29th May 2012

            I’m loosing track of time and I don’t think it’s got anything o do with age, over the past two or three weeks a crane with forks on the front came and unloaded a truck of plaster board, lifting it up to the scaffolding at the front balcony where the plasterers slid it off into the lounge sheet by sheet. They have to use a crane for this activity, as the long sheets apart from being very heavy are just too long to get up the stairs to the upper level, a similar amount was manoeuvred into the garage for downstairs.

External rendering has also taken place over the last couple of weeks although they still have a little area to finish at the front once the triangular window is installed. In a nutshell, rendering over the special building foam cladding consists of an application coat of specially mixed cement render engulfing a fibre glass mesh mat that looks a bit like bird cage wire, following this they apply an acrylic based top coat containing a grit compound to give the desired render finish depending upon which grade of compound has been selected. Later it will have a couple of coats of paint the colour we previously selected. Apparently the whole process, foam and render results in a very strong, waterproof cladding that is straight and true and well insulated, the foam being 75mm thick at least, and reasonably dense much like the foam boxes they transport veges and seafood in only thicker. In addition to this the wall cavities between studs and noggins on the inside of exterior walls are all packed with fibre wool (pink bats) for additional insulation and sound reduction, while they were at it we had the walls and ceiling insulated between in our bedroom.

Plaster installation on the inside of the house has been completed other than the cornice piece (that is the curved bit where the walls meet the ceiling). They seem to have an expert for each application, two people put up the sheets of plaster-board walls and ceilings. Then another couple did the taping and filling of joints and nail locations, yet to come are others to install the cornice and finish those. After all that is done another team come and sand all the filled areas smooth and flat, then I guess it’s ready for the painters although I imagine they can’t start until skirting are installed and that can’t be done until the timber floor is laid. Gee I‘ve got a lot of supervising to do!!!

Plumber came yesterday and installed downpipes etc and today the foam guys are back applying sealants around all of the windows, joints and cavities to ensure everything is watertight, (so it won’t sink). Chippies are back today and will probably be here to completion, they’re currently hanging doors and finishing soffits and will complete any jobs that require scaffolding while it is still in place.

I’m busy replacing hose clamps on the Toyotas power steering in a process of elimination to stop air ingress into the system, a power steering specialist told me the noisy growling in my steering wasn’t Nancy having a go at me but was air getting into the system. If the hose clamps don’t do the trick the pump has to come off to replace ‘O’ rings, $$$$. Just changing hose clamps is a hell of a job, who would be a mechanic, you have to half strip the car from underneath to get a look at anything then you can’t get your hands into where you want to and everything is always behind something else, bugger of a job. Without taking hoses off and losing all of the oil it is a nightmare trying to get the old sprung clips off, under the car crap falling into your eyes and you can’t reach it anyway. Wish I was rich.

I have to go  and finish the job I started SWHTBO has informed me the car is required.

Stay cool

Nigel

Lifting in the plasterboard

Ceilings first

Applying the render

Mixing render

Nothing like modern equipment

Plasterboard well under way

Internal insulation and soundproofing

Front view most of the rendering completed 

Back view completed rendering

20th May 2012

20^th May 2012

We have had a couple more weeks of perfect weather and looking across the bay is just beautiful, you wouldn’t live anywhere else. Getting older with a short memory it’s so easy to forget that horrible humidity I never cease to complain about in summer.

Progress on the house appears to have slowed down but in reality it is going well. Roofing and guttering has been completed, external foam cladding is well advanced and all but finished, the renderer has started and is well advanced on the northern wall, he feels there is about seven days work ahead of him and the plasterers have just started fixing the internal plasterboard linings (walls & ceilings). The “Goop Guys” man did his thing before the rendering started, Goop Guys is a company name, it’s a process of taping up window frames and applying a solution to the glass protecting them from scratching while the house is under construction particularly the renderers who apparently have a habit of splashing their cement mix everywhere and wiping it off with the sponge they use on the render, you can imagine what that does to fresh glass.

According to the building manager, chippies will be back this coming week to start putting up soffits, for the uninitiated that’s the covered section under the eaves between the gutter and house. I guess then they will make a start on the inside doing skirtings etc. I’m led to believe the upstairs timber flooring will be laid in a couple of weeks, external glass balustrade and then the scaffolding will be taken down in approximately 3 weeks time. I don’t know if that means the external painting will have been completed or whether they put up different scaffold for that, maybe they abseil off the gutters.

After several days of trades cutting foam and plasterboard, upstairs of the house looks a shambles, downstairs is just as bad if not worse with cement render and mud traipsed everywhere as the offsiders mix and deliver their brews to the renderers, why they have to walk in and out of the house has got me beat as all of their work is external. However I mustn’t forget the old cliché I used for many years “Only children and fools criticise half finished work”.

After straining my back a few weeks ago I have finally been able to get back on my bike at long last, it’s been one thing after another, 1^st we had rain that seems to be ages ago, then both Nancy and I were sick as dogs for a spell and then I strained my back so all in all bike riding and exercise has been a bit light on of late, fortunately it is coming right and at the same time Nancy has decided to go on a health kick so I’ve managed to get her on Lisa’s bike, slowly slowly but she is improving and gaining confidence, we actually covered 18kls on Friday and her average speed is improving as well (and she didn’t fall off this time). It’s great if she keeps it up we will buy a bike for her birthday in August and take them with us when we travel. That’s both Nancy and the bike.

I will try and get some meaningful house photos for my next post, in the meantime I’ll just keep doing little jobs on the van and gradually putting things back that we took out when we had it repaired, only not so many duplicated items this time, Nancy has finally accepted there are supermarkets outside of Brisbane and butchers shops. Last time we carted a 60lt freezer full of frozen meat from her favourite 83 year old butcher and then we had to stop at every country butcher’s shop we came across just to peruse and sample country meat, I don’t know if Nancy has a thing about meat or just fancies butchers generally, I guess I’m lucky I caught her when I did 47 years ago, or did she catch me hmm, I’ll have to think about that one it was a long time ago.

Anyway enough dribble

Stay loose

Nigel 

7th May 2012

7^th May 2012

The weather is behaving itself and lately has been absolutely beautiful, considering it’s a long weekend here in Aus that’s amazing. Having said that night time winter temps have hit with a vengeance as a cold front sneaked in from down south, as low as 13, 14 degrees C at night which is four or five degrees lower than normal for this time of the year and feels really cold, but hey the day time temps are still up around 24,25,26 degrees and perfect days at that.

We have got our caravan back, repairs took a couple of weeks but it looks like they have done a really good job. According to the owner of the factory (Otto Tuza), an area near the front window had never been sealed correctly and water had been getting in from day one so they basically replaced and upgraded the whole front section of the van and they replaced the damaged inner lining and everything looks brand new. The original front had a large section of padded vinyl to protect from flying stones, the panelling behind this was apparently a fibreglass coated sheet of thin ply. They have removed all of this and replaced it with aluminium checker-plate and then attached a removable black vinyl skirt to reduce reflection, they even touched up the stainless steel screws with black paint to blend in with the vinyl. While they carried out the repairs they made some improvements such as changing the doors on the front storage compartment and BBQ door. These originally opened downwards like the tailgate on a ute, Otto suggested the hinge side of these external doors always seals against water whereas the lock side cannot be adjusted and you can’t guarantee they are waterproof. So by reversing the whole assembly and putting the hinges to the top it ensures rainwater won’t get into the compartment. On the roof of the caravan they checked every seal and joint and ensured they were all satisfactorily sealed, on inspection they claimed a couple of joints were suspect and have now been secured, one can only accept it has all been done thoroughly and we have no further problems. They also carried out a substantial improvement on the front “A” frame that required cutting, welding and re-spraying, these improvements were all carried out professionally and without any charge. When we picked up the van Nancy asked them to install a couple of towel rails, a toilet roll holder and a hand towel ring that we paid for wholesale and they installed for nothing. So all in all I guess I should say we are very impressed with the service we received and how willing Otto Tuza was to admit fault and address our problem without question, and so far all I can do at this stage is sing their praises.

We ended up having a couple of groups of friends and old neighbours visit us today so we cooked a couple of chooks in the BBQ and some veges in the oven and had a late lunch after a house inspection, sitting in the back garden enjoying a good feed and a glass of wine, the sun was that hot the ladies ended up shifting their chairs into the shade – winter!

As I write this the sky in the west is a dark purple and salmon pink just beautiful, what a magic weekend.

2nd may 2012

2^nd May 2012

How time fly’s when your having fun here it is May already and a couple of weeks since my last entry.  In the interim we have honoured ANZAC day, quietly celebrated my birthday and now we are coming up to another long weekend with Labour Day Monday. Note I said quietly celebrated my birthday which is quite true, we had decided that with the caravan going in for repairs, us either staying at Nancy’s sister’s place or sleeping on the floor here in this little rented cottage and building a house next door wasn’t exactly conducive to having a big birthday celebration and then on top of that we had both been sick as dogs for quite some time. Beside with the uncertainties of unforeseen costs when building a new house while trying to maintain some resemblance of a budget becomes a bloody nightmare. When we can eventually move next door into our new home, hopefully by the end of July, we will have a house warming and birthday bash then. So on my birthday Nancy and I drove up from the Gold Coast where we were staying and went out to dinner with David, Lisa and a close friend of Lisa’s who has been like part of our family since their school days and had an enjoyable but quiet evening.

In the past couple of weeks while down the coast I managed to catch up on a bit of reading. “Monsoon” my first Wilbur Smith novel of Bryce Courtenay proportions and not a bad tale, easy reading set around the 1600’s involving seafaring, family feuding, anger and passion, action and romance.

Peter FitzSimons novelised account of the “Batavia”, a chronological account of that famous historical shipwreck just off the west Australian coast, the events leading up to the disaster and subsequent murderous tyranny driven by power and greed of miscreant crew inflicted on other innocent survivors until their eventual rescue.  Using well documented and extensive historical records of the shipwreck, FitzSimons has pulled together a great yarn of a dark past that although is part of Australia’s history was well before settlement, well worth reading.

 “The Ghost” Robert Harris, a novel featuring a successful author contracted to ghost write an ex British Prime Minister’s autobiography with plenty of mystery and intrigue and food for thought.

“Hornet Flight”, Ken Follett. Set in Scandinavia throughout the 2^nd World War through German occupation it centres mainly around a particular young man and his escapades it encompasses the lives of various people that eventually have a common link, British MI6, Danish resistance, espionage and over zealous national police under German control. Very easy reading to fill in a few hours including a few known facts enhanced with a degree of poetic licence.

“The Last Pearling Lugger”, Mark Dodd. Dodd is currently a journalist with The Australian news paper based in Canberra, this book is basically an autobiography of his early adulthood recounting the halcyon days of pot and wild drinking sprees and a five year stint in Broome working on pearling luggers in the late 70’s to early 80’s. As Dodd recounts his past it’s obvious he was a fairly loose cannon, unsettled, irresponsible and a smart arse with the lip it would appear, living rough and spending any earnings in the local watering hole and wild drinking parties, but they worked hard. One assumes after eventually embarking into a long held ambition of journalism he straightened himself out. It’s an interesting read depicting some colourful characters, draws a pretty good picture of what was once a remote frontier town with a multi cultural population and a good insight to the harsh life and conditions in the world of pearling luggers. Not bad reading.

And I’ve just started another epic by Ken Follett (that I purloined from my sister in law) called “Fall of Giants”.

We pick up the caravan tomorrow Thursday 3^rd, let’s hope it has been repaired satisfactorily and they have eliminated any leaks, they admitted on the phone there was a problem around the front window somewhere that was their fault so it doesn’t sound as if we are going to have any drama with them.

House is coming on well, all of the downstairs windows are now in, a temporary front door and cladding to the lower section. Scaffolding will be put up next to access the top section and on Friday a contractor is coming to raise the sewer inspection manhole at long last.   

All wrapped up 

External foam cladding ready for installation

Cladding installed on the bottom section

Up close of cladding held in place by long screws and large washers the joints are then sealed
later it will be rendered including two layers of fibreglass cloth in sandwich form and then later still it will be painted.