Step 15: Still doing the pillars...now with pillar support added

Salam n g'day everyone....

I've been very busy with work recently...there's a few days where i was outstation travelling on a car which explains my lack of updates...

Anyway, there's not much visible progress going on in the house construction this week. the workers are given time off for 1st day of ramadhan (Wed). I met some of the workers on Thursday and the following conversation ensues..

Yours Truly (YT): Salam bang, apa khabar?
Worker X (WX): ya, alhamdulillah, baik saja
YT: So, macamana rumah ini, oke ka?
WX: ok saja, kami diberi cuti semalam. hari ini tengah buat tiangnya
YT: Ok bagus. macamana bekerja sambil puasa? ok ka?
WX: Saya minum tadi nggak tahan hausnya. laparnya bole tahan lagi
YT: owh..

So, as per usual, seems that the construction worker are not fasting. May God forgive them..

On the house itself a wood support is added to the casting, this to ensure that the wood will be straight and for addition of more wood & steel casting for 2nd floor and above (pics)

Ok. that's all for now..

By way of (typing on a new office laptop computer) AAMMJ

Of draining system

Salam and g'day everyone...

So, one of the thing that I had to do to the house is add a drainage system at the boundary between our house and our neighbor's. This is because, as the house is located on a hill area, the elevation of our land in relation to our neighbor's about a few feet high. Therefore, as I'm building the house and sort of terracing the land (to ensure that the land is flat) a few feet of retaining wall is required. So, to save the cost a bit, the contractor and us just decides to construct this little drain as to ensure that the elevation between our house and our neighbor's less visible and to ensure proper draining in case of heavy rain.

The draining system can be seen below

This is the pic of the drain today. It's actually not fully completed. Just for completeness sake, let me add another pic of the drain taken few days ago

For those of you with keen eye, you can see that on the right side of the drain, there's a tree. This tree has now been taken down...

By way of (A relative passed away today...innalillah) AAMMJ

Step 14: Adding more pillars

Salam and g'day everyone...

So...the progress today is not really a step 14...in fact they're just adding pillars (seems like the progress site will not be like this for a while yet). But, let's appreciate their work and see how many pillars have been added (pics below)

So, they've added 2 more pillars with steel and wood casting and there's be a few more (maybe 3-4, judging by the number of steel yet to be bracketed by the woods.

Also today, after work I managed to talk to the workers who're doing the house. There's a new guy in place apparently and with this addition, the number of full time worker (not counting site supervisor, engineer and others) are 6 people. We're thinking that we should be nice to them and probably treat them to good meal one of these days....especially with Ramadhan coming up and all of them Muslim..  May Allah bless them and us and bless our house (Notice that it's now OUR house instead of my house... :) )

Til later

By way of (Ramadhan Al-Mubarak everyone) AAMMJ

step 13: now onto the house pillars

Salam n g'day everyone..

So, this will be the last post for today....and with this I've managed to update this blog up to the site progress!! (
yeay!! finally...huh...huh..pant...pant)

So, as the foundation is completed, the next step really is the pillars. This is actually a very labor & material intensive process. Notice the wood buildup there in front of the land

So, in order to understand how the pillar is made kindly look at the pics below

No, the pillar's not made of wood of course. but again it's made of concrete. The good ol Y12 steel is again used to make the support for the concrete as per the foundation and ground beam. Then, the wood braces are used as molding for the concrete. As I say earlier, this is a pretty labor intensive work. So, not much visual progress is made after 2 days (the latest pics from the site below will be testament to the point)

The wood and steel are getting taller!!

By way of (phew! done for the day) AAMMJ

Step 12: Concrete slab

Salam and g'day everyone...

So now, we're getting to the last part of the foundation of the house. with the completion of this step, the foundation of the house is now completed and we're ready to move on to the next stage which is the pillars and other house structure in general.

So, for this step, the concrete is poured onto the water-proofed plastic and wire mesh layer; covering them. the full base of the house is now visible

As it turns out the concrete slab is incomplete yet. there's still the ground floor bathroom and the front porch not completed yet and they'll have to come later for this

Alrighty folks...laters

By way of (one more post to go) AAMMJ

Step 11: More groundworks...

Salam n g;day everyone...

Well there's heaps of stuffs going on the last few days..they're not very visible on the structure but each are of great importance to the functionality of the house. I'll try to summarise them below for easy reading:

1. Water proofing the ground beam: I've talked about this at some length in the previous post
2. Putting back the soil in between the ground beam. So, the floor is won't be concrete slab all the way through. Soil is put back filling the ground beam until about half and inch thick. Only the top half inch will be filled with concrete slab
3. Treating the soil with anti-termite pesticide. I was away when they do this...very unfortunate as I have no picture of this...so, just have to trust the contractor then
4. Putting a layer of water proofed plastic? so this is put on top of the soil in preparation for the concrete slab later on. This has an interesting function. The marble / tile / cement floor here tend to feel very cold at night. This is actually due to water from the ground seeps through to the floor therefore making the floor feel really cold on the feet. So, this is the reason for putting this plastic layer
5. Finally, steel mesh is put on top of the water proofing plastic. The steel mesh will give added strength to the concrete that will be poured in next

So, to conclude this post, let me show y'all 2 pics of item 4 & 5 above

By way of (this is starting to feel like a chore) AAMMJ

Step 10: Water proofing the ground beam

Salam n g'day everyone...

So, now, before moving onto the next stage of the construction, there's the important step of waterproofing the ground beam. This is done mainly to avoid water from seeping through the land through the ground beam concrete which will make it conducive for algal growth (as the pic i found in the internet below)

So, in order to avoid this, bitumen are spread onto the inner surface of the ground beam as they make it waterproof (see pics below...the black stuff is bitumen)

Rightio folks...later

By way of (getting tired...but still going) AAMMJ