The stumps are in: Saturday 13th August

Once the stump holes were drilled, the strings were put back up to provide the levels and then the stumps put in. This took two days, setting out the deck first and putting in these stumps, then the extension on Friday. This was for two reasons, firstly getting the stumps level is both critical and time consuming. The way they level the stumps is to seat them in concrete a little higher than the string line, mound dirt to hold them then let the concrete go off a bit. Once the concrete is setting, they then come back and smack the stumps down with a hammer to level them to the string line. Brutal, but it seems to work — most importantly though, you can’t let the concrete go off to much. The second reason is because the deck and extension stumps are now on two different levels, so it was easier to work with one set of levels on one day then a different set on the second day.

The stumps just delivered — straight from Home Hardware in Eltham. You can just make out the string lines which were being set out again.

Picture above is of the completed stumps for the extension and the deck. By the end of next week there will be bearers, joists and a general purpose floor down (the chip board that the flooring goes on to).

This picture shows the line of stumps that will be the join between the extension and the deck. The deck is set one step down from the extension, this is different from the original design.