New Creation - House Warming

[sheltie]

This has been absolutely fascintating! I'd love to have had the cement contract for the house. ;D

[connrock]

What a tease!!!!!!!!
When I first read that there were plumbing photos I got VERY excited!I ran and made a BIG bowl of pop corn and a huge mug of rootbeer and came here to see allllllllllll the plumbing photos! LOL ;D

Seeing the plumber kneeling on the hard tubing and floor makes me realize why my knees hurt so bad today,,,,and I am sure his will not feel good when he gets older too!

I think you are using at least as much or maybe more concrete then they used to build our Pentagon Building! LOL It just amazes me how much concrete is used building homes in Romania.Very,very strong construction,,,,,and even the fence too! LOL

Thank you for the "Yard Plan" on the previous page.I'm SURE that once you get settled into your new home you will make your yard a true paradise!

Thank you again Adrian for taking the time to tell and show us the progress on your new home!

connrock

[adrian65]

Tom, LOL, I can picture you taking once or twice some pop corn from that huge bowl, scrolling down in the meantime and then... the end. What a disappointment, friend! A bit more patience and the plumbing works will diversify. In the meantime I sent you an e-mail with all the plumbing pics I have.

There are knee protections in the stores, (like the ones I used when linking the ree-bars of the upper slab or even more proffessional) but I couldn't see any worker using them. Hard to explain.

Sheltie, I agree there's a lot of concrete

Adrian

[Deleted]

I feel so privileged to be able to see all of this work. Thank you for continuing to share the raising of your future new (and magnificent) home.

RE knee protection. We have tile men that will not use them. They grow calluses on their knees that look like pads, but they wont come off!! I dont understand, but some of them are in their 50's. Certainly hardier men than I!

[adrian65]

Hello again, friends!

This week the plumbers finished to install all the tubes to the radiators. Then they took a break, saying they would need rendered walls to continue their work. So, the main crew started the cement rendering.

Firstly, a thin "primer" is spread across the wall:


Then, they make two or more vertical stripes, which will help them to get a straight wall:


After completing those stipes, they start loading material in between...


... and then, after the material is a bit in excess compared to the stripes, they level it as you see here:


This way they finished to render the basement walls and some of the ground floor walls. No pics from the basement, as they built a working platform above the hollow for the access inside. So here are some pics from the ground floor:
kitchen (you can also see the entrance to the basement):


staircase to the basement:


In the meantime, outside the house two more steps were added to the outside stairs.

Front stair:


You can see here the reinforcement for the triangular flower box which will be included in the front stair:


And the backyard stair:
The 2nd to last step is casted:


The concrete poured into the cast:


And here's a general view of the house from a different angle:



Next week, the cement rendering works will continue and it's also likely to re-start the plumbing works and maybe some fence works.

Thank you for looking and for the comments,

Adrian

[deb193redux]

OK, whose cat in the carrier?

[adrian65]

LOL, Daniel, I was wandering if there would be anyone to notice the cat carrier. I took Linda to the doctor and neutred her, this is the cat carrier for. She's a small dog so she fit in the cat carrier very good.

Adrian

[deb193redux]

well, I lost interest when you said "dog".

so, this rendering is like plastering a wall? is the concrete less dense or have a texture/fiber added? is cracking ever a problem?

[adrian65]

It's a mortar, with a mix of cement, sand, water, etc. Cracking might be a problem if not well mixed or if the ratios between components are wrong.

The plastering would come after the cement rendering.

[deb193redux]

wow, these walls are getting seriously thick. brick+ rendering+ plaster

[adrian65]

Mar 2, 2013 1:31:56 GMT -5 deb193redux said:

wow, these walls are getting seriously thick. brick+ rendering+ plaster

Daniel, the rendering is about 1 ... 2 inch thick and the plaster would be some 2...5 mm.

[connrock]

Hi Adrian,,,,
Glad to see the plumbers are taking a break!That was my favorite time when I was a plumber,,,,,,,,,,,, and I did it well too! LOL
I thought the cat carrier was an electric heater and wondered why it was there? LOL
That is quite a job to get cement to stick to a wall like that!Not something I could do.

I'm glad to see that you are getting a rock tumbler ready to run in photo # 5,,,,,,it's a beauty too! LOL

For now,,,,,I'll go shut down the pop corn maker until next week!

connrock

[snuffy]

The "rendering" threw me at first. We call that the brown coat in my neck of the woods. Been there,done that! Probably never do it again! Been keeping up with the progress to make sure you are doing it right! ;D

snuffy

[MrP]

Adrian

This has been a great thread. It is wonderful to see such a quality build. You are building that house to last...............MrP

[texaswoodie]

I've been keeping up with this thread but not saying anything until now. I'm so proud for you and your family Adrian! This looks like a house that centuries from now your family will still have to enjoy. I'm a bit concerned that this may be the last house built in Romania for lack of concrete/cement.

I just connected with a cousin of mine that I had lost for about 35 years. She and her husband go to Romania every year. I told her about you and told her you were one of the nicest people I had ever "met". She said all of Romania was that way. Nicest people to be found. She also has shown me beautiful pictures of all the flowers over there. When you get your house built and don't have anything else to do, how about some flower pics?

Curt

[adrian65]

Thank you Curt. Haha, lack of cement! That would be true in the future, maybe, if I'd set a standard with my house

You have a cousin who visits Romania so often ... nice! Any chance that you might have a little bit of Romanian roots?


Tom, don't let the popcorn maker get too cool. You might have to use it sooner than you think


Snuffy, I had no idea what's the word for it so I searched it on my on line dictionary. Then I checked it googling images with "cement rendering". Propper images popped out. I just did the same with your "brown coat" and ... nothing, but brown coats. Literally. So, are you sure your neck of the woods isn't just a tree? ;D


Thank you Mr P.


Adrian

[snuffy]

Adrian,google stucco.Heck it says stucco or render!! Anyway the brown coat is part of it. I had never heard the term render used with it.If someone had asked me if I ever rendered cement ,I would have said nope,even though I have been for the last 17 years! ;D

snuffy

[adrian65]

Yep, Snuffy. Stucco is close to it, but it's more the final layer. The outside of the house would be stucco painted.

Adrian

[adrian65]

Hello, friends. Here are the progresses of this week.
The works have been diverse, let's see them one by one.

Painting the timber for the fence:




Rendering the walls at the first (upper) floor:




Pouring one more step on each of the outer stairs;
the last step on the back stair...


...and the 2nd to last step at the front stair:


A very important work has been done yesterday (Friday). A team of workers came and linked the house to the water and sewage pipes.


As you see, they firstly used an excavator to dig, but they had to reach on the other side of the street where the water pipe is loccated. I thought they are going to dig the road and repair it after, but nope. They dug a tunnel






They started digging from both sides of the street:


Here's a picture of the "tunnell" with the water and sewage pipes in it:


The thin, black pipe had to be connected to the big water duct running underneath the street. They used a clever device which allows this connection under pressure, so they didn't have to stop the water to the whole neighbourhood.




here it is, mounted on the water duct.



The connection of the sewage to the sewer duct also used a neat device (the thing in the left side of the pic; in the right you can see the reduction from 160 mm to 125 mm which is the diameter of the sewage pipe entering into the basement):


Here is the water manhole, which will host the water counter:


That's the sewage manhole:


The same, set in position and checked for the right slope of the sewage pipe. It's clean water


And finally, they put all the soil back where they dug it from. They were using water to compact it and to fill back all the diggings, especially the "tunnell". I was amazed to see almost all the soil fit back in.



These days we also bought the buffer for hot water. It's a 200 liters buffer with two coils - one linked to the boiler and the other one to the solar panels.


We placed it on its position - in the loft - and next week it will be probably connected by the plumbers, along with some other plumbing works.





Eh, Tom, I hope you had a popcorn bowl big enough, this time ;D

Thanks for looking,

Adrian

[NatureNut]

Wow, so cool that you are going to be able to utilize solar energy too. I love the way they connected the pipes without digging up the road/walkway. Over here, they would just dig it up and patch it later. I'll bet you are getting excited!
Jo