Raking House Site

     The rest of the joists haven't been screwed in yet, but here is a photo of them after they were placed. The last one is waiting for the rest to be screwed in before being placed.

     Note the trees which will be the view, and the small mountain behind it. Absolutely beautiful watching the mists drift across it, and the sun on it in the afternoon - this will be our living room window!
     I exhausted myself yesterday raking under the house site to remove the rocks - big and small - so that in future when we are crawling around under there (because it will inevitably happen) it will be less uncomfortable. It is pesky work, and after 6 hours in the hot sun I only have one third of it done. Luckily there is added motivation - the smaller rocks along with the lumps of clay (of which there are plenty) are collected into a bucket and poured onto the driveway at the most troublesome spots.

Finished laying joists

          Yesterday Josh laid all the joists, and drilled half of them to the brackets. It was a quick job, lucky because he did not start until quite late in the day! It was lovely to be working out of the sun, and in the afternoon chill, to counter the hot sweatiness that you get when doing physical work. He also enjoyed not having to constantly having to get down on his knees in the dirt, as was the case when drilling the piers. This photo was taken when only halfway done, before it got too dark to take photos.

          Next step is to finish drilling the joists to the brackets, then to lay the under-floor insulation.

Finished piers!

     Today is not a very exciting photograph, but it is a very exciting day nonetheless. Today Josh finished bolting down all of the piers!

     The next step is to put some more of the joists on...

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.