Getting the pipes

After a beautiful day yesterday, today it was rainy day. No problem for my dad and me, as we where still digging inside, but no gardening for Mo.

In the afternoon the weather got a bit better, so we went to get some gardening tools and while at the construction store, we also got most of the pipes for the main part of the sever system. We also wanted to get a ground drill so we could drill from one room to the other under the foundation. ABC did not have one I liked, so we visited Bauhaus, on our way there it started to snow. The wet snow stuck together to form huge snow flakes. Very cool to see.

Digging for the sewer

If we might have had the thought we would be done digging, we where totally wrong. On Saturday we started to prepare the internal sewer systen, which ment, we had to do some digging to lay the sewer pipes for the connection with the outside pipes we hope we can start some day when all the paperwork has been done.

Anyway, we started in the future kitchen, we took out the last remaining hardboard plates that covered the floor and found the foundation of the old wood oven from the old kitchen. (And some holes which sure can cool down the room.) Later on when we opened the part of the floor where we wanted to dig in the pipes, we found the rest of the oven in pieces. And then, more digging started, the first part was a bit harder as there was a lot of stones and trash in the ground, but after about half a meter it was clean dirt and even deeper some sand.

As digging in the same hole did not work very well, I started digging on the other side of the wall, to find out if we need to drill of we can dig under the foundation.

In the mean time Mo took care of the garden, taking out the leftovers from last fall and trimming some bushes

Finally the underfloor!

Almost 2 weeks after starting to take out the wooden floor, today we could finally make the floor level. As a last thing we filled the septic tank with the stone we took out from the floor. This really cleaned up the garden nicely. I topped it off with a piece of styrofoam and pur and covered it was a put of sand.

The floor is ready to put in the styrofoam. I found it very rewarding, finally some construction again after all this demolition.

Side project

Yesterday I got a call from Jan, he asked if my offer to store his Citroën DS in the garage was still open. So today we had to rearrange the stuff that has been placed in the garage over the last weeks. Marc stopped by to help out and he and my dad did a great job.

The car was a bit wider then expected, it would have been easier if the cabinets stored on the side would have been placed elsewhere, but it just fit. Jan had to climb out through the window.

Besides the septic tank was emptied, and I was able to take out the heavy metal pipe from the septic tank to the chimney. The floor is now about level!


Lots of digging

Wednesday, a third day of digging. Today Martijn came to help again. Together we finished cleaning up the stones in the garden and took out most of the dirt.

Mo made an appointment to have the septic tank emptied. They will come tomorrow after lunch.

More digging

Once it is done you will not see the huge amount of work that had to be done to prepare for some parts of a rebuild. This for sure will be one of them.

Before we started to dig we checked if we could separate the frozen styrofoam plates. With a little convincing they came apart. We put them to dry a bit and now also had measurements to see we would just about have enough foam for the floor.

To step away from the digging we also replaced part of the attic floor boards that had taken out because I either saw or suspected some woodworm in it. While doing that we found that one of the beams is in bad shape. There we will need to replace part of the beam. The good thing is that under it a wall is planned, so it will have some extra support. For the time being we placed a support beam under it.


Digging

So, the plan was to dig out an extra layer of sand from under the floor, so we could place the styrofoam insulation plates as a base for the concrete floor.

Well, we got a lot of digging, as most of the ground was either a light stone, which only came loose with the pick, or some ground mixed with some concrete, where we would need the pick again.

The good thing was that the sand that we took out filled up the garden very nicely, so it seems we do not need to order dirt to fill up the much lower part of the garden.

To not be digging all the time we decided to also organize the stones that where still laying in the garden after we had to take them out of the container.

In the evening we went to see the memorial for the 22.000 Estonian people that have been deported to Siberia by the Soviets in 1949. A very impressive view.


Picking up my dad

Today we picket up my dad from the airport. We went to Rõika to have lunch and to check where my dad would be sleeping. His first plan was on the attic of the garage, but when we double checked that, we found there was to much to do to make that livable. So it would be in the future livingroom.

We went to Mo’s mother to pick up one of the beds that we have in storage there and while we where there, we also took some more tools.

Back home we created a nice bedroom with reading light and toilet. Ready for the next 5 weeks.


An easy day

Since my dad will be coming tomorrow, we went shopping and cleaned up the room, as he will be staying in Rõika.

We are still waiting for the canalization papers, so our hoped for toilet has not even been started, hence we bought a port-a-potty toilet. Besides we bought a white board, for some easy brainstorming about all the things that needs to be done.

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