After the frantic Friday afternoon of getting the concrete into the trenches, Monday was a nice easy day.  The digger and dumper were being taken off hire on the Tuesday, so we used them to remove some more earth so we had our air gap between the remaining earth and the bottom of the block and beam floor.  By early afternoon we had the skip filled, so we washed the machines down ready to be picked up.  We then did our marking out for the brick work and block work.

Tuesday we ran in the brick work for the concrete beams of the block and beam floor to sit on.  On Wednesday we were all ready to go with the concrete beams.  They were 3500mm long, and the weight of them was just enough for Stu and I to carry them on our shoulders.  We had to get them from the front drive area, round the back to the extension.  We got the first one round.  Stu wanted the beam his way to sit on his brick work; I wanted it my way to sit on my brick work.  Then we realized we had a problem!  After some head scratching and some worrying concerns we had made a big mistake somewhere along the line, we spoke to our colleague, Dane the architect.  It came to light that he had increased the dimensions of the build by 200mm, but not sent out a revised plan, hence why the beams would not sit on our brick work!  After a few polite expletives, we then set about having to run in a new skin of block work for the beams to sit on, and make a few amendments to our work to get everything back on track.  By lunch time we had the new block work in but had to wait again for the cement to set, so we had to take a half day.  Unfortunately this work was not planned, and through no fault of our own we ended up losing half a day’s work on our schedule.  On Thursday we once again set about getting the beams into position.  This time they went in spot on, and by lunch we had all the beams in position.  I had booked in the building inspector earlier in the day to sign off the block and beam floor, and he duly arrived during while we were having our lunch.  He was on site all of 60 seconds, and passed off our work!  In the afternoon we barrowed round the floor blocks to infill the beams, we put down a slurry mix to bond the blocks and the floor was finished.  After a hards days work Stu and I had pulled back our lost time and we were now back on track.

On Friday morning Stu had the job of digging down and exposing the existing drainage pipe work.  Once it was exposed we set about cutting into the pipe so we could fit a new chamber unit. After a bit of pushing and shoving we had the chamber fitted into position, back filled the hole, job done.  Dane our architect colleague felt guilty for what happened with the beams (rightly so!), and offered to meet us at the pub and buy the first round of drinks.  How could we refuse!