Week Nine – Part Two

This morning’s task is to check the Isoquick and for Molly to return the ‘whacker plate’ (the hand operated compactor) to Oban.

As soon as Lorne and Pete inspect the Isoquick they notice that the north side is a bit skew-whiff so they need to come up with a plan to rectify it that is an improvement on trying to straighten it with a hefty kick! They decide to backfill around the other three sides then push the distorted sections with the digger. To protect the polystyrene they put a palette between the digger bucket and the Isoquick. It works so now it is on to checking that everything is square. Molly has arrived just in time to lend a hand but we soon discover that the diagonals are out by 40mm but we have no way of fixing that so we just have to move on.

Yesterday Andrew explained how to lay the radon barrier membrane. In certain parts of Scotland, usually where there is granite in the bedrock, radon gas can cause health problems so as a condition of planning consent we have to install the radon barrier membrane.

It takes us the rest of the day to fit the membrane cutting carefully round the soil pipes and service ducts and sealing them with special adhesive tape. Each sheet of the mebrane needs to overlap by 150mm and are stuck togther with a special double sided tape that is more like very sticky blu tack.

While we are fitting the radon barrier membrane Lorne gets on with digging out where the soak away for the sewage treatment works are going. He is preparing a 25m trench with stone and fabric to bed the soak away pipe.

Now he has to wrap the pipe and stones in the special fabric to prevent sedement blocking the system. During the dig, Lorne has noticed an old land drain that is blocked and is causing a bit of boggyness in what is to be our garden. He comes up with a plan to fix the problem and we look forward to having a nice dry (as dry as is possible in rainy Argyll) garden.

It’s already Thursday and we have made so much progress this week but there’s more to do. Lorne is showing us how to install the mesh to reinforce the concrete. He is calling the concrete supplier and is arranging for the concrete to come on Moday.

Now that we know the concrete is coming on Monday we have to push on and install two layers of the mesh. The mesh is made of iron rods welded together in 2m x 4m grids and are quite heavy. First we have to lay out rows of ‘deckchairs’ that raise the mesh of the base of the foundation and between the layers of mesh.

It’s heavy work placing all the mesh for the first layer but now we have to tie them togther with wire so that they don’t move once the concrete is poured on top. Pete finds this bit tough going because of all the bending but Molly doesn’t mind so much.

We lay out rows of ‘deckchairs’ at right angles to the first layer then fit the second layer of mesh on top. It has been an exhausting day so we are leaving tying everything together for the morning.

We are pretty tired this morning but we need to get on and finish the mesh installation. Pete doesn’t seem to be feeling all the bending so tough today so the job gets done quite quickly.

In the meantime Lorne is finishing backfilling over the soakaway and flattening the soil a bit. It looks so much better now.

Lorne is spending the rest of the day preparing the ground for the shed’s Isoquick and we are gathering stones for wall building and tidying the site. We have agreed to aim to have the concrete for the shed poured a week on Tuesday so it will be a busy week next week.

We have collected and sorted all the waste from the project so far and legacy stuff we found lying around our plot and we are pleased to see how little waste their is.

It’s Friday evening and we are going to take our washing to the garage at Dunbeg that has washing machines and dryers, then we’ll do some shopping in Oban and pick up some excellent pizza from Bar Rio. We are very excited at the thought of getting our clothes washed. We used to take so much for granted before living in our lovely wee caravan.