Monday, April 19, 2010

Getting a slab

Before I start getting into all the design decisions and cool technical stuff about the house I thought it'd be better to post a few photos to show you where things are at and how far we've come. So this post is devoted to getting the slab down.

The excavations for the concrete footing
It all started with the excavations for the footings - done back in January.

Once the footing was poured the guys put up the polyblock foundations. These are like big legos with a cavity in the centre that is filled with concrete. The resulting walls are strong but very well insulated.
Polyblock foundations going up. February 1, 2010

Foundation poured and centre being filled with river run
The foundation is then poured, and the centre of the slab filled with gravel. The final floor height will be 900mm above the ground (to remain well above any flooding from our water race).

There's a truck in my bedroom! February 11, 2010Here's Robin dumping a load of 40mm basecourse. This is the last layer of gravel to go on before the sand and then black plastic.






After the plastic is down, on goes the 50mm poly insulation and steel mesh. Onto this is attached the pipes for the underfloor heating system. Dale and the plumber are sorting out the tangle of pipes as to make sure they'll exit the slab cleanly and in the right place.

Prepping for the pour March 11, 2010

Once all the prep is done the foundations are ready for the final pour. Ours was delayed a few days due to bad weather but when I arrived at the site that evening, this is what I saw...
The finished slab March 15, 2010Needless to say I was very happy! The kids were too as the could immediately see the skateboarding potential.






Apologies for the terrible layout - I'm still learning how to drive this interface...

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