Reinforcement

Preparations

Because the reinforcement had already arrived (see formwork, Jac Klijn), I only needed some tarpaulin and tie wire. Locally, tie wire could only be found at Bouwmaat, and that turned out to be a pleasant shop too. At Hornbach I’d already picked up 2 tarpaulins that would overlap.

So I was going to lay a double layer of 4mm diameter reinforcement mesh, and the architect had the good idea of increasing the cover in the frost footing by letting the second mesh protrude a little further than the first.

I’d also discovered that, from all the walking in and out of the project, part of the formwork had sunk. It was only a few millimetres.

Getting the formwork back to height

With a few more offcuts of roofing battens I made wedges, set up the laser and started tapping in wedges until everything was back at the right height. It’s nice when the edge of the formwork is completely level, so that screeding off the concrete is easier.

Laying everything in

I had plenty of tarpaulin, and the corners in the frost footing meant I sometimes had too much and in some places just enough sheeting. The wind and the evening drawing in meant I was soon happy with it and started laying the chunks of concrete slab so everything wouldn’t blow away. It was Monday, and on Thursday the concrete would be poured.

The next day I laid the mesh in the evening. I started in a corner and, after some trial and error, found a good way of bending it. I used a piece of OSB, stood on it and pulled the mesh up to 90 degrees that way. The angle grinder was ready each time to cut pieces out. I tied the corners together with bits of tie wire. For under the 110mm sewer pipe I had 8mm bar so I could tie the meshes together underneath as well. Everything went smoothly until late in the evening I realised I’d be 3 sheets of mesh short!

A lot of swearing, of course, and with no access to a trailer or time to fetch anything, on Wednesday I had Jac Klijn deliver what I think was 30 euros’ worth with 90 euros of delivery charges (standard delivery charge + Suez Canal surcharge). An expensive little mistake, and later I found out that the overlap took up far more extra metres than the 20% extra I’d added for convenience. The builders’ merchant is 1.7 kilometres and a 4-minute drive away, and I did try to wheedle some goodwill out of them, but no luck. A real shame that even at local businesses the answer is often ‘computer says no’ . If I’d had one more day, I’d have walked over to fetch them.

Despite everything, by Wednesday evening it was ready in plenty of time for the next morning.