Progress Will Not Appear To Be So Rapid Now March 23, 2012

They have started the facing on the center roof.  The center roof overhangs  the roof terrace.  Underneath this overhang are opening windows and an extruder fan for extra ventilation for the kitchen/living room.

Street view, the winter patio now has pony walls.

This is a distortion of the overhang on my office, it really is square.  

Front view minus the supports for the overhangs.

They are smoothing the facing on the overhangs.

This looks promising!  The cistern is in and the floor of the garage/storage/laundry room has been poured!

It looks sort of cave-like as the ceiling is so low.  It is just over six feet high.  The things on the walls are supports that were nailed in for planks to be laid across while they poured the floor - by the bucket.

Looking from where the car will go to the laundry/storage area.  It looks larger than it really is.

Now for the sad part:  When we spoke to the contractor the day before the floor pour Lorne was very explicit when he asked that he ensure the floor slopped to the outside so that any water would flow towards the doorway...... Well guess where it flows? That's right - towards the back wall.  This is not good.  It doesn't rain often here but when it does it pours sideways as much as 30 inches in a matter of hours.  The back of this space is where there will be storage shelves.....  I guess we will have to have a "conversation" with the contractor on Monday.....

The winter patio and the windows to the master bedroom.  The dirt has been removed from the hot tub site.

Staircase to the roof terrace showing the storage areas underneath the stairs.

 The north wall of the winter terrace shelters from the wind.

The winter terrace.

The Third and Last Roof Pour March 9, 2012

Getting organized for the middle roof pour... This is the street side of the house.  The pile of dirt you see will be tamped down for the floor of the winter patio.

This is the Sea side of the house with a load of dirt to be tamped down for the floor of the summer patio.

Foreground:  Lorne and Duke the Great Dane.
Background:  the crew doing the roof pour.

Hand troweling the concrete, paying special attention to an important castillo to help ensure a consistent height.

He's been hauling cement for hours and still smiling!  Must be the coke and chocolate brownies we delivered....

The crew on the scaffolding bringing up the cement in big buckets, handing the buckets up to the man above.

The cement is poured from the buckets into the wheel barrows and then taken to where its needed on the roof.  Note Chapi's special white concrete stomping boots.

The cement bucket brigade.

The brigade at work with a side view of the staircase to the roof over the master bedroom.

They use a metal bar to make sure the cement is level and to `float the concrete`.

 A view from above of the bucket brigade.

Leveling.

The garage below and Lorne`s office above.  The storage/laundry room is below my office.

Lorne's office and the summer terrace with one of the guys working on the roof.

Sea side view.

View of the crew from the roof of our neighbor's house.

The cistern will soon be placed in the floor of the garage.

View of Lorne and Duke and towards the setting sun from the roof-top terrace.

And the Beat Goes On February 11 - 16

 Looking from the front door into the kitchen and through to the summer terrace (calm no wind day).  The doorway is the entrance to the bedroom.

Looking from the living room to the kitchen with the door to the bedroom and the large window/pass-through to the winter terrace (protection from the wind).

The far wall will have a rammed earth/propane fire place.  Sliding doors go to the summer terrace. The kitchen window will also be a pass through to this terrace.

View from the kitchen to the front door and the entry to the offices.

Lorne's office, looking into my office.
The roof supports have to stay in place for a few weeks.

Lorne's office with sliding glass doors looking out to the Sea of Cortez.

 View from my office looking into guest bathroom center, into Lorne's office on the right and into the LR/Kitchen on the left.

Stairway to the roof.

You can see the styrofoam blocks in the spaces between the rebar beams on the underside of the roof.

This is the summer terrace height.  You can see the two roofs have been poured with the center - LR/Kitchen sloping roof yet to be completed.

Face on view of the summer terrace and the Sea of Cortez side of the house.

The supports remain on the overhang to the offices.

That large plastic thing goes into the floor of the garage for the water to be stored, similar to our house up north.  Here we are on city water but it is frequently turned off for any variety of reasons - mostly unknown - so its handy to always have a water supply available.

Lorne and Carlos discussing the finer points of......

Manuel is slapping on the surface coating of concrete.

Week Ending February 3, 2010 Office Roofs

I know, I have not been keeping up to date posting pictures of the progress on the house.... as you can see though I have been taking pictures....

The walls on the offices are up and ready for the roof.  Lorne is standing in his office watering the concrete.

The crew is ready to pour the roof.  Once again it will be a non-stop activity but this time there is no machine to help lift the concrete up to the roof.  Other than the electric concrete mixers it will all be done by hand.

One man brings the concrete soup in a wheel barrow from the mixers to the men on the scaffolding.  It is a very loose mix they use.  I don't think it has any "slump" at all.  When we built our house in Canada the concrete was so dense that when it was poured it pretty much stayed in the same position that it was poured in.  How much concrete spreads out is the measure of slump.  Buckets scoop the soup and are lifted by hand up to the men on the scaffolding who in turn lift the buckets up to the roof and are then poured into a wheel barrow on the top of the roof.

Louis (seated) is completely covered in concrete dust.  I had to be subtle about taking the picture because he didn't look like he was in a great mood about it all.... actually he is generally a very happy man but I think he had been working very hard and was quite tired.

Here they are loading the wheelbarrow.

Arrachera time!  Carlos preps the beef for the well deserved BBQ on Friday afternoon.  He raises beef on his ranch up in San Bartolo - the crew are all from San Bartolo too.

Duke's pretty interested in that arrachera too!

This is the weekend clean up crew......

These cows eat the most unusual un-cow like things...

Concrete bags for example....

Paper....

What?  You have a problem with that?