Bricking continued

More external bricking shots.

Just saw the weather report. Looks like we are in for some beautiful dry weather :)

Cold, but dry.

Bricking the second story....

The weather was on our side this week. Kate's parents went by the block on Wednesday and said that there seemed to be no progress, so we weren't expecting too much from today's trip. Well, they must have worked pretty solidly on Thursday and Friday, because things have progressed relatively well. Progress this week has seen the front and side balconies bricked. They look to be about 75% done. The pillar in the alfresco has also grown, and is now near full height, and the bricking of the road side of the house is getting closer to completion. I've taken quite a few pictures. Unfortunately no internals and no close ups. We'll need to book another site visit to get some of these. Happy with the progress this week. We're still lagging behind the Clarendon, but not by as much of a margin as before.

Weather

Weather forecast is not as bad as I had though. Only possible showers and less than 1mm predicted. Hopefully it wont disrupt this week too much :)

Scaffolding

Another week on, and progress since our visit on Tuesday has seen the erection of the scaffolding in preparation for laying the rest of the bricks and cladding. Other than the scaffolding not too much other progress to report. One of the balcony posts has been 50% completed. Weather outlook is looking a little on the wet side again.

This week in review

So in general, this week has seen some good, positive progress. The place is really beginning to take its shape. Hopefull with the arrival of the scaffolding and the promise of reasonable weather, we'll get some more decent progress in the back half of the week. I pressed the site supervisor for an estimate of the timeframe to get the roof on. He suggested 3-4 weeks at the outside would be a reasonable expectation.

Couple of concerns

When we were walking around we had the opportunity to raise with the site supervisor a few points that we had noticed. As you can see on the bottom picture, there is more brick overhang. This time on the supporting pillar in the alfresco. The site supervisor didn't believe it to be a problem and stated that it falls withing the parameters of acceptability, however having read a few other blogs, it seems that they encounter these sorts of slab overhangs quite regularly. I guess it's hard to get the slab precisely perfect, but I don't get why they wouldn't go on the conservative side and pour it 6 inches bigger than it needs to be. That way if it is slightly out, it wouldn't cause overhang issues.

The other issue that we pointed out was that of a structural quadruple stud that does not seem to be well supported. There is a gap of about a quarter to a half of an inch between the bottom of it and the next beam. The site supervisor said that this is not an issue, as it is nailed to the ones either side that do touch. I'm no builder so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but we'll ensure that we check on this at the Tyrell's building inspection after the lockup stage.

Scaffolding arrives

As we were there, the truck arrived to deliver the scaffolding for the brickies to start the second story

Bricking shots - internal

We took a drive out today to meet the site supervisor, and take a walk through to see the progress of the bricking. I've attached some internal shots of the brickwork.

7 Day Forecast

Bricking pics

More bricking pics taken over the safety fence.

more bricks pics

Bricks Bricks Bricks

Finally. some decent progress. The bricks are well on their way to completion. From behind the safety fence, we managed to snap some pictures of the progress. We are going out on Tuesday to meet the site supervisor, so hopefully we can get some closer pictures.

aerial view

The latest satellite pic from 2 weeks ago. Now you can see the roof trusses.

Bricks

We went out today to take a closer look at the brick work. It looks pretty good so far. The colour looks good, though you wont get a true indication until the brick cleaning has been done at the end. There is a bit of slab overhang. The industry standard is 15 mm and I'd judge this to be about 25mm. We'll raise it during the inspection that we have, but I've seen far worse on other builds.

I took a picture of upstairs with the reflective pool of water from the rain. It would look quite beautiful if it wasn't for the fact that this is our flooring copping a soaking. Most of them have dried out though and appear not too much worse for it.

7 day forecast

Looks like this rain might end. :) Touch wood.

bricks and water

The long wait for bricks has finally come to an end, and we have at least the majority of the garage bricked up. The bloody weather doesn't let up though. I just hate to see everything getting soaked. Hopefully we'll get some dry weather next week, and thing's will speed up a little. Seems it's not only Eden Brae that struggle to get brickies. There's a sign on the fence of the build next door that reads brickies wanted.