The foundations are dug but following a delay in the delivery of the reinforcing steel that needs to be put into the trenches before the concrete is poured, no wet work has happened as yet. This delay seems to me to have been unnecessary and we are still waiting for the Quantity Surveyor to give us a Work Schedule; something I plan to follow up on tomorrow. In the meantime, two hard hats have been purchased and have been travelling optimistically on the backseat of my car for the past two weeks. Looking at the site, I suspect it will be months before we really need to wear them.
Ready and Waiting
Bit by bit though, we’re getting more organised. After taking delivery of a few pieces of mail that had been delivered straight into a muddy puddle before being rescued, fortunately, by Thabo I bought a very basic letterbox which has been fixed to the old front gate. This is working quite well and when I visited on Friday, Thabo proudly presented me with a whole pile of dry, clean envelopes. Most of them are for the previous owners but at least when the council bills us for services, we’ll know about it.
This is what things looked like on Friday.
Reinforcing Steel for Foundations
In the meantime the neighbours continue to surprise. Neighbour on the left is agitating about the boundary wall between our two properties. Our structural engineer has declared that part of the wall needs to be lowered as soon as possible: Excavations have shown that its foundations are completely inadequate and at its present height, it poses a danger to both her side and ours. We are meeting with fierce resistance but will need to act on this as soon as possible.
And a week ago we heard through Bernard that our neighbour on the right had quietly and unexpectedly sold his house. I am disappointed as he has been charming and we were looking forward to living next door to him. When I visited our site on Friday, I saw him talking to someone on the pavement and decided it would be a good idea to introduce myself. I had only ever spoken to him on the phone up to then. Turned out he was talking to the new owner who hopes to move in before December. She was friendly and very happy to be able to put a ‘face’ to the building site she is going to have to live next door to for several months. I’m really surprised that anyone wanted to buy a house next to a building site still at such an early stage, but hopefully it says something about the desirability of that particular row of properties bordering on the park. We have exchanged numbers and I have said she is welcome to attend the next site meeting in case she has any particular concerns. We’ve started out well and hopefully we’ll be able to go forward in the same way.
home-in-the-making 
Hi Jacqui
Pleased something is at last happening but agree with you rebar should have been ordered long ago and should not have been delay
As for Work Schedule the QS has had more than enough time to prepare – the job has been delayed but not due to scope or major design changes so why should it not be ready by now??
Glad you appear to have good new neighbors – makes living there so much more pleasant
Cheers
Fred
Yes. I may have to get on my broomstick before the 31st of October… Hopefully our new neighbours on the right will work out well. The neighbour on the left continues to be somewhat difficult but we’re taking things one step at a time.