Good news, bad news

Good news:
Second soil test confirms that our original test was the incorrect one. We will need much less elaborate footings and the overall price will drop by quite a bit.
Bad news:
We have to have our engineering work re-done, and because our builder had a technical hitch in his communications, he couldn't get the engineer started on the rework for about a week.
Good news:
Builders keep on working until quite late this year, don't knock off until Friday 20 Dec, so there is a slightly greater chance that we will have a roof on by then.
Bad news:
Builders keep on working until quite late this year, don't knock off until Friday 20 Dec, so we won't get to start our summer live-aboard life in Tassie until Sunday 22 December. We're going to fly down on Saturday for a two day visit just to check that Nahani is still there.
Meanwhile:
While we've been away, they've done the plumbing on the next door site, so once we get the reworked engineering specs, the concretor should be able to go ahead with the footings for both projects and the slab for next door.

Second soil test

A couple more blokes arrive, do the soil test. Advice provided to them on where to dig, as they seemed to have missed the message about digging where the new walls are going to be built. Now waiting for their report.
Builder confirms that that no action is likely until after Cup Day, so we have found ourselves a 4WD camper and we're off to Queensland "Following Burke and Wills Across Australia", checking the route for the next edition of the Touring Guide, which will go from Melbourne to the Gulf and be published some time in 2014.

Day 5: demolition complete

Pause in proceedings while we wait for another soil test. Each side of the Berlin Wall has had their own test done, with very different results. Now the wall is down we will get one done right in the area where the new walls are going to be built, and find out which test is correct.

Meanwhile, we are investigating putting a rainwater tank in the light well - should provide enough to think about in the interim.

Day 4: wall nearly all gone

East & West Berlin?

Alex on his own today, slogging away at the wall and Leigh's chimney. There are now only about two courses at the bottom of the wall - this is where it gets challenging for them to remove them with minimal damage to the concrete slab and floor of our living room, which we are trying to preserve intact as it has underfloor heating embedded.
Now the wall is down, I am tempted to get a spray can and write "East Berlin" on Leigh's side, "West Berlin" on our side.

Day 3: the wall comes down

Peter having a catnap

This reno business is playing hell with my circadian rhythms. Builders arrive about 7am, so we're awake shortly after and feel that we should be up and about in case they want something. We're trying to shift our patterns to showering in the evening, and being earlier to bed and to rise, but it isn't working. The first night I went to bed early I woke again at midnight and spent the next hour or so tossing and turning (normally I'm awake and doing useful things about that time). Still trying to get to bed a bit earlier, but not succeeding very well and the net effect so far is just less sleep, and we're wandering around as though jet-lagged, dozing off if we sit down for a bit, and feeling unwontedly cold and hungry.

Wall mostly gone

Today most of the wall came down. The guys enjoyed the wrecking, but were pretty tired by the end of a day alternating between wielding a sledgehammer and picking up bricks to put in the skip.
Not too much dust came into the house, but we were pleased to escape to friends for dinner.

Day 2: demolition continues

Removing doors and windows

The truck delivering the skip was held up in traffic, so the guys filled in the time by finishing the covering for the floor - when they ran out of timber they recycled a bit of our old kitchen partition. Then the skip arrived and they started in earnest.
We went off to put the last chair in the store, before going off for the morning. By lunchtime most of the roof was off and they were shifting the sliding doors and the windows. By evening, only the side wall and a few rafters remained.

D-day, at last!

Awoken by the squeak of next door's gate at 7:30am. Yes, builders' trucks are outside. Fling ourselves into clothes and go out to see what is happening. Huge (40 ton) truck plus trailer parked in the side lane. Alan the amazing bobcat artist works all day. Bit by bit the mess is cleared from the back of Leigh's garden, then the sheds come down, then the concrete slab comes up, revealing, to everyone's surprise, floorboards underneath. They go as well, all picked up by the bobcat and dumped into the truck and trailer. By the end of the day, it is just bare earth.

Bobcat gets started

Alan departing with first load for landfill

Tony wields a seldgehammer

While the bob-cat is working, the guys take down the pergola at the back of our house, then start demolishing the short side wall between our two gardens. This is a recent erection with modern mortar, which takes a bit of serious bashing with a sledgehammer - boss builder Tony even takes a hand in the job. His workers get up on our roof and start on the side wall, reducing it to roof height - a much easier job as the old lime mortar gives up easily. All the bricks are chucked down to where the bob-cat is working and go into the truck with the rest.

"But I haven't done my hair"

Meanwhile, the electrician comes and sorts out a regime for providing power to the joint building site without cutting off the power from either the front of our house, or the garage. After a strengthening coffee we get to work to remove the light fittings, the skirtings and half the remaining kitchen cabinet from the back room. The last chair is slid down the passage and goes out into the car. Tony orders some flooring - a kind of cross between Masonite and chipboard with plastic tongue and groove sides which goes down to protect the tiled floor and the under-floor heating beneath.
While the builders have smoko, Leigh disinters a long-dead cat from his garden. The exercise is somewhat hampered by the fact that the bobcat is parked pretty much above the grave, so he can't finish until the end of the day.

Bobcat knocking down a shed

Pulling up a concrete slab

Tony arranges for a plumber to come at the end of the day to disconnect the taps from our sink and the gas from the stove. That done, stove is shifted into the passage and backed up against the door to inhibit access. Sink finishes up in the garden, taps saved in case we want to re-use. Final bits of cabinetry go into the rubbish pile. Back room now completely bare, ready for the roof to come off and walls to come down.

It's official

So far, so good. One day down, only another couple of hundred to go.