The garage build begins...

We now have an internet contract, so blogging should get back to normal.  Well, more normal than it has been this past month - getting our final solar power installed will be the cherry on top and relieve the pressure of needing full sun to charge our damaged batteries :)


MKid was still here in June when the builder started by squaring off the foundations which had been dug by the digger loader.

Having the garage is critical to our plans.  Once it is finished we can remove all the goods from storage in Swellendam.  Plus, the biggest bonus means that we can purchase, and install our new solar panels on the roof and place the new batteries in their new power room position - a small (but bigger than the old) room behind the garage on the cooler southern side.  But, what about the old power room?  Well, that is so lovely and cool all year round that it's going to become my cold room / larder.  Yeehah!

Once they were square, the builders could start mixing, and pouring the foundations.

But, just as a watched pot takes forever to boil, the build wasn't helped by my constant checking on progress.

They took so long (in my opinion) that once the foundations were finished I thought we could almost throw a party.

Foundations - lovely, lovely foundations...

However, my excitement was short lived.  For no sooner were the foundations finished than the winter weather hit.  Bad enough for the poor builders, but even worse for the delivery trucks.  Snow and rain.  And more snow and rain.  In fact snow fell on the mountains again last night - the third time this winter.  Unheard of!

Unnavigational

All that liquid caused our entrance to became a quagmire - and 6 and 10 ton trucks were unable to navigate the hurdle.  So, that did the drivers do?  Well, they just dumped the fill and stone where they got stuck.  Which meant that when the ground dried enough for other trucks to deliver, they wouldn't be able to, because the stone was blocking the way.  The grass on either side of the driveway was even more mushy - not compacted like the driveway and completely useless as an alternative route to the house.

RMan and the trailer to the rescue

Thankfully, RMan used his head.  We have a 1.8 ton trailer.  And we had our helper, John, and MKids assistance :)

MKid doing what kids do best - get stuck in helping

Bless him - MKid moved a fair portion of the stone.  And then hopped on the back of the trailer for a ride back to the building site.  He loved it :)

Stone - just dumped on our driveway

To give you some idea of where the stone was dumped check out the circle in the pic below.  Close, but no cigar...:)

The circle shows the spot

Naturally, 5000 bricks weighs even more, so the driver initially offloaded a pile of 500 bricks onto RMan's trailer, but, after only loading 1 500, I guess he got tired of waiting whilst they were being offloaded by hand  So, whilst RMan and the trailer were delivering the third load to the builders, the driver just dumped the balance inside the gate - and left!  And, not having a forklift on the truck meant that they had to be manually loaded and offloaded...

RMan and his trailer - collecting the bricks from the gate

So - although this caused quite a delay, we were lucky for at least we had the wherewithall (a.k.a. the trailer and the builders hands) to get the material where we needed it.

That took 2 1/2 weeks to complete the foundations and build the foundation walls.  Next - we needed fill before we could throw the floor slab.  And that meant another 10 ton truck had to deliver...