OPD Building Progress

Time for another update on the OPD building progress. I said in my last update a month ago that we were just about to finish the compacting of the fill under the floor slab. The contractors managed to nurse their compacting machine along and finally finished the job in the first week of August (a week later than planned but not too bad considering the machine they were using). After compacting the soil we put together the reinforcement for the tie beams that tie all the columns together. The original plan was to cast the concrete for these tie beams then pour the floor on top (this is the usual process in Nepal) but I managed to convince the contractor that it would be quicker (and more importantly stronger) if we pour the concrete for the floor and the beams in one go. They initially were a little reluctant but I eventually managed to get them on-board. We've just about finished putting all the stone soling in (closely packed stones) under the floor. A thin layer of concrete is poured on top of this to provide a flat surface to lay out the reinforcing bar before the floor slab is poured. We've laid out half the rebar where we've finished the soling and had it not rained constantly for a couple of days we might have been pouring the floor slab tomorrow.  There is also a transport strike on at the moment which has meant that most of the laborers cannot get to work, hopefully this will be sorted out soon so we can get back to a full crew.

For anyone interested heres a few photos:

Fortunately this concrete isn't structural!
A different concrete mix a vibrator and mixing machine
will be used when we pour the floor slab and it better
 look better than this.

Measuring out gravel to make concrete

I'm pretty sure the toilet drains would have been forgotten about
had I not pointed out that now might be a good time to put
them in

A little tweaking to get everything straight before the pour
but its all looking pretty good. Normally I don't think this much steel
would be required but since our foundations are weak
we've had to stiffen the floor and change the roof from a concrete
slab roof to a corrugated iron roof to compensate.