Lowerfield Farm

Sunday 20 November 2011

Footings in

Before and after - front of house
Before and after - site
Had a fraught couple of days to start the week, as we'd opted to do the ground clearance for the site, in order to save the plants we wanted and salvage firewood. It's also a good feeling to actually start the project off with some hard physical work on it ourselves (that old Protestant work ethic has a lot to answer for).
With just 3 scheduled days on site this last week a lot has been achieved very quickly. After the initial surveying and planning to avoid existing pipework, etc., the foundations were dug on Thursday / Friday and concrete foundations went in on Friday afternoon. It's been dry, bright and relatively warm, which allowed the schedule to proceed as planned for this weather-dependent phase.
The only real issue has been that during Friday afternoon, just before the first concrete truck arrived, the digger broke through the main pipe taking water out to the barn and animal troughs. For some reason the pipe had been laid with a dog leg from the house to the barn, so there was no way to know it was under there. Anyway, the builders very professionally worked around it, and aside from a slight change to the depth of concrete for that one corner, the only issue's been having to cart water to top up drinkers for the weekend. All should be fixed tomorrow.
Concrete foundations in - End of week 1

For the week ahead, weather permitting:
Monday the ground will be prepared for putting down the concrete floor, the bricklayers should start on Tuesday, firstly building up to the damp proof course level; the hardcore and concrete floor should then be laid; and hopefully we'll be starting the proper brickwork at the end of the week.

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