Hooray and up she rises!

Either this is a way of communicating across large distances or cleaning the old concrete out of a giant bucket. (Possibly this is a normal sized bucket and we have the smallest builder in the world??


And so the prefabricates beams for the first story arrive. Site Manager Alan Randall tells me that these Doka beams are great and that construction with them is really fast and efficient.
And yes.... our old friend the Electricity cupboard is still there.

Here we are with the concrete pillars ready for the first floor to be started.

These supports go in to hold things up before all the reinforced concrete is in place and set.

When Alan said these beams went up fast he wasn't joking!! On top of the beams plywood is laid to keep in the concrete.

A better look to the beams in place. There are two basic sizes and and they all fit easily into place.

Fitting the plywood.

On top of the plywood the steel reinforcements are laid. These will be covered in poured concrete later. There are some emergencey bells in case of... well.... emergency.

Close up of one of the bells. I've not heard any ringing so far though. In fact I'm impressed by the speed with which all the building is proceeding.

A bit of detail on the use of the supports and beams.

The upper floor is starting to spread over to the west side of the site.

The steel reinforcements are being placed.

The reinforecements are carefully placed.

Sections are cut to fit.

Coming on pretty well!

Nearly ready for pouring!

Meanwhile the first floor spreads across the other side of the site.

Closeup of the spreading beams.

And the fist of the many, many deliveries of concrete arrives. You can just see the other lorry it is being poured into.

The second lorry has a HUGE pumping arm. It's capable of delivering the concrete to the first floor in a continuous stream.

Here's the pumping arm. It is really impressive and extremely efficient. When this baby gets going the work, as you'll see, really got going!

The concrete being poured.

Now that is FAST!

After pouring the concrete is smoothed over.

Nearly half done!

Some precision pouring.

Over half finished!

And here it is all completed. You can see the "flymo" style machines used to smooth over the surface.

Here's a close up of one of those machines showing the concrete before and after.

The surface was hosed down for a final smoothing over.

And there we have it. The surface is given a final smoothing over.

Lets hope that all the rest of the building goes as Smoothly. :-)