More concreting this weekend.
It's starting to feel weird unless we've mixed at least some concrete on a Sunday!
Yesterdays concreting wasn't at mine though - it was at my brothers new house. They've only been in a month but they've already done loads, lots of ripping things out, mainly concentrating on the living room and dinning room.
I called round one night a few weeks ago and Dave showed me some quarry tiles under the carpet in the living room. My heart sank a little as I knew, with the age of the house, that the chances were those tiles would be laid on ash and dirt, we lifted a couple of the tiles and could push a screwdriver 4 inches into the dirt. Only one solution really, dig it all out and lay a new floor. Lots of work.
Dave has worked like a trooper and with the help of his fiancée they've got the floor all dug out in the last week, added a layer of scalpings, wackering it down and then blinded it with sand.
I turned up Saturday to give him a hand. We got the first layer of plastic down, added the insulation then added another layer of plastic to prevent it reacting with the insulation (apparently the wet concrete can react with the aluminium layer on the insulation).
On Sunday we concreted it. Dave had a few mates there to help as well as me and dad, all the concrete was mixed using the mixer on the tractor - that way we can do it on a Sunday rather than waiting to have a ready mix. I was in charge of laying it, helped by Dave, and I think we got a pretty good finish. He did record a short time lasp video of the floor going in (I'm the one in a blue shirt) - Maybe I should add the Benny Hill music to it!
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| The finished floor |
Now the waiting begins! He wants to lay a wood floor on this and concrete dries at 1mm per day so they've got a bit of a wait before we can lay any flooring!
that rings back memories of house renovations, its looking good how nice that family can muck in together to get jobs done :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like you have been very busy Kev. We laid paving flags style lino in our front room when we built our house/bungalow in 2003. The rest of the rooms are tiles (muddy boots and paws) and the bedrooms have carpet. All the television makeover programmes seem obsessed with laminate flooring. Perhaps your brother will pay you to lay an oak floor Kev?
ReplyDeleteHey Kev, that looks like one of the rooms at the front of my house! You want a busmans holiday here? lol The builder has just left, he is trying to put a new roof on the garage, but it is blowing like mad and raining like crazy. Good luck with the rest of it. and I will watch with interest as we also want oak flooring throughout the downstairs.
ReplyDeleteDo you have oil heating by any chance? We have not heating or hot water. we are having quotes for it to all be replaced. Including the old tank, mucho ££££ Any advise would be gladly accepted.
Oh memories!
ReplyDeleteA good job well done. What have you done with the old quarry tiles?
Looks like a brutal job, but the worst is over now. Don't see a lot of concrete floors inside houses here on this side of the pond.
ReplyDeleteFantastic job Kev, what an incredibly handy family you all are!
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