EZ Homes Construction I'll be covering both the good and bad parts of how the build progressed, and the various problems (and nice surprises) along the way.

Getting down to the ground

services

There was no hanging around, as soon as the designs were approved by El Dorado, a portable restroom and a waste container were delivered from San Felipe Disposal and the groundwork started.

For this week there were generally four workers present, plus Octavio and Miguel for a large proportion of the time.

First stage was to make sure there was a level area to build the addition on. Although part of the area is next to the house and on the existing compacted area that it is built on, a large part is also a lower level that has very loose fill in it. So some inspection holes were dug to see how far the compacted area extends and whether it is deep enough. watering the garden

Next, an embankment was built around the loose fill area and a great deal of water added to see at what level it will settle to.

These checks found that some of the existing compacted area would need to be cut back, then the whole area extended with red earth fill (it's a type of red clay, similar to what is used on some of the “surfaced” roads on the Ranch). backhoe

A backhoe (bulldozer) was brought in to strip off the sand above the existing red earth, rearrange some of the loose sand, and make a start on the area where a lower level of the garden will be.

Rebar assembly

rebar

While the groundwork was going on, several workers were assembling large amounts of rebar (concrete reinforcement) into various shapes. The process looks very similar to net mending, lots of fiddly repetitive work.

Water

It's amazing how much water construction will get through, especially for the groundwork. It certainly helps to have a good size tank (cistern) but even then it's easy to run out when a hose is running continuously. So be sure that you have a floating cut off in the tank to protect your pump. Mine got tested during the week when the water suddenly ran out. During the construction EZ Homes are ordering and paying for the water, I'm providing the electricity.

Septic

septic The addition comes quite near to an existing septic, so the next stage was to build up the manhole for the septic up to a new higher level so that the building level can be higher around it (it was in the lower area of loose fill). This leads me to an example of why it helps to be on site during construction.

Some initial building blocks had been delivered, but not any sand or gravel yet. So the workers used their initiative and went round to the front of the house and grabbed a bucketload of gravel from the driveway to make the mortar. Now, that's OK for a one-off, but I don't want them to get into the habit of it (I'd have no driveway left in the end) so I asked them not to do it again and reported it to Octavio and Miguel (who were not present). Without somebody noticing, “materials” like this could be used (rather than waiting for a delivery) and cost money to replace later.

Red Earth

red earth delivery Several truckloads of the red earth were delivered, watered, and settled in. Building a firm base for the future addition.

Compacting

On the Saturday, it was time to compact it.

The initial compacter rented covered a reasonable area but after only a short time of use it was found to be leaking oil. Octavio had to take it back. Compactor 2 He returned with a smaller but more powerful compactor, and we then had several hours of loud pounding disturbing the neighborhood (sorry!). Did a good job though, very thorough and very well compacted. Finally another load of red earth was delivered (the fifth load) and was spread on the top to fix the level.

So at the end of week one there's a level and firm surface to work with. All ready for marking out, which led to an “interesting” discovery... which I'll cover in the next episode!