Retaining Wall Complete!
Howdy partners! We are now the proud owner builders of a retaining wall. Starting to build a little bit of muscle. We laid 160 concrete blocks in one weekend. Bernt did most of the heavy work while I got some training as a mortar-er. We got a bit of a rhythm going; Mix a load of mortar (in our brand spankin' new concrete mixer), Fill bucket with mortar, On hands and knee pads Stacey lay mortar bed and butter edge of block while Bernt set block in place according to stringline. We had a little bungle when we realised half way down a row that a twig was pushing the stringline out 10mm. But we compensated and our wonkiness will be well hidden under the veranda. Starting to see vertical elements was a very satisfying sight (even though they will end up under the slab) now we really have the feeling that we are building something!
We had to experiment a bit with mortar mix ratios (everything you read says something different). I thought a lot about my grandad and his concrete knees it would’ve been great to get some advice from a man with decades of concrete mixing experience. But after a few sloppy batches and a few that set way too fast… we worked it out.
This weekend just gone we filled the concrete block wall with concrete. So our new concrete mixer got another workout. Concrete mixing is a whole different story to mortar mixing. For one, you need to put rock into it. Rock is a little heavier to cart and unfortunately our pile of rock was delivered quite far from our mixer so it meant pushing too many wheelbarrows of rock up a sand hill. Then there’s the buckets full of concrete which need to be carried from the mixer to the wall and poured in. We bought up big on buckets in preparedness, need a bucket? Talk to us… we’ve got all sorts. Long story short… it was another heavy weekend. And there was a little bit of time pressure because the concrete should ideally set as one strong mass. We just took it steady and 146 buckets of concrete later we have ourselves one solid piece of engineering. I’m not even the slightest bit worried about our shed sliding down the hill; the retaining wall couldn’t be more solid or reinforced!
Next bit is organising the slab pour. We had my favourite excavator man in to accurately level the site (and a pad for our impending water tank). Bernt and I ummed and ahhed about doing the pour ourselves. Lots of people told us it was too hard, but everything they’ve said that about so far was doable so I’m not sure when to start listening. We had kind of decided that we would do it ourselves and look at any lumps and bumps with affection but then I talked to some professionals and they really convinced me to get someone in. Apparently its not just bumps we’d have to live with but the possibility of the slab ‘dusting off’ (shedding dust) for its lifetime if we didn’t do it properly. So will look around for someone to do it for us.
For now, we are still getting some quotes to decide who to buy all of our slab materials from. It’s a big chunk of money and my friend at our local hardware is working hard to get our business. We hope to be ready for the concrete in a few weeks time. Until then…
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