Day 6: Work resumes, really

We lurch out of bed before 7 (again), ready to ensure that the new concrete foundations go in the right place, and that no one damages the controls for the underfloor heating, sticking out of the slab.
Builder Dave is trying to reconcile the measurements on various plans to work out where the boundary is between the houses. The result he gets moves our wall much further than we, or our neighbour, were expecting. It seems so unlikely that he decides to wait until he can get the Council Surveyor to check it out before digging the trench.
To our surprise, the calculations are verified. We thought we were going to gain about 100mm (4" in old money), but the actual gain is about 310mm, a bit over a foot. Neighbour is less than happy as he is going to have an unexpected step in the wall on his side, and his new living room will be a little smaller. I take him out for a consoling coffee.
By close of play there is a nice neat trench ready for concreting, but the delay in checking the survey means no pouring. We are bemused to find an ancient pipe running from one property to the other, through the trench. Carrying what? who knows...

Work resumes, almost...

We lurch out of bed before 7, ready to ensure that the new concrete foundations go in the right place, and that no one damages the controls for the underfloor heating, sticking out of the slab.
Concretor is a no show, so nothing happens.
We take the car to be serviced and prowl the streets of Richmond looking at windows, furniture, sinks, taps, range hoods etc. Most of what we like turns out to be at IKEA. Which is good, because their prices are reasonable for well-designed stuff.

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.