Lesson One

The engineer was no where to be found so a few of our questions went unanswered, but here are the questions which were answered by the pedreiro (master builder):

Q: What are the extents of the slab? Building footprint? Breezeways? Roofline? Roofline, and then some?
A: Slab extends through veranda, entire footprint
Q: What is the slab thickness?
A: 4 cm. Our follow up question was, “Really, truly?! That thin?!” The answer was an astounding “YES!” We have also asked a handful of other people (including another pedreiro) and paid close attention to other buildings we have seen and that does seem to be standard.
Q: Is there rebar or reinforcement of any sort in the slab?
A: No.
Q: What size rebar goes where? And how many – how many in the columns (1, 2, 4?) and how many in the bond beams?
A: 5/16 rebar everywhere (which is .8cm), 4 go in each column and each bond beam, 2 rebar run in one of the mortar courses of the formwork,
Q: What is the maximum spread for the columns?
A: The pedreiro through out a 4, 5, 6 m answer, but this, of course, also has to do with what the dimensions of the beam between the columns and roof is. With the materials we will be using, we will maintain the 2m spread for interior columns and up the spread to 4m for exterior.
Q: Is there footing under columns? All the columns? What kind of footing?
A: Under all interior columns. Pier footing.
Q: What happens between the bond beam and the door? – Brick? Netting?
A: Courses of brick downwards from the bond beam to the door
Q: What is the height of the bond beam?
A: 20 cm (generally speaking, the pedreiro seemed to use dimensions based on the typical brick with mortar – 10 X 20 X 20)
Q: What is the dimension of the mortar joint?
A: 1.5 cm
Q: What is the typical order of building? – Specifically, what comes first the columns or the brick infill?
A: Brick infill for interior walls is last in terms of construction order. To give an idea of construction order for the interior:
1. Brick formwork for slab (concrete bed of 6-8cm, 7 courses of 4.5 by 9 by 9 bricks with 1.5cm mortar joints and rebar running all the way through after the 4th course)
2. Footing – including rebar
3. Column formwork, including bracing
4. Pour column
5. Remove column formwork
6. Bond beam rebar
7. Bond beam formwork
8. Pour bond beam
9. Remove bond beam formwork
10. Slab
11. Wall infill
12. Roof
Q: What type of formwork is used?
A: Brick formwork for slab. 10mm thick wood attached with wire for columns (check out PICASA!)
Q: What kind of tools will you (the construction supervisor) bring to the site? What tools do we need to get?
A: None. In fact, the pedreiro has not and will not be joining us on site. We are the pedreiros for this project.

The pedreiro also demonstrated exactly how a typical veranda column comes together (pictured above). A couple interesting facts we discovered during this trip to town included that the standard footwear for construction workers seems to be flip flops and there are 83 bridges from Pocone to the Jaguar lodge!