Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Framing the Basement
Almost every house in Israel is framed in concrete (re-inforced with metal rods). Conceptually what the contractor does is create a mold whose width is the width of the wall. Within the mold they add metal rods which re-inforces the concrete. What you see in the pictures is the completed mold of the basement of the house.
Building the Base
After the perimeter of the house was marked, the contractor built footings which will eventually support the ceilings of the basement. Next up was the plumber. The plumber installed a sewer tank on the North side of the house. The sewer tank will be used to pump the sewage from the house to the City sewer mains. The reason we need a pump is that the washrooms in the basement are below the City sewer mains. After the sewer tank was in place the plumber laid out the sewer pipes which will be buried beneath the floor of the basement.
You can see in the photos black pipes sticking up from the ground. These pipes will be used to remove the sewege from the basement washrooms. Once the plumbing pipes were in place a rough surface of concrete was poured; forming the base for the house. On top of the base of the house the insulating contractor melted weather stripping . These strips form the barrier between the outside and our house. Hopefully if the contractor did his job correctly we won't have water problems. The big black room in the back is the pool room which will house the pool mechanical equipment.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Marking the House Boundaries
Monday, April 13, 2009
Demolition of house on Mapu
It doesn't take very long to take down a house. As you can see from the photos, all it takes is a big bulldozer. Slowly the bulldozer makes its way through the house until it is all down. The only piece that took extra patience was the security room which due to its construction required a special hammer piece. But in the end it too was broken down and carted a way. A pretty humbling experience.....
Taking down the house
It has taken a while, but we finally got the approval to start building. After hammering out an agreement with my neighbour over the border, we quickly demarkated the border and began the process of taking down the existing house. The existing house was built in the early 70's. The house had two stories, without a basement. It takes over a year to build a house but it takes less than a day to take it down.
The demolition crew came early to take down the house. They put up fences around the permiter of the house to reduce the collateral mess to the neighbours.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
New Job at Local Hits Media
It's been a month now in my new role as general manager of an internet advertising company called Local Hits Media. The company assists small businesses to list their business's on the Local Search Directories of large search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live. The company is now focused on outgoing and ingoing campaigns to try to sign up as many small businesses as possible.
The recession has taken its toll on small businesses. Everyone is concerned about what is happening with the economy. Every advertising dollar is being reviewed. It doesn't matter what industry or geographic region everyone is feeling the pain and there is general concern that things will be getting worse. Even with this pessmistic feeling, people are still interested in exploring ways to get the word out about their business and increase their online visibility.
I hope to post more stories about my experiences at Local Hits Media over the next couple of months.
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