Steel Supports

As part of the garage renovation, I wanted to reinforce the bearers and posts. I bought some 8mm thick angle steel, some bolts and some coach screws.

Drilling into the steel (13mm holes) was a lot easier than I expected. Especially with one of those cheap 1/2 horse power drill presses from kmart. Admittedly 2hp would have been better. I drilled a 4mm pilot hole and then the 13mm. I kept lubricating with wd40 to keep it cool. It took around 1 minute to drill. I set the drill to its lowest speed. The steel came off in nice little sharp spirals.

Here is the end result (kind of). Coach screws to go in, steel to be painted and of course so is the concrete. The holes down the bottom are for rebar.

Giant Radishes and Compost

One of the giant raddishes removed to prepare the garden bed. Past their eat by date.

About 6 months worth of compost going into the vege patch. Really smells. Wheely bins are great for composting. The holes in the bin clogged up, so I enlarged them to 8mm.


I visited Edcon Steel for some angle iron. Their customer service was spot one, amazing, helpful and well priced. I can't wait to purchase more steel.

Concrete Path

After about 4-6 hours, the concrete was set enough to finish the step...

I added a contraction / crack gap in the middle and a micro spoon drain at the end. Hopefully the water will run off into the garden.

Concrete Path

The path has to be done. I thought and thought and decided if I am going to make the concrete path, it would be good to get it over with. I only used 7 20kg bags of cement and I took a bite out of the excess sand I had from the driveway.

I had to form up a step and here it is. In a few more hours after it does its initial set, I'll take off the front timber and finish it with a broom finish.

Suddenly the mixer stopped - it over heated. I waited a bit and then pulled out a server fan for extra cooling. This is a very good reason not to get this mixer for trade use. You don't want any delays when concreting.

Opps, spare concrete. I though I would box it.

Louka's Throne

Just went to Ikea to buy Louka a comfy chair in washable fake leather. Being a small child, I made a platform for the chair and now it is a thone/highchair. The platform also serves as a step for her to get onto the chair and I doubt whether she will be able to tip it over. I'm going to line the base in carpet so it can be slid along the floor.

Concrete Repair

This is a crop from an old photo of what the path use to look like. You can just make out the rough concrete. Kind of looks like an awkward path.

Here I have moved the hose reel and the platform at the top of the stairs looks stable and usable. More concreting to go to replace the pavers.

A close up of the concrete repair a week later.. You can barely notice the "seam" and definitely no cracking or crumbling.

Concrete Path and Being Sick

Inspite of having a dreadful virus (sore muscles, sore throat, flem etc), I thought I would soldier on and fix up the path.

When I first put in the steps up from the garage level, I had to remove one because the head clearance over the step was a bit low. This left me with some jagged concrete and exposed re-inforcing.

To fix up the jagged concrete, I used my angle grinder with a diamond blade (+ Liz continuously spraying the blade with water) to cut out a 50mm deep rebate below where the step use to be. Then came out the cheap almost useless Ozito jack hammer to remove the concrete. I also cut down further the exposed re-inforcing. I used non-shrink grout to fill in this rebated section.

Also in the photo you can see the corner slab and the added step. You can also see the contraction joint between the corner slab and the repaired concrete.

I had to wait around 4 hours before the concrete had set enough to remove the step form and do the finishing.

I'm really hoping that because I did such a deep rebate, used non shrink grout and put in a conctraction joint, the repair will work and not just crumble.

I also buried some 100mm diameter agricultural pipe to run pipes and cables through.