Day 317 - Construction Begins

Today is the day that construction finally begins on our extension. As calm as I have been about it in the lead up to today, I am actually really nervous about today's work. There are so many things that can potentially go wrong and Nathan can't be here to help deal with it.

I'm not convinced that I slept last night, but I feel OK, maybe a little more jittery than normal, bordering on hyperactive, and I haven't even had a coffee. I got up at 630 so I can be ready for the digger to arrive some time between 7.00 and 7.30, I don't ever get up this early!! We finished pegging the piers out last night so I took a quick photo of all of our spots this morning, ready for work to begin.

 

We hired Damien from 'City-Concrete' to organise our digging and cementing of the piers, and he was the first to arrive. Having not met Damien, Nathan was quite nervous about the whole process, especially as the contractor to do the digging turned up unexpectedly on Saturday with a giant tractor and told us there were only 15 holes to dig (there were 28). He also decided he couldn't do the work so he would call one of his friends to come do it, who had never worked with Damien before. On Sunday John from 'John Mccauley Bobcat Excavations & Tipper Hire' turned up to have a look and sounded nervous about the size of his little bobcat, but decided that he could do the job.

 

 

After a fair bit of talking about how to do the least damage to our driveway the bobcat was finally taken off the truck and driven into the yard for digging. The first three holes required us to use the 400x400 square pads rather than the easier piers as the sewer was right near them. In the very first hole that John is digging they did actually expose the side of the pipe, but no damage done and the first obstacle that I was stressed about was avoided. Next to start was the boring out of the 300x500 pier holes for the rest of the extension.

 

 

 Surprisingly there is very little mess from all of the dirt being moved around, I had envisioned something similar to a muddy sludge taking over the back yard, but the men worked well together and seemed to get just about every bit of loose dirt there was loaded straight onto the truck.

I realise that we do pay these guys to do their jobs properly, but I was shocked to walk out to find Damien checking every single hole as they were dug for the correct depth and width. I even came out a few times to see him shoulder deep shovelling loose dirt out with his hands. There was some panic when they uncovered some ceramic type stuff in one of the holes, with frantic digging with hands happening to ensure that there wasn't a pipe in the area, and the same when they hit a tree root from the old apricot tree. I must have some kind of weird 6th sense as I made it outside to see all of these things happening. Amazingly the pipes and cords for the sheds power and water were not hit in all the digging, and the pipe that we think is down there somewhere for a back sprinkler wasn't a problem either. 

 

All of the dirt was removed from the yard with a wheelbarrow, up the ramp and onto the truck. I can't imagine how hard this was to actually do. I'm still in awe that this is how it was all removed just to save our driveway. It only took about three hours to complete the digging and dirt removal part of the job, with the biggest problem being that I didn't paint one of the posts that we had pegged out. We are lucky that they were keeping count as they went, as when he said 27 I was like Oh no what have we missed. Thankfully that was the biggest hurdle of the day, and there was actually a peg in place.

While we were waiting for the council to arrive I took Maddie outside for a look and play. These holes for the concrete pads were an awesome size for hiding in, which Maddie thought was just awesome. She was less keen on the smaller pier holes, but still didn't want to be taken out.

The council came at about 230 to measure all the holes and give us the certificate to say that it was OK for us to start filling them. First test passed! I am sure uni exams weren't this nerve wracking.
Once Phil had left I called Damien so he could organise the concrete to arrive at 3. It turns out that today, 3 actually equals 4, so an entire hour was lost waiting for the truck to arrive. I can not imagine how frustrating that must be for contractors.

 

The concrete was all poured, again via wheelbarrow within half an hour, then another half an hour to smooth it all out on the top of the piers and pads. This must have been the fastest part of the whole job, and certainly the less worrisome for us as there was so little that could go wrong. There was just enough concrete left over after filling all the holes to fix the paver's on the driveway that had been knocked out by the guy who ground the tree stumps out, which was done at no extra charge.

 

 

If the rest of the extension goes as smoothly as today did, it should be a fairly good experience after all, for me anyway. I'm not so sure Nathan would agree seeing as he has to do the most of it and listen to me tell him what needs doing when and where all the time.