Things are moving along nicely on site. The groundworks are wrapping up, and the first courses of blockwork are now going in.
Finishing the groundworks
I’ve covered the footings in a previous post, so this picks up from there. The drainage is in — foul water runs to a treatment tank to the east of the site, then the water is piped back down to join the surface water and out to soakaways the other end.
As with the footings stage, there is still a constant stream of moving, arranging, and tidying happening across the site — topsoil, clay, broken concrete, all being shifted around as different areas are worked on. A building site at this stage is less a construction and more a large, slow reorganisation of earth.
The bricklayers arrive
We were very excited the first time bricklayers appeared and got going as it felt like a proper milestone. Up to that point, the work had all been below ground.
I’m not doing any of the work myself — this is entirely in the hands of our contractor. I have a wander round most days, I watch, and I try not to get in the way.
A question of scale and perception
One thing I wasn’t quite prepared for was how much the sense of scale shifts. The building footprint looked small, then as the blockwork rose, it suddenly looked large, then small again. I’m not sure which one is accurate. Probably all of them, depending on where you’re standing.
The slab
Six courses of blockwork brought us to the DPC level. The damp proof course went down, and five or six trucks poured the concrete one after the other. It is a significant operation when it happens — truck after truck, concrete pumped and spread across the full footprint, then floated off level. Once it was cured, we were able to properly walk around the footprint for the first time.
It felt too big and too small at the same time. Same as the blockwork. I suspect this will keep happening.
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