Water Proofing

I've started the water proofing of the retaining wall. Yesterday I went around patching up any holes with mortar.

I also used some of the excess mortar to re-attach some bricks in a retaining wall in the park next to our place. They are a little bit wonky, but that is because I ran some steel re-inforcement (gal n16) through them. My guess is that they originally got knocked off my a push bike glacing the side of the wall. I also used white mortar so hopefully it will fade with mold to match the rest of the mortar. I found the bricks, that matched the rest of the wall, in my back yard sometime ago.

I managed to squirm and fit beside some of the tighter spots between the block wall and my shoring. Incidently I tried to tighten up my belt again today - it seems to be stretching - and I ran out of holes. I may have to put another one in. I'm fond of this leather belt, I've had it since University.

I managed to put the primer on with about 1/3 of the drum left. I may put on a second coat tomorrow.

Steel Inspected

I got my steel inspected today. No problems :) I changed it a bit. I said that the concreter suggested a 200mm slab rather than trying to compact some fill on topof my footings. I rang the engineer and he aid ok providing that I had two layers of mesh. I explained this to the council guy and he reply "why wouldn't you".

I ended up suspending the expansion joint just offset over the internal beam. I guess it defeats the purpose of having an expansion joint.

Slab Steel

The slab's steel arrived today. 22 x SL92 - Another 1.5 tons of steel. Initially the guy said he would have to but it on the verge - oh no! Then we worked out he could put it just in front of the house if I removed the fence. Then I offered to give him $50 if he could put it into the garage. He did it! Only then he told me that it was illegal to do what he did - opps. I guess that means unsafe or something.



It took me the day to umm and arr about how to lay the mesh. I ended up cutting them in two and putting them in a pattern around the piers. The mesh cut in half were nice and manageable 33kg sheets. I layed out just over half the mesh. Not bad going as the concreter said it would take a couple of guys two days to do the whole thing.



Yesterday I nailed expansion foam to the sides of the block walls using micky pins.



The surveyor came today and marked out the RL on one of the posts.

oh no, 2 cores not full

I stripped off quite a few boards and everything was going fine - all cores filled and then suddenly I discovered two, side by side, not full!

Fortunately, it was only the last block or two that was not full. I made up some mortar and shoved it up there. Pretty much symbolic as there are no post near by and ultimately it does not need to support much.

Core Filling Blocks

The concrete guys were delayed today. They got there though, any everything was done fairly quickly. It took 2 loads of concrete.

I only had a problem with one core and I had to manually fill it with a bucket. It was lucky that I noticed that. Especially as this was one of the cores that had a post holder in it. That core was pretty jammed packed. It had reo, the post holders and the blocks, being corners, had to be around 4cm narrower to accommodate the rock face.

While I was filling this core, the top block was coming apart and was about to blow. The corner rock faces you need to paste a rock face side to the narrow face of the block. I quickly grabbed a giant 1.2m clamp and secured the situation.

The concretor added heaps of water to increase the slump - ease in which it would fill up the cores. Even though adding water is a big no no, I felt it was probably the better of two evils - unfilled cores. The concrete seemed to flow like water. I guess I will find out tomorrow when I strip the forms to determine if the cores filled up ok. Of course I will have no idea regarding the corners and the clean outs are not directly exposed. Everyone thought that a good job had been done on the cores, so that is good.

The post holders were manually centred. Probably not perfectly where they should be, but I guess that is more of a cosmetic thing than a structural thing. All of the post holders had a N16 bar going through them to tie them to the wall.

When I got there this morining the gap filler was still spongy and I was really worried about it blowing out. I quickly raced around puting on silicone - it seems to dry quicker. I probably should not have worried. When the cores were filled, there was not much sign of leakage.



The core filler had to walk ontop of the 2.4m wall to fill the cores - seemed a bit dangerous to me. But I guess he mostly had the boom pump to hold himself steady. There was a bit on tension between the workers with the pump operator wanting not to sheer off too many branches and the core filler wanting the nozzel right above the blocks.

sketchup

The blockouts got put in place today. They block the cement from falling out of the wall.

The rock face made it difficult as normally the form ply would come up over the second layer of blocks. The worker (Carlos) didn't want to cut his ply down to just to fit the first blocks. I spoke to the main concreter guy and we kind of worked out that this was the only way it would be successful. Carlos ended up cutting his ply. At the suggestion of the concreter, I ran silicone and gap filler over the top to fill up any gaps. Some were 1.5cm wide!

Carlos used a ramset gun to hold the 4x2 against the bottom of the formwork and nailed in small pieces of ply to brace the top of the formwork.

The other option, which I could have done, if I had known is to hold the form against the blockwork by tying it to the reo bars. I should have saved some money and done that.



I played around with google's sketchup last night and modeled the garage.

All of the post holders are tied down with N16s so they won't experience lift off without lifting up the garage - around 200 tons.

Wall Starter Bars

I've been a bit confused about how block walls are joined. Eventually I refered to the BCA and it recomended sort of wall starter bars. Both the block layerer and concrete guy vaguely recommended drilling them chem set them in after core fill. This is very expensive so I drilled a few holes and put some N12 400mm wall starter bars in.

You can just make them out below - I put yellow caps on them to protect people. The bars are a tight fit and I put mortar around them to try to stop core fill leaking.

Block Laying

I spent the day laying the top blocks. I cut out one of the ends to help let the grout through. It took me most of the day to do the cutting and lay 70 blocks. I am getting quicker. I had to hand mix the mortar in a bucket and try to match the mortar colour as best as I could.



The darkness around the block is just the moisture sucked out by the block rather than the mortar.

I have arranged to get the blocks core filled on Tuesday.

Each block weighs around 16kg and they sure feel heavier when you need to handle them by gripping them from the top.

The garage has a drab bunker like feel to it. It is going to be in stark contrast to the top.

I am a bit concerned about the amount of light that will get through to the garage.

Vertical Bars

I added the vertical bars today. Another half of a ton of steel. I did some more cleaning of the clean out blocks as well.

Cleaning Up

I spent the day moving stuff around to make ready for the concrete pump. I removed some of the blocks out of concern that the core fill will be blocked.

It was fortunate that I was there on the day to insist on certain things - like rock face end blocks which involves a lot of cutting and minor on the spot changes. They missed out corner clean out blocks and I managed to get this sorted.

Retaining Wall Done

The blockwork guys have finished the retaining wall. Unfortunately I left it too late to take a decent photo.

Blockwork Half Done

Most of the initial blockwork is done. There are internal walls so I call it half done.



There are two or four courses to go (depending upon whether it is supporting a post).



You can probably guess that it is charcoal rock face.


I can just fit behind the wall for most of the wall. I might have to train my daughter.

The block layers really could not work out what I was doing have the rock face on the inside. The boss guy even rang me up and offered to undo the work that he did on Friday and turn the rock face around. Liz and I discussed this, but we felt that we have it right. We want the garage not to overwhelm the main part of the house. A neutral grey plain block on the out side seems to do the trick. We will see. I think the rock face works well internally as it is a big area and a plain face may look at bit drab.

All the external walls facing the front are rock face. The side and rear are plain.

Water Proofing

I prepared the rear of the block wall for the water proofing. I sent Liz to get the water proofing chemical - it took her a couple of hours. I got some water based water proofing called DUROPROOF BLW - liquid membrane (Duromastic BLW) and DUROPRIME ARW - Water Based Internal Priming. http://www.wrimcowaterproofing.com.au It cost me around $600 which doesn't seem too bad to me.

It is for less critical applications such as retaining walls and planters. It is very difficult to any liquid based water proofer to delivery 100% tanking and hey it is a garage.

I did a pre-dawn coating this morning and I was out of there by 7:30am. The BLW was purple with a viscosity of vegimite. Apparently it dries black.

I'm only applying it to the really narrow spot around near the tree roots and on the other side.

Block Work

The blockwork guys came today. They made a good start. They finished the first two courses for half the garage. The reo is lining up with the blocks so that is good. They had to cut the clean out blocks. Unfortunately there is no clean out for the corners. I'll need to speak to the block layer about that.



They said they can only make one side look good, so I am telling them to make the outside look good. It has the plain face and you will notice it if it looks bad. I'll need to make sure he tells the others that.

The mortar had just started to dry out when I left, I think it is a good match.



My fruit trees are bearing fruit :)

Concrete Blocks

Most of the concrete blocks arrived today - two of three truck loads.

Supprisingly there is still heaps of room for the remaining blocks.

I found that the first truck load contained some incorrect blocks. After a few desperate phone calls and a lot of luck it was all sorted. The next load contained the right block types - block with recesses for steel. Only half of them need that, so I could make do with the other 'wrong' type.

I've got around 2000 concrete blocks. So much they even gave me a discount. They look good and I can't wait to see them laid.

Other than that, I spent the day pottering around - filling in soil around the concrete stumps.

The block workers start tomorrow - weather permitting.

Preparing For Blockwork

I spent the day getting ready for the block work and for the agricultural pipe to drain water from behind the retaining wall. I also took delivery of 2 containers of techdry (mortar add mixture to make it water resistant). http://www.techdry.com.au/Products/Water-Repellent-Admixtures/Cement-Mortars/Techdryad-Mortar-Additive.aspx




One of the shoring posts was leaning too far into the excavation so I tried to bend it back. It broke! So I replaced it with another.

Poll

The poll has closed and it seems that anyone interested enough to vote has said that it is interesting. This is great and I'll keep blogging.

Blocks Ordered

I order my blocks today. They arrive Wednesday. I spent the day trying to make room for them. Fortunately they have them in stock.

I may have problems with insulation batts though. Apparently there is a huge shortage due to the government rebate.

Removing Form Work

I removed the formwork from the footings. The plastic is still there, so that should be good for curing. Every hour or so (as they started to dry), I hosed down the concrete. the whether has been cold, dry and very windy - not ideal!

I was relieved that the plastic drain pipe was ok and not damaged when I removed the formwork.

Footings Poured

The inspector came and looked around passed my steel fixing work. I was so relieved.



The concretors did their job perfectly (Universal Concrete Construction). They used a laser level to make sure that the footings were perfectly level for the blockwork. I was pretty happy with everything. I helped out holding the laser level staff. There were 7 people. A concrete truck operator, a pump operator (Clint) , a guy directing the nozzel (John), a guy vibrating (Rob), a guy screeding (Mitch) , a zypex guy (I wanted water proof concrete) and me.

26 cublic metres of xypex got poured. The reason why the plastic exists is to help the concrete cure propertly.

He is Mitch saying something to Rob... We were talking about Micheal Jackson for a bit, so I suspect it was about that. Clint is controlling the pump by remote control - avoiding trees and power poles.



This is John (the main man) and Mitch in action.



Here are the completed footings. I don't really know what the RL is but, I'll figure that out later. The main thing is that they are level, there is enough cover and all of the starter bars are above the concrete. I'll have to bend some up as some are pretty low.



Here is the north east corner retaining wall. Of course the slab starts 200mm higher than the footings. So I guess it is going to start above ground level.



I stripped off the formwork (pier liner) from one of the post holders and here it is:

Almost There

I thought that I had booked the inspector in for today, but apparently it was tommorrow. Fortunately, the inspector had sympathy on me and he is coming 8am tomorrow.

I ended up welding the slab ties to the rest of the steel. Much easier! I tied up the block ties with a length of reo to make them stand up straight.

My tip for steel work is use a mig welder. Something light though.