hammer-drill - through the holes in the metal base - into the concrete, to make sure the holes are going to be in exactly the right place.

     











     Step 2: Moved the base out of way to reveal the holes and get them ready to drill properly. Drilled the holes to full depth, stopping a couple of times to pull the very fine concrete dust out and then using the air-compressor to blow the dust out of the holes. This air-compressor was originally purchased years ago to be used for painting with an air-brush. It was experimented with a couple of times but never actually used for air-painting, but luckily it has now had a second life! Full depth is reached when the drill bit gets deep enough for the piece of tape around the drill bit to be level with the concrete.

      Step 3: The dynabolts are put into the holes, and then due to the tight fit, are banged in with a hammer partially down the hole.

     Step 4: The plastic under-plate is placed over the dynabolts.

     Step 5: The metal base is placed on the plastic under-plate (requiring a little coercion with the hammer), then the washers placed on the dynabolts.

     Step 6: The nuts are screwed onto the dynabolts, and then the dynabolts are hammered down until they reach full depth.

     Step 7: The nuts are tightened so that the dynabolts do their magic underground expanding thing, which is what makes them tightly attached to provide maximum strength so that our house won't blow away in a big wind.

     Step 8: The pier is placed over the metal base-plate, and Josh stands back and looks pretty pleased with his handiwork.

     In theory it all seems quite simple and quick, but it is exhaustingly hot out in the clearing (since we had to clear all the trees for bushfire safety there is NO shade), and everything that is in the sun is burningly hot to touch, so poor humans get wiped out pretty quick. Two piers were done yesterday, and Josh had decided that the hammer-drill that he is using is not really up to the job. It really damages his wrist forcing it to drill the holes into the concrete, so next we are looking at buying a better tool. There are still a lot of holes that need drilling!

Floor

It's starting to look like a floor!

Bits attached to bits

Bits have been attached to bits...

And more bits attached to bits...

And more bits attached to bits.

Visible progress! Giant mechano set - for the win!