Buildlogue #5

Thursday 19th June. Day 2 of the Contract Period. Beautifully warm and sunny weather, would you believe.

At 7:30am sharp, Builder John and the first of the earthmoving contractors Bryce O’Sullivan are at the gate, and immediately get down to understanding precisely what must be done and the specifications required according to the Building Consent documents. I’ll call the earthmover Gary (for continuity).

Gary, who lives in the town of Waikanae on a large plot, has a billy goat as a lawnmower for his uneven semi-rural abode, and shows some interest in Jacko and Beebs, our G-Men. He intimates that he will have to dispose of his goat, because it is becoming a bully goat instead of a billy, and it rears and tries to head-butt his wife. Gary confides that he simple tackles the billy and teaches him lessons in submission by upending him on his back. Interesting…

Gary sets to work with his Hitachi Zaxis 17U, and removes about 200mm lawn-covered topsoil within the extremity boundary lines of the building outline.

(Above): At 9:30 a second assistant (we’ll call him Gary The Younger) arrives with a dump-truck.

(Above): The load bin measures 1.65x1.05x0.300 , which gives approximately 0.5 cubes. 

(Above): Gary on his Zaxis digger loads the excavated material into Gary The Younger’s mini-dumper, which then gets dumped (as in the photo below) in the area behind the secret garden, hopefully to be used in the proposed new veggie patch.

(Above): The garden fill transferred, Gary and Gary The Younger left in their trucks, returning an hour later, each with a load of hard fill, best described as a grey cement-colour wet slurry mix of varying size aggregate – but no cement premix added. My estimate is that their trucks carry a bit more than a cubic metre each.  

(Above): Gary once again loads hardfill into Gary The Younger’s dump-truck, who then drives round the back to offload on the cleared site (as in the photo below).

After four loads, they left again to fetch another two deliveries of hardfill.

(Above): The stainless steel metal reinforcement which was ripped out of the rubber track.

Then disaster struck: the metal bands in one of the tracks of the dump-truck started moulting – this is the equivalent of a total blow-out of a pneumatic tyre. Further carting of the hardfill from the gate to site will have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, Gary levelled out the onsite material.