The Self Build Diary - day 25 - steel and machines for "real" men

Well I promised you a photograph spectacular today and in retrospect it may have been unwise to build up my photographic skills! So I arrived at the site to meet tony the architect, Alex the builder and John the spark! Not all at once.

So it may be excitable me but! The sight of mechanical plant turns me into a child wanting to play with toys. However I am banned from plant on this site, due to clumsiness! We finalised a few setting out details with the builder and the architect. And whilst I was there I took this picture of the steel work for the beam of the raft.

It surprised me how much detail and work goes into assembling the steel work. It must be a frustrating task for the tradesman as it really is slow work. The ring beam steel should be complete by Wednesday next week hopefully ready and shuttered for pouring concrete towards the end of next week. Then we will construct the mesh of the slab that sits on top over the fill that will go into the middle of the ring beam. This will complete our raft in about a fortnight. John the spark has got all the bits ready for when ce electric come next Tuesday and Wednesday and we are all geared up for Yorkshire water to plumb us up on Tuesday. It's been another busy day on site and having the steel gives us a lot better idea of the size of the footprint of the house. It sounds daft really because we have known how big it is since the plans were drawn and I learnt about measuring at school. Oh and the sun shined today!!!!!! Any way more steel work tomorrow and then bathroom shopping at the weekend. So I'll catch you tomorrow. Neil