The trials of acquiring a concrete mixer

Went to SAMSE yesterday evening to buy a mixer. Nice little machine, dismantles so I can put it in the back of the Land Rover. They dismantled it for me and loaded it into the aforementioned Land Rover. Got to the site, all ready to start mixing, and found they'd forgotten an all-important part so I couldn't use it. GRRR.

This, by the way, is the outfit that supplied me with:

• a defective radio and no battery charger with my electric screwdriver;
• the wrong connector for my compressor;
• scaffolding with a broken retaining pin.

Doing well, aren't they?

TECHNICAL - comments now possible

In the unlikely event of anyone having tried to post comments, they will have been told that only team members can post. I've now changed that, so anyone can post comments ... and comments are welcome!

Last appearance by the fireman

We've had loads of help over the past couple of months from Paul, but last night was his last time 'cos he's leaving for England to become a ... fire-fighter. We'll miss him, not just 'cos of his carrying-damsels-in-distress-down-ladders physique, which makes him so useful on a building site, but also because of his good humour and fun company.

Our loss is the London Fire Brigade's gain.

Thanks for everything, Paul!

Making concrete progress

We've advanced a few more metres along the wall, with Moni mixing concrete/carrying stones, and me slopping concrete in and heaving the stones into place. Just like a 3D jigsaw puzzle, but with rather heavier pieces.

Stones

We've finally started laying stones!

After a trip to the plant hire company to pick up a mixer (didn't know they made them this small) ...



... we started pouring concrete into the bottom of the forms and heaving stones in on top yesterday evening.

Now it actually feels like we're building a house, rather than preparing to build a house.

Finally found a use for my blog

OK, 'bout time I did something with this.

For the last year, we've been building our own house. I'm already starting to forget what happened when, so before I lose all track this blog is going to become a journal. It'll start with what we're doing at the moment, and will have the earlier details filled in as and when I get round to it.

Comments welcome!

One step forward, two steps back

Went up to the site intending to finish off the inside part of the formwork.

On trying to prop up a sloping bit of form with my nice standardized 45 cm spacer I realized the forms for the central wall weren't 45 cm apart. Some re-measuring revealed that one of the strings was 3 cm out of place.

So instead of adding the last piece of formwork to the inside, I had to take out two of the existing forms and cut them down by 3 cm.

Not what I had in mind for this evening's work.

Grrr.