Concrete Slab Poured

The slab was poured on Wednesday 20th May.

This is a very exciting milestone! It was interesting to see the whole thing play out and now we get a great feeling for the size of the rooms and house as a whole now.

After the last post we saw the finishing of the steel work, additional formwork added for the different levels and higher sides, and Termite barriers put in place (as shown with the tape around all drainage pipes).

The slab pouring day started very early with the concrete being pumped from 7am sharp for what was a long a busy day for the concreters. Approximately 7 loads of concrete were delivered!

The next steps are the external drainage installation and to erect the frame, window, and roof trusses...

The story in pictures is below:-


Final Formwork ready for slab pouring

Concrete Truck in action

Trailer-mounted boom concrete pump

Laying the slab

Completed slab - front



Completed slab - rear

Completed slab - Alfresco stairs, Northern side



Completed slab - Front porch

Completed slab - Garage

Completed slab - Rumpus

Completed slab - Alfresco
 

Completed slab - Water tank

Completed slab - Alfresco, rear

Completed slab - Laundry / Drainage

Internal drainage, Formwork & Steel installed

Some serious progress has been made this week... The concretors have been doing a exceptional job! Provincial use a firm called Solid Concrete with Tony and team. We believe the slab will be poured next Wednesday.

Over the past week the following has been done:-

• The ground has been prepared and edge formwork constructed.
• The under-slab drainage installed
• Laying the plastic sheeting concrete underlay
• Fix reinforcement in the beams using steel mesh at the bottom
• Fix reinforcement in the slabs using steel mesh at the top

Next steps if my research is correct are:-

• Termite Barrier Installed?
• Pour and compact the concrete
• Finish slab surface
• Cure the slab 

Piering done

Since our last update we have had record rain and storms across Sydney which resulted in a very muddy worksite and no progress. Unfortunately the sedimentation barriers went up after all the rain so our pool suffered as mud flowed over the edge and resulted in very muddy water. We have a pool cover over the pool and power provided by a neighbour for the filter to keep running in the hope we can keep the pool in a reasonable condition - which had been done successfully over the previous winter with no maintenance.

After a few weeks delay we got the call from the concretor that they were ready to do the piering on a day my wife and I were due to be overseas - so my parents were left to oversee things.

We heard great things about the concretors from many others building with Provincial and this was reflected in what we have seen so far as well. The work seemed to be done to very high standard with a lot of transparency on what was going on.

The transparency was also there to facilitate the measuring of the lineal metres of concrete used in the 400mm piers which often go over the allowance in the tender. Ours unfortunately was no exception, we had allowances for up to 90 lineal metres and ended up with 125 lineal metres. At $85 per extra lineal metre this means we are up for close to $3,000 extra unfortunately...

Our site looks like we have a serious mole infestation - it seems quite lumpy with lots of mounds of soil compared to other sites we have seen after piering - hopefully this is OK.

In our understanding the piering process was...

1. Mark out the house on the site and location of all the piers
2. Drill Piers to rock level
3. Mark concrete fill level
4. Certifier check
5. Measure depth of each hole to calculate concrete required (with owner) and order
6. Pump concrete into each hole via pumping truck and a long hose

Next we look forward to the internal drainage to be installed, followed by the formwork and steel for the concrete slab to be poured.

Marking the outline of the house

Concrete Truck and Pumper in action

Filling the 101 400mm piers with 125 lineal meters of concrete