We finally got around to pouring the concrete floor in the house last week.
I say 'we' - I really mean a professional builder and another labourer - I vaguely pottered around helping out here and there, making tea and providing a few munchies, all ESSENTIAL of course!
The Raw Materials
We started off with this pile of sand, gravel, and insulation board which is on the several bags of cement in the background.....
NB Because the truck got stuck in the mud when it delivered, it dumped it all at the bottom of the track so I had to enlist some help to get it the 100 metres up the hill - a few friends and a trailer/ 4 by 4 did the trick in a couple of hours.
House cleared and floor prepped....
It took a fair few buckets to clear out the loose large stones and some chipping away of the uneven walls at the bottom....
NB I know the walls look grotty as fuck, but that's the next task after the floor!
Insulation boards down and waterproof liner
I made the mistake of heading out to run a few errands for three hours, when I got back they'd made such rapid progress - blinding with sand, putting the liner down, insulation and started the poor....
It took another couple of hours to tamp it all down and then smooth with simply a bit of wood once the water had risen to the top..
The finished wet concrete look...
Here's the finished but not yet dry floor, with the central post set in too, something else they did for me....
I think it looks pretty good!
An artist always signs his work....
Fair enough!
It struck me that this was probably somewhere between art and building - getting the mix right, and getting it smooth.
Final thoughts - a solid floor!
All in all I'm very happy - that's a 3 inch slab, about 3 tonnes of material in there, that's one solid floor!
Next it's the walls, then tiling the floor which I bought today, they weigh about 300 kilos, my poor car!