NOT THE BEGINING OF THE END, BUT IT IS THE END OF THE BEGINING

Just in time for the May Day holiday, completed the garage floor insulation, laid the steel mesh reinforcing, built a small form for the ramp, that took care of today, the floor layer cannot arrive until Monday, so we now have a few days of rest and relaxation.

Tarja doing the insulation on garage floor, double layer of Styrofoam, depth 10cm. just visible is the special drain in the floor, sand and dirt is collected in the bottom of it, easy to clean and stops fouling of the main drainage.All the insulation done, 15 x 15cm, 5mm wire mesh for reinforcing the floor, 3cm spacers under mesh to raise it up of Styrofoam, driving ramp form done at front.

All done, now all I have to do is wait till Monday, driveway is 20 meters long, means long interesting times when I have to do the snow work come winter, due to the building regs, I couldn't put the garage anywhere else, there must be a minimum of 4 meters between house and garage, neighbour would not give permission to move house 2 meters to the left, the boundary on the other side is fixed by the council, so no joy from them either.

Now we are all ready for the house package to arrive, that can be anytime after 12 May, there was absolutely no stress in this job so far, everything went like clockwork, we left ourselves a 2 week overlap, just in case of bad weather or illness, if you plan on something similar, then I would advise the same policy, the house manufacturers don't take kindly to delays, they usually charge a storage fee if you are late, not to mention the other contractors who may be put back because of unforeseen circumstances.

All done and dusted

Exactly 4 weeks to the day, that's the foundations ready, only managed to break into a sweat yesterday, filling up the inside of the house, doing the external insulation, rainwater drainage system, turned into a bit of a long day, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and crack on with it.
Started a 7am, trucks arrived with different mixtures of sand and gravel, the house was getting a filling of hardcore, quite a big size, up to 12cm, this was done in two parts, due to the depth, first layer about 50cm, then we had to tamp it down with the earth packer

FILLING UP TO THE FIRST LEVEL AND TAMPING DOWN.

After that came the pipe for RADON gas, it's classed as a cancerogenic in Finland, therefor we have to take precautions when we build, this is done by putting in the same type of pipe as used with the seepage drains, only a difference in diameter, this is a 125mm pipe, again full of small holes, the gas is supposedly to seep into this, then it is vented out through a pipe in the roof, whether RADON is harmful or not is open to debate, in USA studies have shown it to be harmless, over here it will kill you, who to believe? What's done is done and no other way to go about it.
After the pipe was put in, another layer of hardcore, again 50cm in depth, again tamped down, ready for the final layer, this was a much finer grade, purely gravel, this is the capillary level, which explains the lack of sand, it is to stop any moisture, which may come up from the ground penetrating to floor level.

FILLING UP THE SECOND LAYER OF HARDCORE.

CAPILLARY LEVEL ALL TAMPED DOWN

Meanwhile, Tarja continued with the insulation on the outside, this consists of Styrofoam sheets, all the way around the house, the corners are made a little bit wider, 1.5m long walls are done to a distance of 1.2m, 10cm thick. Reason being, the severe winters and more importantly, ground frost penetration, sometimes it can go to about 80cm deep, if you don't take these precautions it could surely wreck your foundations.

THERMAL INSULATION, LARGE PIPE FOR SEEPAGE DRAIN, SMALL FOR RAINWATER

Rainwater drainage, quite simple really, a flexible pipe which has joints put in at every point where the drain will go on the surface, that is then led of to the main rainwater drain.

BLOODY MOLES, THIS WILL BE THE DRIVEWAY.

THAT SOLVED THE MOLE PROBLEM.

Nothing much going to happen for the next two weeks, try and get the garage floor laid, no big disaster if it doesn't happen, do the preparation for it this week, but with the big celebration for May day, getting a hold of the floor specialist may be a bit more than an academic question, of course I will have to come to the site occasionally for deliveries, roof trusses, gyproc boards, wool insulation, timber, all sorts of paraphernalia.

SOMETHING NEEDS FILLING IN

That's it then, foundations are ready, just need the digger to arrive on Monday, then we can start to get the ground somewhere near the final height. Tarja started putting down some of the Styrofoam insulation around the back of the house and garage, Ari and I slummed around doing the 101 odd jobs that were still awaiting our attention, anyway, everything is ready for the next stage.

Tarja, measuring the Styrofoam on the gable end.Gable end insulated.Now it's the turn of the garage.Another piece of the puzzle put into place.Anchor for one of the pillars on the back terrace.

Finishing touches

Friday, This is us doing the finishing touches to the house foundations, we are putting the stone chippings onto the surface of the breeze blocks, these were prepared on Tuesday, when we put the light render onto the surface. The reason why I am doing this at this stage is twofold, 1, if we wait until the ground is filled in, it makes for an exceedingly uncomfortable working position, you are either bent double or on your knees, 2, the house actually overlaps the breezeblocks, making it very difficult to get the adhesive all the way to the top same goes for the stone chips.

Start off by giving the surface a light going over with a carborundum stone, just to make sure that there are no sticky up bits adhering to the surface. after this is done, lightly moisten the surface that you are going to apply the adhesive to, this is a cement based adhesive, designed for this purpose. The adhesive is applied with a toothed trowel onto the surface of the blocks.



Application of the adhesive, with the toothed trowel.
After the surface has been coated, proceed to smooth out the adhesive, the reason for this is, using a toothed trowel, ensures that an equal amount of adhesive is applied and that the coating is of the same depth.

Smoothing out the surface, in preparation for the stone chips.
Ari applying the stone chips, these vary in size, from 2 mm to 6 mm, we did it by hand, there is a special trowel on the market, but it takes a bit of getting used to, so we just did it the old fashioned way. Just throw the chippings onto the still wet adhesive, maintaining an even covering all the way.

Finally, once the chips are on the surface, lightly press them into the adhesive, this ensures that they are bedded in properly, the finished surface needs no maintenance after this, that is it.

Detail of corner.

All visible surfaces covered with chippings, the base is now ready for filling, all that takes is a digger with driver, 180 cubic meters of gravel, that should happen on Monday, over the next couple of days we will be doing some insulation to the ground and putting some of the rainwater drainage system in place.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

There is an old saying. ``Make hay while the sun shines´´. Well it has been belting down for the last week, which allowed us to continue at a cracking pace, everything is on schedule, no delays as yet, strange when only two weeks ago we had snow on the ground, if the warm weather has arrived, hope it sticks around for a while yet.

Wednesday and Thursday, that saw us doing the bricklaying for the garage, no point in adding more images of bricklaying, we have already covered that. I'll just stick in a few to show a some different things we have done on the garage.

Bending threaded rod, this will become one of the anchors for the baseplate on the garage.

Threaded rod anchor in place, these are set at every 1.2 meters.The finished item, the baseplate is drilled through and a washer and nut bolt the base down.Front of the garage, showing the door opening, the door will be 5 meters wide driven by a remote controlled motor.Side of the garage, showing where the two doors will be, one is access to the garage, the other to the store for garden tools.

That takes care of Wednesday and Thursday, tomorrow we start on the stonechippings for the house, while Tarja will be taking care of the garage insulation.

A bit of preparation

Monday and Tuesday, this See's us preparing the foundations prior to filling, Tarja came down to the site, she started on the Styrofoam insulation on the inside, Ari and I started on the plastic sheeting and list that goes around the outside.

Dimpled plastic sheet, this is for waterproofing the outside of the foundations, the reason it is dimpled, this is to allow an air gap, just in case of ambient moisture infusing the Cinder/breeze/harko blocks.

Sheeting fitted, this will be the finished ground level.

Detail of sheeting with list on the top.Detail of insulation on the inside, 2 layers of 5cm each, to a depth of 1 metre, an inner strip of 20cm against the breeze/cinder block.All the way around, Tarja is really good at these little jobs that I find for her, start her of with something nice and light, build her up or the heavy stuff, (hope she doesn't read this).

After the sheeting was in place, it was then time for me to apply a light render to the surface of the cinder block, this serves a few purposes, 1, it gives a nice smooth finish to the blocks, making it easier to apply the stone chip dashing that comes on top. 2, the render itself is impregnated with glass fibres, making it a very durable base, 3, it has water repellent qualities.

Just finishing off the render, really must do something about the grey hair though.

Final brick in the house

Saturday, 19th, At last, put the final brick in the house foundations, took a little over 7 days to do it, I'm not a fast bricklayer, also, I'm not a slow bricklayer, could call me `` A Half-Fast´´ bricklayer, come on think about it.


Detail of front porch, showing reinforcing and Styrofoam insert to prevent a ``Coldbridge´´
The metal strip to the left of the photo, this is what gets attached to the frame of the house to keep it in place, these are spaced at about one meter intervals.


House foundations, the lower point on the back wall is where the terrace will be, the blob in the middle is the support for the fireplace.
A few tips, if you ever decide to build your own place, buy or hire a laser building level, it saves a lot of time and effort, quite possibly a bit of cash too, use it to do last row of bricks, as the tolerance for an element house is, + - 5mm, as you would appreciate, the better the level, then a lot easier to continue.
Measuring for square, an old and tried method, is to do a cross measure, measuring from corner to corner, a much more precise method, is, take side A and side B, multiply A x A plus B x B = C, take the square root of C, this will tell you exactly in millimeters what your cross measure should be.
Having made things level and square, then proceeding to the next stage is a walk in the park.
That's it for this week, next on the agenda, insulation, then the electrician can come and put in a few cables, waterproofing, stone chipping, rainwater pipes and not forgetting the garage foundations.

Lego for adults

Tuesday and Wednesday, just a continuation of the bricklaying, most of what has been done so far is left underground, the foundations are a little deep, due to the severity of the winters, it also explains why it is such a robust foundation. Every second row of bricks has two strips of 10mm steel for reinforcement, towns engineer, when asked, ``Why it has to be so robust?´´. Replied, ``We want that the foundations last for 100 years´´. Which I suppose is a good thing, at least I wont be around to complain to.
DETAIL OF STEEL REINFORCING

MORE DETAIL

JONI, BUILDING THE SUPPORT FOR FIREPLACE.

MORE MATERIALS ARRIVE, this time it is the Styrofoam for the foundations insulation, probably 20% of the cost goes into insulation. anyway, in a few weeks all of that will be buried, never to be seen again, just takes time getting there.

KEEPING BUSY

No rest for the wicked, or so I have heard, must have been grossly bad at some stage in my life.

Thursday saw us putting up the lines for the bricklaying, so it was measure, saw and screw all day, as it is a packet/element/flat pack house, or whatever you want to call it, there is not much room for error in the measurements, not that the towns engineer would let you get away with it, that's why it took the whole day.

Lines set out for the bricklaying

First bricks in place, only another 600 or so to goBack of the house, just as a matter of interest, like the neighbours colour choice? Lilac, I ask you?

Friday saw us start on the bricklaying proper, the first row is always a little slow, as I try to get it straight and level, still we managed to do a complete round of the house foundation, the weather has improved, dull and cloudy, but dry, which is more important, as long as the inclement weather can hold off for the next two weeks, then we will be right on track for having the base ready.

ARI, in charge of the mixer, keeping me well supplied, sometimes too well supplied.

Just a smidgen more water, or what?

A GIANT LEAP FOR BUILDINGKIND

Today saw us take a leap forward, the towns engineer came and gave us the go ahead to carry on, I was never really worried about it, but one can never tell, anyway, without his say so, you cannot proceed.

BETON PUMP TRUCK ARRIVES
STRANGE HOW THEY ALWAYS COME IN PAIRS

Midday, true to the timetable the first delivery of liquid concrete arrived, 15 minutes later we were pouring it into the form. 45 minutes the job took, then the next hour was spent tidying things up and smoothing things out.

STARTING TO FILL THE MOULD

True to form, as in the last time, it rained while we were pouring, it only eased off once the mass was down, well, it takes a couple of hours before it starts to harden, so we had plenty of working time over, it was counted quite precisely, just how much we needed, 8 cubic metres, we had a few teaspoons left over, still that's the way it should be, nothing harder to get rid off than a chunk of concrete.

SMOOTHING IT DOWN, this makes the bricklaying much easierJIM AND ARI, discussing whats next.

That's the first stage of the build taken care off, hopefully, if I have measured correctly and got the heights in the right level, it should be fairly straightforward for the next stage, I would like to emphasize at this point, if you do a good foundation, then everything else falls into place neatly, a mistake follows you throughout the build, just because most of it is hidden, does not mean it is unimportant.

READY FOR INSPECTION

Monday and Tuesday, these days were spent in final adjustments to the foundations

The foundation blocks have a tolerance of plus/minus 1cm, so it is not so exact, of course the better you do it, the better the result, so the blocks which were too high, we scraped away a little off the surface, those that were too low, we added a little sand under them, now everything is about as level as we need.

JIM, CHECKING THE LEVEL, USING THE LASER LEVEL

Then it was time to put in the steel reinforcing, in this case it is two strips of 12mm rolled steel, fortunately I have the tool for doing the bending, otherwise it would be very difficult, I've no idea why the towns engineer determines that it must be 12mm steel, in the previous ones I have built, not just for myself, but for others as well, it has only been 10 mm, maybe we have joined up to some earthquake area, or the ground is too clayish and need a bit more strength.

TOOL FOR BENDING THE STEEL, picture shows bending threaded rod. life would be so much more difficult without this tool.

3 PICTURES TAKEN OF THE FOUNDATIONS AND STEEL REINFORCING.

This picture was taken to show what the traditional wooden formwork takes, certainly those blocks that we have used saved us a lot in time and materials, guess that's development for you.
Now we are ready at least for the town engineer to come and inspect the form and reinforcing, after he gives the go ahead, then we can pour the concrete, hope it passes, as the concrete is ordered for midday tomorrow, also hoping that the weather fairy is with us, as I look out the window now, well it is the proverbial cats and dogs, either way, tomorrow is a big day, rain or shine, stand by for inspection