Morning all,
A very frustrating, but eventually successful couple of days
Concrete has been poured starting yesterday.
Trouble the first batch was on the ground in front of the mixer rather than down a hole.
We finished installing cages around 12 yesterday, then had them checked and signed off by the lab, the guy in the brown and white shirt in photo 2163.
He is also seen carefully controlling and monitoring the exact amount of each ingredient as it goes into the bowl and also does our test cylinders and slump tests. Unfortunately he delayed the whole thing by turning up late.
Dave calls this Le temp de Niger or Niger time. 9am can be anything from 8 am to tomorrow sometime.
We also had to get our controller and the surveyor to sign off on the cages as well and unlike the lab guy they did show up on time to do this.
Although they were both late for the weekly meeting....
After signoff, We then had a slow start until the guys saw Dave and I grab a barrow each and start shovelling in our impatience to stop poncing about and get on with it.
We then had some jammed machinery, some staff changes, a huge amount of shouting and arm waving and then the mixer broke, and we had to ditch the concrete on the floor before it went off in the bowl. See picture of dead mixer being worked on by the suppliers.
Which reminds me of another story involving rapid hardener, an allied concrete truck with a 6m3 bowl (soon to become slightly larger), some commercial explosive, and a lot of welding.
We then tried the other mixer with a similar result.
By this time it was around 4pm so we gave up, left the repairers to it and concentrated on building up our stockpiles of screened aggregate, sand and cement next to the 2 dead mixers in preparation for the today.
This morning they finished repairing mixer 1, we fired it up, and we mixed our first real load- see photo.
We never thought we’d be this excited to watch a concrete pour. Maybe we’ve been out in the sun too long.
The photo showing second load, shows a guy on the right in training for the Olympics.
Actually, he’s just been reminded that we also need to vibrate the concrete so he’s off to the store to fetch one.
We also had a second controller turn up, asking for some changes before we poured any more concrete. This was a complete surprise as we were told a few months back that his proposal had been turned down and he wouldn’t be involved in the project. We then had to lift all the steel back out of the holes, put plastic down, and put the cages back in before getting them signed off again by all and sundry. We’d already poured one pad so this went without plastic.
So we now have 2X controllers, 2 lab guys, a surveyor, and a Ministry rep who must sign off on everything at all stages.
Make up your own mind about this but the phrase “gravy train” keeps coming to my mind...
Anyway, long and the short of it is that we have poured 2 pad foundations today. A total of 10.8m3.
Anywhere else and we’d be pissed off with this but here after all the issues, its bloody marvellous. The guys are getting the hang of things now and are keen to learn. Plus hopefully we won’t have quite as many breakdowns so we will improve on this over the coming days.
We’ve confirmed the appointment of John Doherty who will take on the role of construction manager here as of next week which is great. Dave and I have a list of chores for him which seems to keep growing by the day, although it’s not nearly as long as Ralph’s list yet!
First thing this morning we went to villa 2 to check on things in prep for Stan and Lindsay’s arrival.
The hot tub, 70 inch plasma TV and full leather lounge suite haven’t turned up yet but everything else is either there or on its way.
Villa number 1 will have me, Dave, Ralph (after Saturday) and John (after Thursday). Stan and Lindsay will have their own amenities but will probably have breakfast and dinner at villa 1.
Apparently the client has now found 6 cooks and we are to have a sort of contest to see which one we like the best. Sounds a bit like Hell’s kitchen but could be ok.
This is good as we’ll hopefully have a permanent one sorted by the time the other guys get here. If not, we’ll probably be going out every night as while I don’t mind cooking for 2 or 3 people, 6 is an entirely different proposition at the end of a long and hot working day.
Vehicle wise, the client has a 12 seat minibus coming from Spain but it won’t arrive for 3 weeks so we will probably end up having 2 shifts to get all 6 of us out to site. Abduouraman, our driver (known to us as ADR) can take 3 of us out to site early then return for the other 3 and the same at the end of the day.
After weeks of chasing, we have given up and have found our own plumber to fix a few problems in the 2 villas. Hopefully he’ll be on to these tomorrow.
Insh Allah as they say here or “If God wills it”.
Steam coming out of Dave’s shower head and various backflow issues from our toilets should hopefully soon be fixed.
I’m sure you all wanted to hear about our toilet problems so I’m glad I’ve shared them with you..
Speaking of shouting and arm waving, you can never have too much of this. We start a simple site discussion here with 2 people and more seem to gravitate towards us and before you know it we have a heap of people, all with different points of view and all waving arms, and yelling. We get there in the end but it sometimes takes a buggar sight longer than we’d like.
That’s all for today,
Patrick
