Alongside plumbing/drainage come the preparatory works for electricity. That too means digging up everything, everywhere, so that conduit pipes could be laid through which the new wiring would pass. The house, being as old as it was, didn’t have much wiring to begin with, and the first floor was relatively straightforward in terms of uncovering the foundations.
The ground floor was
a bit more interesting. You see, as I started to dig it up (using nothing more
than a spade, a shovel and a bucket) I began to uncover earth, some more earth,
and then some more. Apparently, there was a time when houses didn’t necessarily
have a solid foundation. Who knew? When the tiler popped by to check in on
things, well, he had a mini heart attack.
A lack of a solid
base can increase the risk of your floor caving in in the future, especially in
larger, open-plan areas. We were presented with two choices; either trudge on
and lay new piping on top of the soil before covering it all up with new tiles,
or dig even deeper and create a fresh layer of concrete first.
My thought process
from the first day was that anything we do now, we do it properly while we
still have the chance. And so, we brought in a couple of experienced workers,
with more appropriate tools, and within a couple of days a full ten inches of
soil were cleared out from almost the entire floor.
A few days later, we filled it all right back up with the grey stuff we Maltese are so fond of.
And all the while, I couldn’t stop thinking
about this guy:
Seal of Approval
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