Time in a BlogSpot

For those of you who don't get the pun in the title, click here.

So, it's been a really long time since I updated this damn thing, nearly two months. And I know I've been letting down all of you die hard fans out there. All six of you.

There's been a lot of progress over the last two months. This post will cover that. There are another two technical posts on the way and some shots of other people's houses.

Here we go, in somewhat chronological order, the progress at the site.

This is the start of our sewage treatment system. They're starting off on the two settling tanks here. In the back ground you can see the baffled reactor and beyond that is the driveway under which we will have a gravel filter pit.

It's always fun to have visitors.

 We also started the form work on the outside staircase.

Plastic bags with tiny holes in them are placed on top of columns to keep the concrete wet.

Within a week, the settling tanks had been finished. Doesn't look like much, but then this is only going hold some shit.

 At the start of the July, there was a lot of work going on and the site was full of movement. There was still space for a quick nap.

We've made one major change to the house plans: We've put in a provision for a hydraulic lift. This is because we may have a wheel chair bound person staying with us. In order to do this, we had to move one non-load-bearing wall south a bit. Right now it's just a pit.

By the 8th of july, we had started work on the first flight of stairs. This is pretty much the same as all the other concrete work that's been done so far. They create a mold, put in a steel frame work and then pour in the concrete.

We also started on the lintels. I'll talk about this more in the next update.

 This was the first picture I took from the top of the first flight of stairs. YAY! This was on the 17th of August.

Doggy time!

On the 20th of August, there was a brief discussion on the site between our architect and us about how the wall to the swing verandah should look. This involved moving some piles of bricks around and staring at them for extended periods of time.

 9 days later there was another site meeting to review the progress made. Maitri took this artistic picture of me, framed by the wall of the swing verandah, which was already 6 or 7 bricks tall.

 The walls were going up quite fast, and the site looked different everyday.

 Georg, our architect, and Maitri discuss an article in the Deccan Herald that included a small paragraph on coloured cement flooring.

 Because the house is full of odd angles, a lot of the bricks need to be cut to shape.

 I'm not entirely sure what was in this thing, since there was no painting going on.

In more good news, our rain water harvesting tanks are working! Hurrah!

 By the 12th of August. Almost all the walls were at full height. This is the swing verandah wall, with the openings in it.

 This was one of the few times I've been on the site at dusk. So I took a couple of nice pictures with monsoon clouds in the background.

 That doesn't look entirely comfortable to me, either.

Here's the site from the back. They started the shuttering work for the first floor. As you can see, almost all the walls are at full height.

 By the 22nd, the place looked like a forest had sprouted in it. All these poles were holding up the shuttering for the first floor.

 It was quite difficult to walk through between the trees and the puddles and the possibility of pieces of wood falling on your head.

 This is what the shuttering looked like from on top. See what I mean about pieces of wood?

 Georg and his team talk about the specifics of some beams and other structural issues.

 He had sprained his foot earlier that week. So he's areal trooper to be walking around a construction site.

 A whole new team of people were brought in to work on the metal word.

 There was some concern about the shuttering work for the sajjas (overhangs) around the building.

 Saw this fellow on the site that day. He was tiny and barely able to move. I don't think he made it. maybe the dogs ate him.

Or this dude.

Just kidding. This is a cement head to keep away bad luck or something like that. My father-in-law bought us this one.

 They started pouring the 1st floor on the 23rd of August. They started with the Sajjas while they finished off the electrical conduits.

 They had to bring in special equipment for the pour, because it needs to be done quickly.

Maitri asked me if they hosed the concrete in. I laughed. It was mixed on the ground, hauled up by a temporary lift and poured into wheel barrows. These were then walked across planks to the place where they were needed.

 Because of the time limitation, you also need a lot of labour when you are pouring.

 This is basically a vibrator. A giant industrial sized vibrator.

Get your head out of the gutter.

 This is what you need to do to start it.

At the end of day of the first pouring.





Here are some long shots of the site over the last couple of months. This really gives you an idea of the amount of work that's been done.

 June 23rd.

 July 8th.

August 12th.

So, that's the update. More coming soon.