LAST BLAST BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Our final order from Ciolli Brothers Readymix, 12cu.m of 15MPa concrete for the 90mm thick ground floor slab, was due to arrive at 9am on Thursday 22 December 2011. So it was a bit of a scramble to get the damp proof sheeting and pre-cut underslab Isolite insulation in place before the arrival of the two concrete trucks. 

Laying the damp proof membrane

Placing the 40mm Isolite insulation over the damp proof membrane

 The concrete pour went ahead on time and without event, bar an apparent slight underestimation in the amount of concrete required. This was quickly remedied by the builders, who mixed up the required extra quantity of concrete by hand in no time, and wheelbarrowed it in place. By 11:30am the slab was complete.

The slab pour begins...

Mixing a little extra concrete by hand

The completed 90mm thick ground floor slab

Work was then begun on the 1.8m high front boundary walls. The wall is in three sections, with timber slatted fence and gate sections inserted between the three wall sections in order to satisfy Council requirements for 40% visual permeability on the street frontage. The walls are built using solid imperial size concrete bricks from Cape Brick, with a 70% recycled content. By the end of the following day [Friday 23 December], all three sections of the front boundary walls were up and bagged. Bagging entails wiping a cement slurry over the finished surface to smooth it off, while still leaving a discernible brick pattern. This type of finish not only saves time and money, but uses far less cement and sand than plastering, with concomitant environmental benefits. Happiness all round that we got so much done before the start of the Christmas break.

The three sections of street boundary wall

TIME AND TIDE

While we are trying, and so far not very successfully, to come to terms with the devastating loss of Tigger, life goes on inexorably. So our excitement at the rapid progress on site has been somewhat muted, and greatly overshadowed by this departure of a close friend.

Overview of progress thus far

This week, the builders have been on site Monday to Wednesday. Friday was a public holiday, and as things go this time of the year, Thursday was taken off for good measure. Progress during these three days has been rapid. The rear boundary wall has been completed up to its 2m permitted height. A storage shed was delivered to site to keep tools and materials safe, now that building has begun in earnest. And the builders have completed the foundation walls of the house, ready to start compaction of the fill in advance of pouring the ground floor slab.

Completed rear boundary wall, 2m high

View towards the street

In addition, on Thursday we received a delivery of 93sq.m of 40mm thick sheets of polystyrene insulation. The polystyrene was supplied by a company called Isolite, which manufactures the sheets in their factory in Philippi, Cape Town. The sheets measure 2.5m X 1.2m. On Saturday we cut a few of the sheets to size, in order to fill in the gaps left over when the full size sheets are laid in position. This is our first major departure from standard house construction in South Africa, where it is unheard of to insulate one's ground floor slab. This 40mm layer of insulation will be placed over the damp proof membrane, and directly under the concrete slab of the house [we are omitting insulation in the Garage]. It should make the tiled ground floor comfortable to walk on barefoot in the depths of the Cape winter, without resorting to under tile heating. This should lower the electricity demand as a result, and make for a more comfortable internal environment.

Cavity wall construction at end walls [brickwork to be exposed]

Solid wall construction at long walls [to receive rainscreen cladding]

2009.09.15 -2011.12.13

 

Yesterday was just one week short of Tigger's second year with us. I remember the day I picked him at the shelter. I had never had a cat before, and didn't really know what kind of cat I wanted, except that I didn't want a ginger. I was in the Tears kittenry for over an hour playing with the kids, and had made up my mind on an aloof little black and white boy. All that time there were two little ginger babies fast asleep in a hanging basket. I decided to wake them up just to see what they were like. It was Tigger at the bottom, and his little sister asleep on top of him. She was not too pleased that I had disturbed her beauty sleep, but Tigger promptly climbed up onto my lap and fell asleep there. That was how he picked me. His wiry coat and affection melted my resistance, I knew he was the one.

This terrible disease was probably already in the making at that stage, but there was no way of anyone knowing. I am happy to have given you a home for the two years that you were destined to be here. I can still hear the little gurgling noises you used to make when you were being playful. I can still feel your deep resonant purring in the next room. I so wish you would still come and greet me with a nudge and a curly tail whenever I come home. What I would give to be woken by the sight of you sitting on my chest staring into my eyes, gently purring me awake.

Tigger fought his illness bravely. I aspire to attain his dignity and stoicism in dealing with adversity. Never once did he complain or feel sorry for himself. Tigger, if I could have borne your burden for you, I gladly would have. Yesterday, you could fight no more. I am so sorry for any discomfort you experienced. I wish it didn't have to end this way. You fell asleep gently, gazing into my eyes. You are always unforgettable, my Little Lion.

FRANTIC FRIDAY

Friday 9 December 2011 was a busy day on site. We had 10 pallets of bricks and blocks arriving, Ciolli Brothers were due to pour 17cu.m of concrete, and the builders wanted to get started on the rear boundary wall.

So that's how the morning began. Building of the rear boundary wall started using concrete blocks which had been delivered the day before. This wall is built of MA190 blocks, basically hollow concrete blocks dimensioned 390mm long X 190mm high X 190mm wide. For most of the house as well as the front boundary wall we are using solid imperial size bricks, 220mm long X 72mm high X 105mm wide. All our bricks and blocks are concrete, and sourced from Cape Brick, a local manufacturer based less than 20km from the site. Cape Brick has excellent environmental credentials. Their concrete masonry products have an average recycled content of 70%. In fact they claim to use 10% of all concrete building rubble generated in the Cape Town region in the manufacture of their products. And again their close proximity to site keeps the transportation carbon footprint smaller too. So although we are using heaps of concrete, a huge proportion of it is either blast furnace slag or recycled rubble, so no guilty conscience there. And the longevity of the product as well as its excellent thermal mass characteristics will minimise life cycle costs of the building further.

Our engineer specified that our concrete footings be 300mm thick. The 17cu.m of 25MPa foundation concrete came in 3 separate trucks, the first two carrying 6cu.m each. When we saw how much was still left to pour after the first two trucks, we contacted the supplier to increase the final batch from 5 to 6cu.m. The extra concrete was needed as the trenches became ever wider with the sand continuously falling in and being dug out again. This extra concrete order delayed the third truck for a couple of hours, which gave the builder a little time to keep building on the rear boundary wall. A productive day all round.

The north wall foundation concrete in its final resting place

Progress on the rear boundary wall

Overview of the site from the rear

BUILDING STARTS!

Following a weekend site visit by our foundation engineer, we were advised of the steel reinforcing, and concrete strength and dimensions required for the strip foundations. The steel was ordered on Monday and delivered on site Tuesday 6 December 2011. Our builder, Pieter Olyn, made quick work of cutting and tying the steel rebar, and placing it in the foundation trenches.

Steel reinforcing, consisting of 4 rows of 12mm rebar tied at 750mm intervals with 10mm rebar

The first of 3 batches of readymix concrete was delivered on site Wednesday 7 December 2011. This was a 6cu.m batch of 15Mpa concrete for the boundary wall foundations. We are using a local company called Ciolli Brothers. They have a stone quarry and concrete plant just a few kilometers from the site. The cement specified in the mix is 40% slag [ground granulated blastfurnace slag or GGBS - an effective cement substitute], a waste material collected from iron smelters. This is sometimes mixed with cement in varying proportions and sold as Eco-Cement by some companies. As it is a by-product or waste material, it has a significantly reduced carbon footprint compared to regular virgin cement. This fact, together with the close proximity of the quarry and concrete plant to the site, makes the concrete as environmentally sound as is reasonably possible on a tight budget. Our concrete supplier does not even market his concrete as an environmental choice, and it did undercut the quoted price from large multinational suppliers. My advice, do research on your suppliers and educate yourself about the options, as environmentally responsible materials are not always the more expensive option.

Pouring a section for the front boundary wall foundation

OOPS! Partial collapse of the house foundation trench, cause by the heavy truck

 The concrete pour started with 2 cu.m for the front boundary walls, easily accessed from the road. Getting the concrete to the rear boundary wall trench was a little bit more tricky though. The driver had to manoeuvre the truck down the narrower south side of the site, as the sand on the wider north side was too loose to drive on. After a few tries over this still loose sand, he managed to get through, despite a heart stopping moment of soil collapse into the house foundation trench. The remaining 4 cu.m were poured at the rear boundary, and he went on his way within the allotted 45 minutes.

Pouring concrete in the rear boundary wall foundation trench

BITTERSWEET START TO THE WEEK

Our builders finally broke ground on Monday 28 November 2011. This was after the house had been enrolled on the NHBRC [National Home Builders Registration Council], a compulsory insurance scheme against certain defects for all new homes. The soil test came back as a category “C”. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but the soil is very sandy.

It was a windy day, sand blowing back in the trenches

Our municipal water meter was finally installed by the city council on Tuesday, 3 weeks after we applied for the connection. As of today, the builder has excavated all the foundation trenches for the house, and has begun the excavation of the boundary wall foundation trenches. A visit to site this morning by the foundation engineer resulted in an instruction to the builder to wet and compact the sandy soil tightly to avoid a more costly foundation design. This process should commence on Thursday. So that is the current status of the build. Once the engineer approves the compacted foundation trenches, he can finalise the steel reinforcing design. And then the building can commence.

Foundation trenches in the sunset

Unfortunately what should have been a much anticipated week where construction begins, has been upset by some very sad news concerning Tigger, our little lion. In December 2009 we rescued Tigger from Tears, a pro-life animal shelter in Noordhoek, Cape Town. They do fantastic work in animal welfare, and have a policy of housing their rescues until the find a permanent home. Tigger was born in the shelter to a stray mom. He was about 3 months old when we brought him home. Since then he has found a very special place in our hearts. Tigger is an affectionate, strong and intelligent little lion. The shock came on Monday, when he was positively diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis, an incurable and fast acting illness. It is heartbreaking that we do not have much time left with him, and treasure every moment he is still here with us. Be strong little guy.

Kitten Tigger, a couple of days after arriving in his new home

Tigger under his favourite tree

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Please indulge this brief diversion from the blog topic. Yesterday, 22 November 2011, was “Black Tuesday” in South Africa. Parliament was set to vote on a controversial piece of legislation, the Protection of State Information Bill. Basically, this Bill replaces Apartheid-era legislation governing state secrets. Although this may sound like a good thing, and the legislation is progressive in some aspects, it gives sweeping powers to organs of state to classify information. Any person who comes into possession of such classified information is mandated to immediately go to their nearest police station and hand in the classified information. Should they not do so, and be found guilty of such in a court of law, they would face a minimum sentence of 15 years! Most controversially, there is no provision for a public defense clause. This means that even if the classified information proves a criminal act by a state official, you would still be in contravention of the Bill. Although this legislation affects all citizens' rights, it has the potential to have a particular chilling effect on investigative journalism in SA. Media groups have been vociferous in their opposition to this Bill. There is widespread suspicion that the sole purpose of the Bill is to silence the media, in the wake of a never-ending stream of exposés of high level government corruption. Basically, all that ANC officials have to do is classify information which implicates them in corruption, and they become untouchable.

The Good Reverend addressing the faithful

Poster art

More poster art

Mob with a mission

Recycled surfboard

I attended a demonstration in front of the gates of Parliament on Tuesday. It was heartening to see a turnout of over 2000 concerned citizens. However, the ANC used its parliamentary majority to ram this Bill through. It is our darkest day since 1994. Our democratic rights are now being eroded by the very people who liberated this country. On a positive note, the Bill still has to be approved by the upper house [National Council of Provinces] and by the President. Although these approvals are almost a certainty, there is every chance of certain aspects of the Bill being declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court on an appeal, which is certain to follow final approval of the legislation. 

Zachie Achmat [Treatment Action Campaign] speaks

Nick Dawes [Mail and Guardian Newspaper] speaks

Yusuf Abramjee [Primedia] speaks

The real question is, why is the ANC so desperate to ram legislation through Parliament, which every eminent legal brain in the country claims will not withstand Constitutional scrutiny? Does it perhaps have anything to do with their now legendary thieving, looting, tender rigging and corrupt ways? Their days in power are numbered: we are not the fools they take us to be.

ONE LITTLE, TWO LITTLE, THREE LITTLE INDIANS.....

This weekend we had to dig two holes on site for a soil test. The Engineers needed the holes dug 1,5m deep, and about 1 m across. We did so on Saturday morning. It was relatively easy going, the soil being sandy and soft. Then on Sunday afternoon we dropped by the site just to check that the holes were still OK following an overnight rainstorm.

Two little Indians and a Tepee

Shock and horror greeted us. Over one of the holes, three little neighbourhood kids had erected a makeshift tepee out of palm leaves, and were camping in the hole! The other hole had been mostly filled back in. And to top it off, one of the kids' father was merrily sitting in the tepee! Needless to say, we were just a little upset at the brazen disregard for private property, as well as the audacity to fill in a hole which was dug for a reason. So we were even more upset to find the father being somewhat aggressive towards us, and blaming everyone else [including ourselves] for filling in the hole! At one point he even told us to get off our own land!

One of the filled holes...

He went back home [he was a near neighbour] and returned in a few minutes in a far more amenable and friendly mood [maybe his wife gave him a good talking to?]. He told us not to worry, and that he would reinstate the holes to their former condition. We decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and left him to it.

A few hours later we returned to find the site a hive of activity. Our neighbour had reinstated the holes, and there were a few other neighbours happily chatting on the site. Anyway, it was a good opportunity to meet some of them. We even shared a few glasses of wine in the setting sun. What started out as an ill-tempered confrontation with a neighbour actually turned into a great little ice-breaker. And it was good to meet a few of the neighbours, and reassuring to find that they are good, friendly, down-to earth folk. All's well that ends well.

We left the tepee intact to give the kids a few more days of playtime

The hole, reinstated and cordoned off

The site and holes cordoned off to discourage messing about

The site

View towards the site

The land we are developing is located in West Beach, a middle class Atlantic coastal suburb about 20km north of central Cape Town. The area is fairly recently developed, being laid out in the late 1980's/early 1990's. The site is about 1km from the sea. Surrounding houses are mostly single storey brick built, fairly nondescript and devoid of architectural interest. This is so typical of recent suburban development in SA, where home builders nowadays seem to be either aesthetically challenged, or just don't give a damn how it looks....

View from park bridge to site

The site itself is 680sq.m [7320sq.f for all the non metric Philistines out there!]. That's 20m street frontage, and 34m deep. To the rear of the site is what seems to pass in the area as a “park”. In reality it is a totally unloved and neglected strip of land which traverses much of the length of the suburb, but seems to receive only cursory maintenance once every few months from the City Council. It is devoid of any landscaping or deliberate planting, being basically just left to its own devices in this regard. Why do we seem to hate our urban green spaces so much in SA? One bright spot to the “park” aspect is that directly behind our site is a little river course with tall reeds, and a little wooden bridge crossing the river at this point. It adds some character to an otherwise dreary landscape. Perhaps we will be civic minded, and plant a few trees in the park beyond our boundary in order to beautify it a tad?

About this blog.....

Hello World, and welcome to the Suburban Forest Blog. We are starting this blog to chronicle our experimental efforts at property development. We are aspirant property developers, Dave [Electrical Engineer], and Lance [Architect]. Located in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa, we want to prove to ourselves, and to the blogosphere, that it is possible to build an architectural, efficient, and environmentally responsive house using standard building techniques and a very limited budget. Oh, and we love trees, so expect to see a few of those too! We welcome all to follow this journey with us, and look forward to any comments and suggestions you may wish to share with us. Here goes!