What we did:
- Scaffolding erected
- First floor boards installed
- Building Control visit
The building site this week transformed to the next stage with the addition of scaffolding to get above head height for the first floor. Before this we had to resolve another issue which could have set us back and caused some real aggravation!
Fresh from last week’s issue following the contractor’s deviation from the Structural Engineer’s details, there was a feeling of déjà vu as it emerged he had now chosen to use different materials to what was specified in the drawings.
At the start of the week, the rest of the first floor joists were installed, leaving a gap for the stairs to be installed at a later stage – for a brief intro on how joists are used to construct the first floor, see last week’s post. Assuming the materials used were fine, my focus was on ensuring quality workmanship, however the council Building Inspector’s visit exposed what could have been a huge issue…
A little about Building Control...
Most people are familiar with Planning departments, where permission is sought for building work, however this doesn’t cover technical standards. Building Control is a separate department within the council, largely made up of surveyors and engineers, which reviews technical details on how your proposed building or alterations will be made. Newham Council have some good explanations on their website, as well as a great mid-construction picture of Zaha Hadid’s amazing London Aquatics Centre. Building Control are also are responsible for street naming and numbering, which my development still needs – Suggestions in the comments section please!
After reviewing drawings and details pre-construction, an inspector then visits the site at set stages to check the work is being done to plan, to a good standard, and also safely. If there are any issues, they will also make suggestions on how these can be overcome.
A visit from the inspector…
Installation of the first floor joists is one of the required inspection stages, so we had a visit on Thursday. All seemed gravy with the pragmatic inspector until he asked to check the Structural Engineer’s details on the joists. It took me a moment to catch on as everyone instinctively switched from metric to imperial measurements, which many tradesmen still stick to, but turns out the engineer had asked for 63mm wide timber instead of the 47mm ones which had been installed…crap.
First floor joists
This had happened as the contractors had consulted the ‘TRADA’ span tables which are a set of standards by The Timber Research and Development Association, specifying dimensions and types of timber to be used in construction. Based on the distance these timber joists had to cover, a 47mm depth was acceptable. Of course, I wasn’t happy they hadn’t followed the engineer’s details, possibly to save money or simply by oversight, but the consensus with my surveyor and the Building Control inspector was that this was acceptable.
Like with any business, managing risk is key. Liability for work, particularly outsourced consulting or manufacture needs to be held by whoever is undertaking it. For this reason any change needs to be signed off formally by whoever originally did the work. Thankfully the Structural Engineer is reasonable and understanding, but this is something to consider when both hiring for and managing such a process.
Ahead of schedule!
During the week, scaffolding was installed, so the site now looked more like a stock building site photo. This allowed us to move to the ‘second lift’ stage, where bricklaying commences on the first floor. To create a safe working environment, cheap chipboard is usually placed over the floor joists to form a temporary first floor, however to save for repeat work, we used water-resistant boards which would make up the permanent first floor. This was another idea by the contractor which was against common practice, but correctly water-proofed, made sense.
The forklift’s long arm was used to move the blocks up the the first floor… Not sure if the exercise in the pic below was really required, or if the driver needed to be tip-toeing!
Testing the forklift’s range
The inner leaf of blockwork (big grey bricks) then continued up. Apparently the brickie ‘boyband’ were putting up 1000 blocks/day at this point – if you’ve ever handled one of these 14kg blocks, you’ll know how tough that is, especially bending down to lay them below waist-height!
End of week 8
According to the construction schedule we as a team agreed to at the beginning of the project, which also reflects when payments are to be made, the contractors were now a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, which was great news ahead of the long weekend!