Ready....
Mainmark sends Christian to do a "services location". While he is taking a phone call, we do a bit of digging and by sheer good luck strike the inspection port for the stormwater, which means Christian can put his magic camera doodah down the drain and find out exactly where it goes. With a bit more help from us he finds that the water for our house runs along the wall of 1A Little O'Grady Street (bad news), but the stormwater drain for our house is located about 400mm from the wall (good news).
He also assists with a bit of sewer investigation - we learn that the sewer is deep, probably about 1.6 metres down. We think this makes a new connection from 1A Little O'Grady possible.
Set...
Mainmark suggested that we cut through the brick wall between our place and 1A Little O'Grady Street, just beyond the back of that house, so that when they try to push the side wall back into its proper position, it isn't restricted by the garden wall to which it is attached. After getting a scary quote from a tradesman who was going to make two cuts, take out the bricks in between, and build pillars so we could hang a gate, we go for the simpler approach. Peter rings Profast, and they come by today and cut one neat slot just past the end of the house, in about an hour all up. Job done.
And then there's the inside story
We have to provide access to the wall on both sides. Which means taking up some floorboards in the lounge of 1A Little O'Grady Street. Which means chipping up the horrible 1970s mission brown tiles. Helen has a nice time with a hammer and cold chisel getting that done a day or so ago, creating a tile-free area about 400mm out from the wall. This exercise confirms what we have believed for a while, that the tiles are on a cement bed on an old timber floor, rather than on a slab. Today Peter buys a nice new crowbar at Bunnings, with which he attacks the cement, and the wire mesh under the cement. One floor board now cleared and removed, probably two more to go. Now also confirmed that the floorboards are rotten, full of borer, and not worth saving. Which makes the job of ripping up the floor simpler.
Peter spends another session with the crowbar, and together we clear up the mess of tiles, cement, aluminium mesh and plastic that the wrecking exercise creates. We now have a three floorboard wide hole. And a pile of rubble and borer-infested wood in the courtyard. And dust. A lot of dust.
GO!
Wall day arrives. We are up at 6:30am (what!!?) carpenters arrive at 7am to set up their props in our garden and to make holes in the floor. Which we've already done, because we thought it was our job. They are impressed with the wholesale removal of the floorboards. At 8am, the Mainmark boys turn up, but nothing much happens for the next hour or so because the supervisor is flying in from Wagga. Once he gets there they insert all the tubes, connect up the pressure pumps and start pumping goop in under the wall. This slowly fills up soil cavities, compresses the soil and eventually creates a stable foundation. Initially most of the goop just comes under the wall and finishes up in our garden, but after a bit of relocation of tubes all goes well for a while. The sides of the cut in the wall then jam, and some of the bricks at the top have to be hammered out before the wall is free to move. By the time they finish it isn't completely straight, but the gap between wall and ceiling is much smaller, and the expert thinks the walls been pushed as far as the rest of the house will stand.
We have to provide access to the wall on both sides. Which means taking up some floorboards in the lounge of 1A Little O'Grady Street. Which means chipping up the horrible 1970s mission brown tiles. Helen has a nice time with a hammer and cold chisel getting that done a day or so ago, creating a tile-free area about 400mm out from the wall. This exercise confirms what we have believed for a while, that the tiles are on a cement bed on an old timber floor, rather than on a slab. Today Peter buys a nice new crowbar at Bunnings, with which he attacks the cement, and the wire mesh under the cement. One floor board now cleared and removed, probably two more to go. Now also confirmed that the floorboards are rotten, full of borer, and not worth saving. Which makes the job of ripping up the floor simpler.
