Well, we’re in the middle of a mess at the house at the moment, having the patio and surrounding pathways reconstructed.
Those who have visited may remember that the supporting “wall” was failing badly, and over the 17 years of ownership it had bowed alarmingly and the patio level had dropped accordingly. I called it a wall, but as it collapsed we found that it was basically an organized pile of boulders, glued together with some almost cement-free mortar...
So, before it totally collapsed, we decided that this summer would see it reconstructed. We hired a guy who had about 6 strong lads to assist, and after many sketches, arm waving, Aura losing it with translations, they set about digging all the old stuff out....
Nightmare, my poor grasss...
Then they set about digging the footings for the new wall. Of course, the “difficult old Englishman” didn’t want straight lines anymore, and I spent 2 days convincing them that I wanted curves, and reverse curves at that, as well as a straight part and some steps done to the “lawn” and a flight of steps going up towards the (emergency) door leading from the corridor in the extension (that’s the sloping bit 2 photos up).
Now we have a profile for the curved bits...
Next, some nice deep footings, 900 mm deep.... (night-time photos)...
Then, some boulder rubble at the bottom for some drainage, topped with a membrane....
Some mesh reinforcement (it’s almost impossible to convince these guys to set the mesh to a profile) dog it in, it’ll be fine. I didn’t mind too much, the wall will be 300mm thick in good concrete so it will be plenty strong enough.
Then some formwork / shuttering of sorts...
And then some concrete. After striking the formwork, it didn’t look too bad...
Next was the filling with rubble, but I’m up to my photo limit so there’ll be a few more in the next post...