Full Size Report

This report will integrate the information from several reports that about the site visit done in different time. Also, it will divide into three parts which are the information about the materials, detailing strategies, construction systems and structural systems of the work yard.

First of all is the general situation of the construction site. The word yard is located at a hillside, the topography is not smooth which increase the difficulty of building the house. Because the pressure force cause by earth to the back part of the house need to be considered.

Talking about the materials, there are many different materials are used on the site, this report will introduce each materials separately.

This is called smart joist. It is made by compressing the small wood pieces together to become a strong integrity. On the site, it is only used for ground floor because it is strong enough to be the main girder to support dead loads and live loads from upstairs, so it needs to take all the dead loads

and live loads of upstairs. The benefit of the smart joist is “it can resist shrinking, twisting, warping, and spitting for squeak resistant floors and quality roofs and ceilings.”(Internet, 2014)

This one is called particleboard, it is also be called yellow tongue by building workers. It is used as the floor for the each floor on the work yard. The reason of using this material is the weight of particleboard is very light. It meets the requirements which is the dead loads of upper spaces should be reduced as much as possible to ensure the structural of the ground floor is not overload. Moreover, the benefit of this material is that it can be easy and fast to

install, light weight, environmental friendly and termite resistant. (Internet, 2014)

This one is called the Plywood wall, it is used to bracing the dead load of the upper floors. And it can avoid the situation like joist or girder bending and breaking. Moreover, it can also make the room stable, when the house suffer from the wind pressure. Furthermore, it also has benefits

like easy installing, user friendly, design feasibility and the cost is also very effective. (Internet, 2014)

This one is call Hebel, it is an interesting materials, and the definition of hebel is manufactured from sand, lime and cement to which a gas-forming agent is added. It is also called high performance autoclave aerated concrete(Internet, 2012) It have many functions, for example, it can prevent fire, if your neighbor house somehow got fired and you can have at least one hour and maximum two hours to escape. The hebel can also absorb the noise from the outside make the room more quiet and it is more solid and strong enough. Moreover, hebel can make your house more comfortable because of the character of thermal resistance along with the thermal mass, which means when you use hebel, it can keep your house warm in winter and resist the heat from outside in summer. Plus, it is more substantially today. Hence, it is a good material for use for living house.

This black material is called Geotextiles. It is used to be as a separation between two things. For example, if you want to make a separation

between the concrete on the balcony to the living room, you can use the geotextile to fill between to concrete. Geotextiles can be used in a variety of

applications, such as separation, reinforcement, filtration, drainage, and protection and in many different structures. Moreover, the characteristics of geotextiles is strong, durable, chemical inert polymeric and can resist the influence from weather, aging and specific ground conditions.

This material is called cystosepiment. According to the site manager Ken, this material is used for cladding the outer wall. It can function as an insulation material which can absorb the noise, resist thermal influence.

Moreover, the benefit of this material is the weight is very light which are satisfy the light weight requirement and cheap.

This material is call wool insulation. It is one of the forms of bulk insulation. It basically have same function as hebel which is the thermal resistance to prevent the heat loss in the winter and the heat gain in the summer.

According to Ken, it is use the trapped air in the hole which created by itself, to hold the heat.

To talk about the strategy detailing and construction system, there are several places can be introduced.

First is the general strategy of this house, which is that start from the basement, build the slab, block wall, wood frame, and put them on the steel frame which form is based on the shape or special requirements that generated during finishing the steps before, then repeat the same step for the ground floor and first floor.

According to the introduction that given by site manager Ken, there

are several small details can be noticed. First, the base of the house will have several centimeter higher that the ground as a division of house and ground and the base is used concrete as material. Second, the construction team will spare the enough space for the place where need to put stairs

first and built guard bar surround the gap for the stairs on the upper floors to guarantee the safety of the workers, then they will install the stairs after finishing the floor system built. The base of stairs part is also higher than the floor base.

Third one is at the part which connect the

outside to the first floor, the base of this part is empty. Ken said that it is built empty first, then they will put the L shape bracket to support this part. They temporarily use timber to support the structure. The L shape bracket is made from steel.

The forth one is that they will leave the space for electrical lines, water pipe, and drainage system. Such as in the bathroom and the back part of the house, they will install a short part of water pipe

to remind the place for installing the water pipe and they are cutting horizontally at each beam under the balcony for sparing the place of drainage pipe and they will also use stagger brace between beams to create a space for electrical lines or air ventilating system.

Talking about the structural system, first it should report the brief situation.

This site have two main components to hold up the whole building, the first one is use the steel as a main component to support the front part of the house. Because the front part is use light weight which is mainly consist by timber beam. This steel is based on the concrete which is deep in the ground and the timber surround the steel is for supporting and keeping the steel straight. This steel is also used to support the dead loads of the first floor and transfer it to the ground. The second one is the Block wall at the back part of the house, it is consist by the block which have hole in its body, and this is for filling the concrete in it for consolidation after building the wall. The reason of using the strong structural component is because the re has a ground pressure outside. According to Ching the ground pressure is a

kind of force which given by soil mass (2008, 2.08).

Furthermore, with the introduction given by Ken, there are several joints are used in the site, basic from two types, the one is glue, for binding the accessory to the buildings such as cystosepiment, hebel, geotextiles and bulk insulation. The

other one is many different shapes made from steel which is used for holding the main structure of buildings, to make it become an entirety and strong.

To conclude, here is the construction information that we gained from the several times site visit of our site. After this activity, I have got a basic information and steps about the house built and the details about the construction structural systems and a lot of building strategies. I found that this activity can help us visually learn about how a house be constructed and it help us understand what we have learned on the book.

Reference

Francis D.K. Ching, Building Construction Illustrated (Fourth edition) ， 2008 Page 2.08 Published

by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, New Jersey

Geosynthetics 2014 Geotextileshttp://geosyntheticsmagazine.com/articles/geotextiles.htmlGunnersen (2014) Retrieved fromhttp://www.gunnersens.com.au/products/building-products/particleboard/particleboard-flooring.html

Hebel the better way to build 2012, Retrieved fromhttp://www.hebelaustralia.com.au/Pages/About/What-is-Hebel.aspx

Hebel the better way to build 2012, Retrieved fromhttp://www.hebelaustralia.com.au/Pages/About/Hebel-Benefits.aspx

Structural Plywood wall bracing, Retrieved fromhttp://www.ezyhomes.com.au/pdf/tech/Plywood%20Wall%20Bracing.pdf

Tait Timber & Hardware (2014, march) Retrieved fromhttp://www.taittimber.com.au/node/214