Despite some rainy days that slowed down and in a few cases temporarily stopped progress and a 4-day illness for a key building team member, things move ahead.

Holes are drilled into rock in the bottom of the pier-hole excavations and steel reinforcing bars (reo) are chemset, or glued, into those holes. Then cast-in plates are combined with more reo and tied down in the pier holes. In the strip-footing excavations, plywood formwork is painstakingly prepared and more steel is fixed in the footings.

From the digging of the pier holes and the strip footings to the installation of the chemset bars and then the 20 cast-in plate assembly placements, everything, absolutely everything has to be right where it is supposed to be in relation to everything else. That’s hard enough on a level site, but very tough on a sloping site, especially one as steep as Woodcutters Road.

Getting those measurements and positions set out means land surveyors and the two surveyors we had on site did a fantastic job. They had to make repeated visits, at each stage of this process, to give Ian and his team the marks they needed to ensure the foundations were positioned according to the architects’ and engineer’s drawings.

Concrete will be poured to the level of the cast-in plates and later the steel poles will be welded to the plates.

The strip footings shown formed up below will have blocks laid on them. This will be the only area where the house structure will touch the ground. The walls are mainly designed to retain the soil above and around the house from slipping, and then the house ending up in the backyard of our neighbours directly below us on Hakea Drive!

Architects, engineer, carpenters/steel fixers, surveyors, everyone has collaborated to get the project this far. On Day 20, March 31, everything is ready for the concrete pour the next day. What an effort!