It's a breeze (block or two)

After we filled the mould on Friday, we left it over the weekend to get hard, nice weather, for a change, no night frost and no rain so it stayed very much as it should have.
On Monday morning it was the turn of the measuring tape again, set the lines up for laying of the breeze blocks, get this bit right and it all falls into place, golden rule in measuring, DO IT TWICE.
A calculator is a very handy implement as well for checking your cross measures.
To get an accurate cross measure take corners A B and C, A to B x A to B, + B to C x B to C, take the square root of this and it gives you the cross measure millimetre perfect



LINE POSTS FOR THE BREEZE BLOCKS, BOTTOM ROW DONE, 5 ROWS IN ALL.






FIRST ROW COMPLETED







LEGO FOR ADULTS
first apply a little mortar, about 6 to 7 kilos per breeze block



NEXT
lift it up into position




PLACEMENT
using the line as a guide, jiggle the block until it sits in the right place




Pointing
fill in the joints all the way, job jobbed. Next one






A FEW FINER DETAILS
Threaded rod, this is for when we do the outside terrace, it will be bolted to the foundations, it is L shaped for the obvious reason, so it does not turn.














UPPER AND FINAL ROW.
threaded rod, this is so we can bolt the bottom timber for the house frame to the foundations, 10mm galvanized threaded rod, placed every 1.2m





TOP COURSE
this is a narrower block, we put an extra 5cm of Styrofoam insulation here to bring it up to 200 mm thick






TAKING SHAPE
it is actually starting to feel like we have started to do something and are on schedule to boot.








FRIDAY AGAIN.
Friday evening, saw the arrival of a truckload of Styrofoam insulation, this goes as follows, above the seepage drain on the outside all the way around the foundations 10cm thick, this is to protect from frost damage to the external foundations.
Inside the house against the breeze blocks, 10cm's except the top which is 15cm, this is the ´´ROUTA´´ grade of Styrofoam, Routa is the hard penetrating frost that we get here, last winter it went approx 1.5 metres deep. The damage could be immense if we didn't insulate properly.
The other Styrofoam, is LATTIA, this is internal, underfloor styrox, 20cm thick throughout the house, previously it was only 10cm, but with the new energy laws in force, well we just have to suck it up and buy a lot more of it.












AS promised
the neighbours house, 4 guys and 4 long days brings a flat pack house to this stage,









That's it for this week, next week more of the same, finish the blocks, do the stone chips to finish it off and make a start on the insulation. sounds like a plan to me.