Post by turkey on Apr 16, 2012 9:29:08 GMT
So after an age out has come the sun and I had time off to do a shed base, that was quickly dispatched and onto the pizza oven
enjoy my cowboy work, burning pizzas in Surrey has the local beauty crown so here is the beast, albeit a mini one.
First we have the bricks, no use atm but they help motivate, glad i didnt try to collect them in my little hatchback in the end.
It pretty boring digging earth up, especially as I found out that only a few inches down is either solid cement, large paving slabs or loads of stones.
After a good few hours of digging I got to the part where we could try and frame the base, now I was shooting for a 30" internal oven and wanteds to keep the base to 4' but that was pushing it waaaaay to fine so kept adding a few inches, I think in the end the wooden frames where 55.5" long, but the corner is not square and the paving stones I left stopped me getting to quite that in all directions, rather than pull up more for the odd inch that was already a little larger than I think I can get away with the base was shrunk, its still not really square but it follows the features / fence, I will make the base actually true, although in the grand scheme of things as its a custom build with a custom hearth it does not need to be really I suppose.
Nearly level, but close enough for me as I am not 100% the wood I got was straight in the end bloody things. That and the fact there is no end of sunken concrete the night spikes I made for the planks to keep them firm where no use and had to rip them off after making them all.
Here is the end "hole" I think its deep enough, especially as I can feel a lot of hidden concrete adding more support.
The hardcore was what I dug up in that small area back in there, cheap and saves hauling it away
I wanted to do some rebar and all I could get on short notice (finished the shed base quickly so jumped into this)
B&Q only had 2 8mm bars, so I got that and then 2 6mm bars, we layed them out and put the 2 large bars as the base width ways where my no math guess says there might be more load, the rest where then staggered to be longer in alternating directions to cover more area in the slab as they are not made to measure. Then lacking proper ties some wire I had in the house, very thin and snapped a lot but did the job.
Placed into the "pit" and then the oh is it enough? will it do? in the end sod it lets mix won.
in comes the mixer, after doing the shed base i found once its full its cery heavy so the wheels sink into the mud and its a right pain to move so I placed some old slabs in the corner so its easier spin between load and unload. Failing to properly level these was a mistake
Whilst I was hauling ballast my brother helping was busy using his noggin and back filling the shuttering to support it against the weight of concrete and make sure there was no leaks.
Levling up the rebar took longer than anticipated due to lack of proper tools, trying to find the right bit of hardcore, and then deciding the whole thing was too high or too low
I dont know if you can see in this pic, but I think we got it pretty much in the middle, use a bar across the frame to make it easier to visualize the space, I then used my hand to check clearance, really I should have got the tape measure, but it had already taken waaaaay to long, and its never going to be perfect with my lack of proper support options.
The first load of cement was used to cover the corners where we had supported the rebar, this was to help prevent it moving when we dumped cement direct from the mixer, I dont know if its needed but the rebar didnt move so seemed ok
Cement going in
from another angle, you lucky lucky viewers, dunno why there is two pics, cant be bothered to remove it now
I said I would regret not levelling the slabs, well whilst on the 4th load as I went to turn it the slab suddenly moved and the slight momentum took the mixer forward dumping a load of cement outside its target, gutted! but luckily it hit mostly the slab so was easy to mix, we didnt waste any so any archielogist that dissects that slab will find preserved grass and all sorts, a real pro job here
Nearly there, at this point I had used 14 bags of ballast, and just used the last of the cement, one bag of ballast on hand and no chuffing cement to finnish the job, back to wickes we go.
I would recommend people leave more space, as the fence stops any easy work with the level, the right hand path was also higher than the frame so that was 3 inaccessible sides to work around.
So close I could almost taste the beer at this point.
Out came the trowel and I did what I think is a good job, but even in this pic I can see my circular strokes, ahh well I don't claim to be a plasterer lol
enjoy my cowboy work, burning pizzas in Surrey has the local beauty crown so here is the beast, albeit a mini one.
First we have the bricks, no use atm but they help motivate, glad i didnt try to collect them in my little hatchback in the end.
It pretty boring digging earth up, especially as I found out that only a few inches down is either solid cement, large paving slabs or loads of stones.
After a good few hours of digging I got to the part where we could try and frame the base, now I was shooting for a 30" internal oven and wanteds to keep the base to 4' but that was pushing it waaaaay to fine so kept adding a few inches, I think in the end the wooden frames where 55.5" long, but the corner is not square and the paving stones I left stopped me getting to quite that in all directions, rather than pull up more for the odd inch that was already a little larger than I think I can get away with the base was shrunk, its still not really square but it follows the features / fence, I will make the base actually true, although in the grand scheme of things as its a custom build with a custom hearth it does not need to be really I suppose.
Nearly level, but close enough for me as I am not 100% the wood I got was straight in the end bloody things. That and the fact there is no end of sunken concrete the night spikes I made for the planks to keep them firm where no use and had to rip them off after making them all.
Here is the end "hole" I think its deep enough, especially as I can feel a lot of hidden concrete adding more support.
The hardcore was what I dug up in that small area back in there, cheap and saves hauling it away
I wanted to do some rebar and all I could get on short notice (finished the shed base quickly so jumped into this)
B&Q only had 2 8mm bars, so I got that and then 2 6mm bars, we layed them out and put the 2 large bars as the base width ways where my no math guess says there might be more load, the rest where then staggered to be longer in alternating directions to cover more area in the slab as they are not made to measure. Then lacking proper ties some wire I had in the house, very thin and snapped a lot but did the job.
Placed into the "pit" and then the oh is it enough? will it do? in the end sod it lets mix won.
in comes the mixer, after doing the shed base i found once its full its cery heavy so the wheels sink into the mud and its a right pain to move so I placed some old slabs in the corner so its easier spin between load and unload. Failing to properly level these was a mistake
Whilst I was hauling ballast my brother helping was busy using his noggin and back filling the shuttering to support it against the weight of concrete and make sure there was no leaks.
Levling up the rebar took longer than anticipated due to lack of proper tools, trying to find the right bit of hardcore, and then deciding the whole thing was too high or too low
I dont know if you can see in this pic, but I think we got it pretty much in the middle, use a bar across the frame to make it easier to visualize the space, I then used my hand to check clearance, really I should have got the tape measure, but it had already taken waaaaay to long, and its never going to be perfect with my lack of proper support options.
The first load of cement was used to cover the corners where we had supported the rebar, this was to help prevent it moving when we dumped cement direct from the mixer, I dont know if its needed but the rebar didnt move so seemed ok
Cement going in
from another angle, you lucky lucky viewers, dunno why there is two pics, cant be bothered to remove it now
I said I would regret not levelling the slabs, well whilst on the 4th load as I went to turn it the slab suddenly moved and the slight momentum took the mixer forward dumping a load of cement outside its target, gutted! but luckily it hit mostly the slab so was easy to mix, we didnt waste any so any archielogist that dissects that slab will find preserved grass and all sorts, a real pro job here
Nearly there, at this point I had used 14 bags of ballast, and just used the last of the cement, one bag of ballast on hand and no chuffing cement to finnish the job, back to wickes we go.
I would recommend people leave more space, as the fence stops any easy work with the level, the right hand path was also higher than the frame so that was 3 inaccessible sides to work around.
So close I could almost taste the beer at this point.
Out came the trowel and I did what I think is a good job, but even in this pic I can see my circular strokes, ahh well I don't claim to be a plasterer lol