Sunday 3 July 2011

Slab- a carton of 24 cans or bottles of beer!!

How good does that sound? Often referred to as a case, a carton or a BOX if you are in Melbourne??? Hi Heidi see you next week!

Cruiser Hummingbird Blonde Lager With Passionfruit 275mLWanted to share with you a beautiful slab that is really cheap and tasty too. I think it is about to be discontinued and that is why it is so cheap. It has passionfruit in it.   

   

Anyhow, we have a slab now and there is no beer in sight. Our concrete slab is much better than anything with passionfruit.

The concrete slab was installed last Saturday. Since then there has been not much else that can happen, that is exciting. it is all just like watching grass grow or paint dry as the sayings go while we wait for the concrete to cure. Now we have heard so many variations on what is the best time for the slab to cure. Apparently industry standards say that you need to wait a minimum of 7 days before any further works on the slab as it needs time to cure or set. Some facts (or fiction) found from other websites say:
  • Concrete will attain most of its strength in the first seven days
  • 28 days minimum under constant moisture control If it loses too much water before the reaction is complete, then the concrete will not be full strength.
  •  Keep it wet/stop it from drying out. The concrete goes hard after 1 day or so by dampening it you stop it from drying out too quickly
  • Minimum curing time can be 7 or 14 days.
  • No anchoring of heavy loads to concrete as it can stress at the anchor points if not cured properly
  • watering or moisture added later stops cracking later.
  • Higher MPa means earlier work on the slab
  • you can do frames but not brickwork as the frames have a balanced load bearing
  • as the concrete cures it shrinks as well...so starting framing and brick work prior to 7 days can be bad for that reason
so there are some trivial points to get you thinking and confuse you even more.

Our Slab

This is the front of the house, the lower part is the step down garage.

Working on the Alfresco!
Since the slab was poured we have had light showers and rain through the week so we hope that nature may have intervened to help us have the best foundation for our house. I think it is the only time we would actually appreciate the rain. So until the frames are up, the brick work done and the roof on we do not want anymore rain please! After that it can pour, pour , pour.

Through the week there has still been work undertaken at the block. The drainage has been installed and so has the eletricity.

We went out there on Saturday morning and there is a great deal of  pipework that has been laid around the slab. We have what appears to be sewer and stormwater pipes all installed and trenches everywhere containing the pipes and conduits.

We took a heap of photos so that the pipes will be easier to locate later (especially if we do go with the pool) so that we do not plant our trees and garden on top as we do not want any tree roots affecting our pipes.

Whilst we were there we noticed that some "grub" has dumped a pile of empty paint tins on our neighbours block.

This is really irritating as I think most builders and tradies are making a "GOOD" deal of money from our builds yet some (and not all) are rorting the system by dumping on other peoples land.

I read on the builders forum that people have had fill dumped on their blocks and extra fill added to their stockpiles. After seeing how much it cost to get rid of it properly, I don't understand why they do it.  The home owner has definitely paid their hard earned cash for that!


By the way did you know that as a resident of Blacktown City Council you are entitled to 12 free Council Clean ups each year? That means technically there is very little reason why dumping should occur. Of course paint tins and builders rubble are not included in these clean ups .......but it is still pretty good I think!
 For more info have a look at the website:


We have water and electricity access!

Pipes and STUFF!! Definitely notthe technical term!.

Anyhow here is to hoping that all runs smoothly from here. Noticed that the people behind (Phil and Bel) have had their timber delivered for their framework...very exciting!! Looking forward to seeing it all take shape.
Over and Out.
This is from the back looking inside from the alfresco.

1 comment:

  1. Caz, it's so exciting to finally have a slab. I know the feeling. In regards to the rubbish dumping, you should see the stuff dumped on our site. Today we noticed green bags of dirt thrown in with all the builders rubble. There's also metal pieces, looks like old colorbond roofing or something. Anyway, Eden Brae will be doing a site clean and will have to remove all of this. Hope we don't get any more of other people's rubbish after the site clean.

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