We put in three long and hard days on Sun, Mon and Wed, working until after 7 PM each night.

On Monday I prepared the form work for pouring of the concrete over our drainage work while Paul continued with his plumbing work.  Our plan was to first pour the concrete inside of the bathroom then after it had set overnight I would fill in the trenches on the outside.  The form work was to contain the cement to underneath the wall and no farther. Paul did a great job in making sure that the concrete that we poured would be strong and knit firmly to the rest of the floor, using heavy bolts driven into the existing concrete and wire mesh for reinforcement.  He also did some careful planning then cut the channel for the 800mm linear shower drain that we had purchased a few days earlier.  We started mixing the concrete at 5 PM, one hour before sunset, and finished the job at 7 PM, having mixed 9 bags of cement in my wheelbarrow.

Drains concreted into place, shower left, toilet right

Shower drain foreground, toilet aft.  Note inspection ports.

External plumbing covered up

Early on Tuesday morning I filled in the holes on the outside, making sure to ram the clay as I went to pack it tight.  The plan is to engage the firm that had laid the driveways with brick to restore the section of bricks that we had removed.  However, I will wait until well into spring to contact them because want to give the clay some time to settle down.  After that I prepared the electrics, extending the main light switch cabling to reach the other side of the door opening because we planned to reverse the door into the bathroom.  I also wired a second GPO power point to be fitted on the wall just to the left of the door.

Yesterday Paul and I began the day by shopping for materials.  We returned with 7 sheets of "Villaboard", fibre cement sheeting designed for internal walls of bathrooms.  We had decided to take the opportunity to wire the two 12V navigation lights which are part of the nautical display in the porch wall and returned with a 240-12V transformer with the bits and pieces for the wiring from Jaycar.  While Paul got started on the sheeting I set up the wiring.  He then soldered my connections and I used my heat gun on the shrink tubing to yield a tight well protected connection. We then tested the result with the multimeter and confirmed that 12.4V would be delivered to each light.

In the early afternoon we had the good fortune to have a visit from Brad the tiler.  Brad wanted to see the state of progress and drop off some bags for storage in my garage.  Brad and Paul then had a good conversation about what would be done. Paul is fitting the walls with angle iron running at floor level between the uprights to prevent the walls from flexing when they are accidentally kicked.  The shower section will be fully waterproofed according to code.  Silicone sealant will be used along the corner edges to give some flexibility in case the walls move.

Boxes containing joins to extend wiring to new light switch location

Brad asked if he could start the screeding on Friday but Paul planned to be elsewhere on Thursday and he did not think that we would have the walls ready by Friday.  The internal walls must be in position before the screeding is done.  We stopped working at 7PM with one wall and part of another sheeted.  Paul talked about returning this afternoon (after he has done another job) to have a go at finishing the sheeting so that Brad can begin his work on Friday.  We need to sheet only along the perimeter at floor level. 

Wall ready for sheeting

12Vwiring for navigation lights (black and red)

Two walls lined for screed work