Monday, November 26, 2007
Floor ready for insulation and concrete
Picked up the floor compactor (plaque vibrante) this morning from the hire shop. They are doing well from me at the moment. It's just a small petrol driven machine with a vibrating plate. I've used one before for laying block paving and it's about 40 euros a day to hire.
Before starting work this morning to cover the soil pipes installed last week we had to order the concrete mixer. We ordered six cubic meters of ready mixed concrete (béton prêt à l’emploi) along with an attached conveyor belt to get the concrete to the far side of the room. The guy at the shop suggested a concrete mix with a slightly smaller gravel mix to get a better finish as I intend to tile straight on top of the concrete floor. The concrete also has a retardant to slow the drying process down to give us time to move it about and get everything level before setting. The whole lot came to 980 euros, a bit more than I expected, but I'm not mixing by hand. So, 6 m3 should be enough for 60 m2 at a 10cm depth.
Concrete ordered and the rest of the day was to cover the soil pipes with the extra hardcore ordered last week. To save a delivery charge I also ordered 7 tonnes of grey unwashed sand along with the hardcore in the same lorry. As it turns out it was very lucky I did cos after running the compactor over the hardcore it compressed so much that we ended up shovelling in the extra 7 tonnes of hardcore and then added a layer of about 4 tonnes of sand on top.
We are both bushed having now shifted over 25 tonnes of sand and gravel. Tomorrow it the DPC (damp proof course) and insulation.
BTW - If you got here from google using the search terms hardcore and vibrator, then sorry.
| 7:59:32 PM
Floor ready for insulation and concrete
