The Problem

The spots were dug for this exploration; 1 along the north wall, 1 along the west wall and 1 along the east wall. These spots were chosen based on the condition of the floors and walls inside and outside the building as well as the exposure they would face during excavation for the new building.

The east wall dig was done near the south wall as the south wall had an exterior crack right round through the corner column and down the side of the east wall. It’s been discovered that there is NO FOUNDATION at all. The stone that is at the bottom of the building continues down about 300mm and that’s it. The condition of the stone below dirt is that the mortar has disintegrated into dust and can be removed using your finger.

The north wall dig was done in the middle of the north wall, both columns at the north wall have cracks right down the length of them where the wall meets the column. The interior floor is cracked right across the north wall and down the east wall and where the crack meets in the corner up the interior north wall. This dig shows us there is a foundation down about 1 metre, but there is NO FOOTING. There is concrete sitting on the earth about 150, 200mm followed by a layer of mortar, which has also disintegrated into dust and can be removed with your finger, followed by rock. It is hard to tell how thick the foundation wall is at this time.

The west wall dig was done about ¾ of the way towards the north wall. This dig again showed us that there is NO FOOTING, and the foundation was about 750mm down, which shows us the depth of the foundation changes from the south wall of the building to the exterior, why this was done is undetermined, it might have been to account for the change in elevation. This is a concern because at this time we are unable to tell how the foundation changes either by stepping the foundation down OR just a diagonal slope. The foundation here is also 150 to 200mm of concrete followed with a layer of mortar and the stone. The mortar here has also disintegrated but the roots from a nearby tree have grown into the foundation and have left a hole. The stone above ground has spots of bulging and indentation, which follow the holes in the foundation, whether this is from the tree roots or the condition of the mortar is hard to tell.

The Solution

Myself along with Pat Hallows (candidate for construction) together came up with a solution. First of all the south end of the building, which appears to have no foundation needs to have some sort of foundation, we thought 500mm down and the 300mm wide under the stone already there. From there we can underpin the building doing an alternate 1m and then going back to do the alternate so that the building is never fully exposed. During excavation for the new building the north, east and west walls will be exposed and so we will wire mesh and plaster the foundation up to the bottom of the columns, which sits on a ledge. This will also deal with the stone problem as well as hold the foundation together.

I have never seen a foundation or lack thereof this bad. Pat, my contractor friend said that the building was waiting for me to save it! BUT the upside is that I am learning all sorts of problem solving and coming up with new ways to do things, which making this fun, well a version of fun anyways.

I had planned to go to Harare for the weekend, clean up some quotes on the Friday, go to the AIDS clinic on Saturday, go to church Sunday and leave after that, this being Africa that was just not going to happen. I picked up quotes on Friday, did some photocopying, printing of more drawings, talk to some new people about rebar (reinforcement bar), write up notes for some contractors. But I had to wait until Monday to meet some rebar guys, wait until Tuesday to pick up the final quotes and Wednesday I had my car serviced. In 7 months I’ve traveled 20,000 km!!! I’ve turned into my dad driving around BC when he was bishop. I can’t believe all the driving I’ve done, but my car is still plugging along and in good condition. All sorts of new things are popping up like the foundation of the old building, moving the current ZESA pole, the current septic tank location and the condition of the tank and the list goes on.

MY BUILDING GOT APPROVED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited!!! AND I’ve found my Godsend to take over for me when I leave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On Monday, I meet with ZESA the electrical people to move the electrical poles, I apply to borrow the neighbouring plot to use for builder’s sheds, I met with Pat (my Godsend) to do some exploratory digging of the existing building to see the damage to the foundations and will underpinning be enough. The cracking and floor separation that had started has become worse over the last 2 months, the concern we have that during excavation of the new building the existing building will sink further or crumble with the disruption of the earth. We are also brick making!!!

So things are coming together nicely finally after much frustration, hard work and lots of learning.

This past weekend was a mess! Friday started with the usual burning but because of the winds the fire spread and got very close to some houses including mine, most people stood around watching while some of us grabbed water and fire beaters and tried to contain it, this was also scary because we were currently in the middle of a water cut! Friday we had a windstorm, which caused trees to fall over, and power lines to come down and cut off our power for 3 days which also meant no hot water. There is no hot water in the rural areas so you boil your water to get it hot or if you are lucky you have a geezer, which we do BUT you need power to heat the water in the geezer SO no hot water. This power cut was a mixed blessing because it meant we couldn’t work and were forced to take a weekend off, which meant I read 3 books in 2 days and didn’t turn on the computer as I wanted to save the battery. Sunday morning I woke up and went into the kitchen to boil water for coffee and the kitchen was FLOODED!!! So we spent a good few hours cleaning up the water only to have the water cut!!! So we now have the power lines fixed but no water. When ZESA came to fix the power lines, they spent about 8 hours doing so, they turned on the power only to have sparks come out of the line to our house and no power. So they turned the power back off, called in a few more people and sorted out the problem. So this weekend we’ve had all sorts of disasters but have survived them all!!!

I’ve been back in Nyanga for 60 hours and I have hit the ground running. I’ve been putting together the construction documentation, consolidating quotes, conference calling, meeting with distributers, meeting with council and the list goes on. I went to council to ask about an inspection schedule. Council said that I would need to hire a structural engineer to do some of the inspection, as no one at council is qualified. I told them I am a structural engineer and they said that I could do the inspection along with them. This seemed odd to me that they would allow me to inspect my own site, but I wasn’t about to argue.

Now, it's been a week, since I've been back and I've been madly trying to get the rebar (reinforcement bar) schedule sorted, I had forgotten how much rebar goes into a building and my schedule was 2 pages long consolidated and 4 pages broken down into sections like columns, footings, concrete slabs, etc. Then I went to meet with a contractor who lives in town, who I go to for advice, opinions and help and he said that they are having troubles with quality of steel that the Chinese are turning out rubbish rebar because they can sell it cheap but the trouble is then it needs to be tested by Zimbabwe Testing Association and you may end up putting twice as much rebar and your columns and slabs may become 2 or 3 times as thick. This I thought was nuts!!! So I now have to sort this out. This contractor has agreed to help me out, he has been doing this for 30 years and so knows much more than I do especially when it comes to the Zimbabwe system, this makes me feel much more relaxed and calm. Our chat today also included quotes for materials like plumbing and electrical and the products I shouldn’t be using. For example there are 3 possibilities for gutters; PVC (plastic), zinc and chromadex. Now my preference is PVC because it has a long life and doesn’t need much or regular maintenance. I went to 2 plumbers, one said it wasn’t available the other said he look into it and see what he could do, but it shouldn’t be a problem. The plumber who said no said to use chromadex. I had never heard of this so I asked my contractor friend he said, “stay away from it, the paint chips, it’s expensive and it needs regular maintenance, the man who wants to use it must be an agent for them”. I knew this would happen at some point that someone would use my lack of plumbing knowledge or electrical or whatever against me. For a long time I was researching everything so when I met with people I could ask questions and have some idea what they were talking about, but this became too much. I’ve said it before but this is why contractors are in their late 30’s early 40’s and NOT mid-20’s. But thank goodness for my contractor friend and he helped me out and so we talked for 4 hours about all sorts of construction materials, methods, Zimbabwe construction and I left feeling a mixture of frustration and relief. I go back to Harare tomorrow for the weekend to sort out some FINAL quotes of materials I can’t get in kamusha (rural area) like low flush toilets and LED lighting and sort the final plans for the rainwater harvesting and waste water management. So wish me luck, I’ll need it. Also it’s AIDS weekend already, where does the month go? So I’m going to find out how the solar water treatment is going and are they using the pamphlets that we gave them in June, thanks to David Ford’s genius idea.

I’ve been back in Nyanga for 60 hours and I have hit the ground running. I’ve been putting together the construction documentation, consolidating quotes, conference calling, meeting with distributers, meeting with council and the list goes on. I went to council to ask about an inspection schedule. Council said that I would need to hire a structural engineer to do some of the inspection, as no one at council is qualified. I told them I am a structural engineer and they said that I could do the inspection along with them. This seemed odd to me that they would allow me to inspect my own site, but I wasn’t about to argue.

Now, it's been a week, since I've been back and I've been madly trying to get the rebar (reinforcement bar) schedule sorted, I had forgotten how much rebar goes into a building and my schedule was 2 pages long consolidated and 4 pages broken down into sections like columns, footings, concrete slabs, etc. Then I went to meet with a contractor who lives in town, who I go to for advice, opinions and help and he said that they are having troubles with quality of steel that the Chinese are turning out rubbish rebar because they can sell it cheap but the trouble is then it needs to be tested by Zimbabwe Testing Association and you may end up putting twice as much rebar and your columns and slabs may become 2 or 3 times as thick. This I thought was nuts!!! So I now have to sort this out. This contractor has agreed to help me out, he has been doing this for 30 years and so knows much more than I do especially when it comes to the Zimbabwe system, this makes me feel much more relaxed and calm. Our chat today also included quotes for materials like plumbing and electrical and the products I shouldn’t be using. For example there are 3 possibilities for gutters; PVC (plastic), zinc and chromadex. Now my preference is PVC because it has a long life and doesn’t need much or regular maintenance. I went to 2 plumbers, one said it wasn’t available the other said he look into it and see what he could do, but it shouldn’t be a problem. The plumber who said no said to use chromadex. I had never heard of this so I asked my contractor friend he said, “stay away from it, the paint chips, it’s expensive and it needs regular maintenance, the man who wants to use it must be an agent for them”. I knew this would happen at some point that someone would use my lack of plumbing knowledge or electrical or whatever against me. For a long time I was researching everything so when I met with people I could ask questions and have some idea what they were talking about, but this became too much. I’ve said it before but this is why contractors are in their late 30’s early 40’s and NOT mid-20’s. But thank goodness for my contractor friend and he helped me out and so we talked for 4 hours about all sorts of construction materials, methods, Zimbabwe construction and I left feeling a mixture of frustration and relief. I go back to Harare tomorrow for the weekend to sort out some FINAL quotes of materials I can’t get in kamusha (rural area) like low flush toilets and LED lighting and sort the final plans for the rainwater harvesting and waste water management. So wish me luck, I’ll need it. Also it’s AIDS weekend already, where does the month go? So I’m going to find out how the solar water treatment is going and are they using the pamphlets that we gave them in June, thanks to David Ford’s genius idea.