Day 3 - Site Clearance

Monday 19th August

Not much happening today, just one labourer cleaning the bricks. When I visited the site early morning, I did notice water leaking considerably from the mains lead pipe. The workers were not able to turn the water off from the mains stop valve on the street. Eventually one of the workers managed to crimp the lead pipe to stop the flow of water. At midday, I met up with the contractor who returned last night from his holidays and we just went over the work required and the steps involved.

Tuesday 20th August

All the demolition has now been completed it seems and the ground is being cleared of existing the floor to get down to the soil.


Side Access
The paving stones from the side access have been removed and stacked on the side.


The existing floor from the utility and kitchen has been broken and removed.


The chimney from the kitchen side has been removed exposing how the chimney connects to the stack above.
All the overgrown plants have been removed from the other side of the house.
Salvaged Bricks
The stock of bricks that have been salvaged.

Dining Room
The dining room carpet has also been removed, exposing the terracotta tiles underneath.


These tiles were salvaged from the kitchen but I'm not sure we're going to be making use of them.

Driveway
The waste has been dumped on the driveway. I was told they would be protecting the driveway using some sheet material.

Tree issues
The eucalyptus tree is about 7.5m from where the garage front will be constructed.


It has grown quite substantially in the last 5 years.
Tree 2014
Tree 2019
The building control inspector has reported that due to the high water demand by the tree and its proximity to the new foundations, the depth of the foundations will need to be 2.1m, double to what was initially planned. However, this would only be required at the front of the garage and then stepped up to 1m along the side. The inspector also mentioned that for such a depth, the floor would need to be made from block and beam rather than a concrete slab.

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