Groundwork: Part 3 - Blockwork foundations

A few days after the concrete footings had been poured, we were able to begin construction of the blockwork foundations. After carefully setting up lines and levels, the block laying was ready to begin.





Alan carried over and laid out the very heavy (28kg each) trench blocks in readiness for our blockie Nick. Despite ignoring my sage advice about not overdoing it, he then proceeded to complain about his bad back for three weeks afterwards (tut).
 

With Nick's son and regular work partner away on honeymoon, Alan pitched in helping to mix the mortar and acting as general labourer.









I wanted to try my hand at some blockwork and after a quick lesson from Nick, I gave it a try. As you can see in this picture, after laying one block I'm now a real pro.













Openings in the wall were created for drainage pipes and the water supply pipe from our borehole.







The initial intention was to only build up 4 courses of trench blocks. We decided to add a fifth course in order to raise the floor level. This helped compensate for digging down much deeper than planned when the site was originally cleared.





It almost seems a shame to spend so much effort on a neat blockwork wall that just gets buried under the house & never seen again.






With the blockwork completed, we were ready to begin work on the ground floor construction.