Not quite what we were expecting

Well we weren't really expecting to see a slab tonight. Although the site is ready, it rained for most of today, so it looks like we'll have to wait until after Easter to reach this milestone.
What we did find instead was that one of the trees on our nature strip had fallen victim to the strong winds today. Not sure if the remaining portion of the tree can be saved. What a great loss.

Will the concrete beat the rains?

Vapour barrier half on, wooden formwork in place, wire mesh waiting to go on. Thunderstorm expected late tomorrow evening after a 34 degree day.

Foundations for the slab

What a difference a day makes. The sand fill for the slab has been laid. Melbourne has 2 warm days forecasted before the rain returns, so here's hoping our next post will be of a completed slab.

The good and bad news

The week started with a flurry of activity; sand deposited on site, grid lines sprayed, concrete piers poured and the return of the excavator. Unfortunately, still a few days away from seeing the slab poured.

The good (surprising?) news is that apparently there is no rock in the front yard. Really? Not sure how we went from having some rock to no rock but we'll go with it.

We've hit a snag ... or rather, a rock

No work on site this last week. Monday was a public holiday and Tuesday an RDO for the industry. By the time it was clear that nothing was happening on Thursday, we called our site supervisor to see if we were still on track to pour the slab next week. He informed us that they've encountered some rock in the front yard which will need another contractor to remove. Not sure if it was just to keep our anxiety down but he quickly added that it seemed "shallow". Hmm, with rock removal in our contract a set price per meter cube (with no allowance set aside), we'll just have to wait and keep our fingers crossed.
Surprisingly, no visible work on Friday either but we're still on track to see the first of the concrete on Tuesday.

Heat wave.

Melbourne is in the middle of what could be a new record for consecutive days over 30 degrees Celsius, the previous being 8 days. By 2pm today our plumbers had packed up and left the site, not that you can blame them given it was 32 degrees and rising. Let's hope we have the slab poured and dried before the Autumn rains come.

We have a start date.

Received a call from our site supervisor on Friday to say that they will start preparing the site for the slab this week with the aim of pouring the slab in 2 weeks. It's hard not to get excited by this news - we were already excited last Monday when the port-a-loo was moved to the other end of the site and some wooden stakes were put into the ground.
Fingers crossed Melbourne's weather and the long weekend next week don't cause any disruptions to the timeline.