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With the great weather in the last two weeks, following on from the slab pour, we will endeavour to pour the walls of the house tomorrow. I'm thinking I won't sleep tonight.

Mentally listing all the things I wanted to do, and re ticking them off.

First 7 cube is arriving at 8.30. 🤞

I'll leave this picture with you....

IMG_20230629_170011.thumb.jpg.acc33eb5533cd254449bb98ec00a13ca.jpg

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@FM2015 I'm just about calming down. Breathe..

It's up, the walls are straight/ plumb, but the day had some issues.

Used hoppers and a 360 until it broke🙈.

 

IMG_20230630_193408.jpg.9e6d5a08d96d06a682c883e4d33c61f2.jpg

I'll write up a blog, but we got 12.3cube in the walls, the 360 gave up with about a cube to go. Managed to finish with a manatu, buckets and shovels.

 

Also managed to pour a foundation wall for the path with offcuts of the ICF. 

So beer time.IMG_20230630_193355.thumb.jpg.8cfab5bc20783df69d392737375e6b8d.jpgIMG_20230630_175323.thumb.jpg.efe9536f07379e8cd7be7b71c67970b7.jpg

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1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Well done.  I see that method of pour only works on a single storey building.

 

What gave up on the digger?  Is it yours or hired?

It's the neighbours, just stopped, thought it was fuel although the gauge was over half, but no, couple of lads came to look, seems like a wiring problem, but they couldn't fix it yet. Got it running but stopped again.

Luckily the neighbour had the manatu as well, my owe him list is now massive.  Just waiting to find out what the cost is🙈

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32 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

That's not about to take off. Good job you're on solid granite with 30 tonnes of concrete and counting.

There's 28 cube of concrete in there now with footings, slab and walls so circa 60T I'm sure it'll be there tomorrow 

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7 minutes ago, ProDave said:

If it's an old school diesel as I strongly suspect it is, the only electrics are the fuel shut off valve and the starter motor so hopefully it will be a simple fix.

It's a 7T takeuchi? There's wires everywhere, it would fire sometimes  but you could hear a solenoid kicking out almost immediately. They tracked a blown fuse, but there's still an issue.🤔

Edited by Jenki
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Dirt clogging the preliminary filter in the diesel tank would be my stock answer for various farm machines I have. 

 

Particularly a problem for excavators as they regularly get filled with drums. Often it will run dry and conk out, you put some more diesel in and the greater "head" pushes it down the pipe again only to do the same thing when the fuel level gets lower.

 

If you can take the fuel pipe off the diesel filter and attach a bicycle pump you can often blow the filter clean with a few whooshes of air back into the tank and your machine will work for weeks or months again just fine. Long term the tank needs cleaning of course. 

 

 

 

 

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Digger was not a fuel issue, first thing we did, clean the filters, purge the air etc. It tried to fire but you could hear a solenoid clicking out immediately. Definitely a wire issue/ electrical. Plus the machine just stopped, no coughing etc, just like it was switched off. Not my problem for now. Day off, then clean up and strip the scaffold tomorrow.

Edited by Jenki
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On 29/06/2023 at 21:20, Jenki said:

With the great weather in the last two weeks, following on from the slab pour, we will endeavour to pour the walls of the house tomorrow. I'm thinking I won't sleep tonight.....

 

Good to see another member of the SleeplessSelfBuilderClub. Welcome.

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1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

risk all that effort by not hiring a couple hundred quid pump for a couple hours. baffling.

If you read my posts, In my location they wanted £2k for a pump. That's £2000 pound. Sorry I've baffled you,  we can't all be superman @Dave Jones😍

Edited by Jenki
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2 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

Looks like a really nice neat job. You should be proud of yourselves.

+1 to that.

 

I have often wondered why nobody else fills ICF like this, at least on a single storey building.  And this shows it can and does work.  If only the digger had not had a grump it would have gone sweetly to completion.  There have been plenty of Grand Design type programs where the concrete pump is not working and they are frantically trying to fix it before the load of concrete in the waiting wagon goes off.

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Just now, ProDave said:

concrete pump is not working

When the pipe jams it is a big deal. The concrete is stopped in the pipes and hardening by the minute. The professionals who pump concrete every day can clear it in 20 minutes, with a lot of mess. I wouldn't fancy it happening on a self build or with groundworkers.

 

It needs a plan b, but I have never known that be a standby pump.

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8 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

It all looks very neat and tidy.  I like the hoppers.  Did you struggle to keep up with the concrete wagon and time allowed?

They give us 45 Mins to unload and then £1 a minute. The guy driving the digger was the truck driver, who was rewarded with some cash, I had agreed this with the company

 The excitement with the second truck ended up with about 90 mins waiting time, the first truck about 40mins so all in not too bad.

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46 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

When the pipe jams it is a big deal. The concrete is stopped in the pipes and hardening by the minute. The professionals who pump concrete every day can clear it in 20 minutes, with a lot of mess. I wouldn't fancy it happening on a self build or with groundworkers.

 

It needs a plan b, but I have never known that be a standby pump.

My plan B was my old digger leading towards plan C ( buckets), if you read my blog, luckily plan D was a little better😂

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Plan C, buckets.  Do you mean finding 20 helpers with buckets for " to you, to me"     Indian style until dark?

Plan x is to spread the remaining concrete along your access road?

 

I worked on some huge infrastructure projects. Plan b was of built-in redundancy...use 2 small cranes rather than one large.

Plan c, to locate another machine on site. Crane/ hiab whatever.

Plan d was usually to stop at an agreed location  and construct a "stop end".  The joiners shuttering skills came to the fore, added to Engineers' understanding of where stresses will be in a finished bridge.

 

@Jenki how much was a  thought out contingency, and how much was instinct or problem management? I'm really interested

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10 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Jenki how much was a  thought out contingency, and how much was instinct or problem management? I'm really interested

That's a good question. The digger and my loader were the backups. I had buckets and bought some more incase filling the voids under the windows was a struggle, but it worked ok.

Reading other posts on bursts etc I had timber, screws and OSB etc around. 

The rest is hard earned instinct I think, you see and experience  problems and it adds to the knowledge. I spend time thinking about what went wrong, how I resolved and what could be better.

I was calm outwardly, but to Mandy and another lad it was apparent I was stressed😂

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