Freebies again

Well it just keeps happening, you simply go up and ask these builders and they will give you anything ! its great and also good for the world as instead o fit all going into landfill.

I got the "waffle pod " from a building site today, they were pourin the concrete and i asked the guy if i could have his offcuts etc , he said " take what you want mate".

i got the stryo i need plus some extra strong reo and some reo supports ( you know the ones that hold it up into the middle of the concrete.

The secret is "just ask" , sometimes i don't have time to get the stuff so i just say " my names tim i'll come get it over the weekend, whats your name incase i am asked why i'm taking stuff" . I get a name and thats all i need to protect myself as stealing from building sites is probably a big problem and no doubt there is security organised so make sure you always ask.

The Slab

(this is about the base slab and not the top slab)

There is a new estate just around the corner from me and I keep seeing mountains of styrofoam boxes and then they disappear !!!!

They are using them in the slab for the house to use less concrete !!

Today I actually lucked into a site that was just about to lay the concrete so i could see what they are doing and talked to one of the guys about it.

In the past they would dig trenches and concrete would go down into that and form "footings" but now they use the styrofoam, you can see it effectively creates a trench by having gaps inbetween the boxes.

hard to see here but in those gaps is also reinforcing, then on top is the reinforcing held up by those plastic cup thingys.

interesting idea and one i will be doing to save on concrete as when you think about it its really only the outside edge that is taking any weight, it won't matter anyway as the reo will maintain the strenght across the concrete.

you could just lay footings and brick onto that but you would end up with dirt underneath, i'm thinking if i lay a 100mm slab but have in the center 50mm of stryo WITH GAPS (where there is no weight except the wood storage) then i may save 30-50% of my concrete need.

Mortar AGAIN !!

I know you are sick of reading it but I get somany different versions of mortar its good to toss things around.

Just spoke to a guy who says fireclay will not set if used in the tunnel mortar, it needs to go up to 1000degress to do that.

if you are in melbourne then here is his info
Refractory Installations Australia‎ - more info »
3 Edinburgh St, Oakleigh South, VIC 3167‎ - (03) 9562 6843‎

I'm going to drop on in when we get closer to building the tunnel and have a chat (ring first he asked)

The thing about all this is the longer you wait to commit to a decision the more info you gather, then make whatever decision sits best with you and live with it.

At this moment i'm going with the 2 bags of refactory mortar at $45 a piece and save myself ALOT of hassles. He also wasn't worried when I told him i was using solids and not firebricks.

Day 1 - FINALLY

Well we finally started, after all the planning we broke ground at the site yesterday. didn't get started till 1pm and got off to a slow start as there was 2x60kg railway sleepers in the ground that had to be removed and 2 plants with deep root systems, thankfully not as deep as first expected.
Above is the before shot, the sleepers are lining the garden bed.



And heres the after shot, still not finished but at least started and learnt some things on the way.

Close-up of the excavation.

A drain !!!! , (the blue thingy) well lucky i wasn't digging deep as i got lucky and saw this before potentially cutting it (plastic piping), it turns out that its the drain for the shed roof, it goes directly under where i'm going to lay the slab, luckily once again its actually down far enough

Lucky once again, I had to lift up a few pavers to make way for the concreate slabs and it was like striking gold, there was a layer of sand then aggregate then CLAY ! , in the garden was some amazing top soil . It now looks like a landscape supply yard in the back yard but i managed to keep most of it seperated for later use.


Looks like good clay too, i'll do some testing on it another day to see whats its like, the plan is for it to be another outer insulating layer.

Oven entry to low

One thing I have noticed in my search for info is that alot of oven entries are to low, they seem to build them at "bench height" (@ 90cms)[10 bricks up] but that to me isn't ergonomic. I'm thinking of going another 2-3 bricks up that way you aren't constantly bending over which i see alot in the vids.

I'm 175cm tall so what i would say is average height.

this extra 2 bricks will also allow me to put in a "ash dump drawer" whilst still allowing enough space for wood storage, haven't totally worked the finer details out but will let you know when i do.

Basically a pizza ISN'T heavy !! but why bend over all time?