Page 18 – How to build an extension

4 Plastering

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 / 0755

The plasterers were here at 0715 and the first plaster is up before 8.

Concrete blocks are laid on top of the trench blocks. The inner leaf will be made of these blocks up to the floor beams. The outer leaf will is concrete blocks under the ground, changing to normal house bricks where they will show above ground.

Floor

Sunday 2nd September 2012 / 20:05

Continuing at glacial pace with the construction of the timber floor. The joists need to be supported at exactly the right height to match the existing floor. Wooden blocks are cut or shaved down with a router to a tolerance of less than 0.5 mm so that support is even all over as when some of it is tiled later there must be no flex.

Foundations 26

Saturday, 18 September 2010 / 11:49

A hole for the rainwater drainage pipe to go through. The pipe will be removed eventually.

Foundations 27

Saturday, 18 September 2010 / 10:00

The outer skin is being built up to damp course level for this phase. The diminsions are adjusted slightly (40 mm wider) so that a whole number of bricks fits exactly. The bricks match the ones that were used to build the house. They’re just common cheap bricks. It would have been nice to have used some hand made bricks from Michelmarsh, but then they wouldn’t have matched.

Foundations 28

Sunday 26 September 2010 / 15:33

Foundations 31

Saturday, 2 October 2010 / 10:38

Existing brickwork has been removed ready for the new brick work to join to.

Foundations 32

Saturday, 2 October 2010 / 10:40

We’re pretty much ready for the concrete floor beams to be laid now.

Foundations 14

Friday, 27 August 2010 / 07:24

Boards made out of compressed giant Weetabix are used to hold back the sodden soil

Foundations 15

Saturday, 28 August 2010 / 10:59

It’s a lovely sunny Saturday morning. The rain’s stopped now, but there’s still a need for a submersible electric pump with float valve to keep the water level down while the builders are enjoying their bank holiday. I couldn’t resist giving the float a prod to see it go into action. It belched water and silt out somewhere down the garden for a while.

Foundations 16

Saturday, 28 August 2010 / 10:59

The first lorry load of concrete was poured yesterday. Some of it went into the well which was unearthed under the existing wall. This trench has been filled before the ones beyond it (i.e. to the right of the picture) because the ground needs to be strong enough to drive thee dumper across without collapsing.

Foundations 17

Saturday, 28 August 2010 / 11:23

Here’s a close up of the remains of the well which has been covered by the house wall for nearly 60 years. The building inspector wanted it filled with concrete, effectively turning it into a pile. It may have been partially filled when the wall was built over the top of it. Currently it’s about 7 feet deep and, curiously, the water level is always higher than the water table.

Foundations 18

Saturday, 28 August 2010 / 11:23

It’s great to wake up on a Saturday morning and go outside to find lots of interesting machinery on the lawn. They’ve hired a larger dumper truck to carry the concrete from the lorry to the trenches.

Foundations 19

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 / 07:32

Grab lorries are a cheaper way of disposing of waste soil and hardcore than skips. This one arrived at 7.30 am sharp. It gobbled huge chunks out of the pile. It managed about half the pile before it was full. The soil will end up in a site just this side of Pepperbox Hill near Salisbury.

Foundations 20

Thursday, 2 September 2010 / 20:00

The last of the trenches have been dug. They’ve managed to work around the rainwater drainage pipe. The garage will need to move over or get narrower, I’m not sure which yet.

Foundations 21

Thursday, 2 September 2010 / 20:01

This trench goes through where the mains water pipe comes through. I forgot to tell anyone about that. Must have caused a bit of water to squirt around until they got the temporary pipe in place.

As it’s Thursday night Nick’s arrived for something to eat before we have our weekly board meeting at the Gamekeeper. You can see him moving swiftly with our wine and tiramisu. Nick says that you should wear camouflaged trousers and checked shirts, regardless of fashion. And he does.

Foundations 22

Saturday, 4 September 2010 / 14:06

All concrete has now been poured. The grab lorry was here at 7.15 this morning clunking and scraping away at the pile of clay in the front garden. There’s still a good lorry load left to be taken away. At 9.30 New Forest Hire came to pick up the digger and the dumper truck.

There’s a bit of cleaning up to be done, which I’ll do today.

This aerial shot was taken by holding the camera up on the end of a pole after setting the camera’s time delay to 10 seconds.