Full Bath

Here it is, bath in use

Beer Bath

I made up a frame for a bath to be used to keep beer cold for a wedding...The bath was something that got damaged during construction. So I guess this is recycling.

hotwater timer

We got a small electric tank hotwater system for the following reasons; to save water and energy (the pipe run to the instantaneous gas is quite long - 20m or so), we like the kitchen hotwater to be very hot, we want it to come on straight away and we like to trickle the hotwater.

The only problem with the small electric tank hotwater systems is that they don't have an off peak circuit. So to save on the energy bill, I have been trying to make sure it is off during the peak times (2pm to 8pm). Effectively this means turning it on just before I go bed and then turning on off when I wake up. Unfortunately not only is an effort to remember, the hotwater is not really hot come time to wash up at 7pm.

The solution was to put in a timer. The one I got from Jaycar at $60 is really good. It is battery backed up and has enough configuration so I can turn in on at 6am leave it runing through the shoulder to 2pm on weekdays and leaving it runing to 10pm on the weekend.



On the weekend, I did some more painting both inside and outside...

Gunk From First Flush

The water tank has started to fill up. I checked the first flushes and they are collecting a lot of gunk. One of the devices had even blocked. I put in wider apeture drippers.



I shone a torch into the tank. It had a slight brown tinge. Hopefully it will settle.

The system actually has a number of filters. A course and fine one in the form of a leaf guard. A fine mesh one into the tank. And finally a very fine one just after the pump.

I think the secret will be in cleaning out the gutters and leaf guards often.

Last Day

Today was my last day. I go back to work next week. Aside from the electrics (which I not allowed to do), I can now apply for an interim occupancy certificate. The main reason why I can't apply for a final one is that I don't have airconditioning! Go and figure!

I'm happy how things have gone.

As an asside, the down stairs bathroom is complete. Shower, toilet and laundry sink (not shown).



Most of the day was spent connecting up the storm water to the tank and putting in the first flush devices.

Ikea Kitchen

I've spent the last couple of days putting in the Ikea kitchen. It is pretty straight forward.

The design does not give much flexibility in attaching the cabinents to the walls. It is not very good for my timber stud wall. To solve this I did one of two things. One option was to create horizontal anchor points by installing a piece of timber that spans the cabinet sides. The other option is simply to move the anchor angles from their standard position on the cabinent sides to the top and bottom.

The adjustable legs make leveling the benchtops easy. When attaching to the wall I did use packers to compensate for the lack of a perfectly straight wall.

I added some more bracing for the sink and gave it the sit test and it was fine. I may need to brace the stove top as well. I guess we will see.

Obviously the whole set up has been carefully engineered to avoid waste.

The plumber dropped in and expressed a desire to put in the fittings before the benchtop. I've got other things to do, so that is fine.



The council inspected my stormwater. No problems - yay! We discussed what is required for an interim occupancy certificate. Not too much. Probably the biggest thing is the electricity. Hopefully I'll be able to finish every thing I need to by the weekend

Fifth Bath

Ok, I'm on to my 5th bath. Surprise, surprise I am not a happy chappy. The 2 after I found a rusted crack had defects and fortunately they were not installed. The 4th was damaged by the gyprockers - they used a hammer rather than their special tool to trim the villaboard! The guy that did it kept on denying it but fortunately the boss man said he will pay. All I had to do was organise for its removal, a new bath, the plumber to come back and the gyprock guys to finish it that day. Fortunately I did it! It cost me a day and a bundle on phone calls.

I had already organised the water proofing guy for tomorrow (he could not come today), the council guy Monday and the tiler Monday as well.

Record Rain

Yesterday it rained non stop. 114mm and the garage was overflowing with water when I arrived this morning. I spent most of the day collecting rubbish and draining the water. I did also however fit my first stops to one of my windows.

Over the last week, we made a small change by adding another room. We added a small kitchen complete with sink and gas outlet. Now we have a two bathroom, two kitchen, two living room, two bedroom house (four toilets including the temporary oudoor dunnie). I've got the plumber to put in some more taps for a washing machine to go into the downstairs bathroom - so maybe we have two laundries as well. We should call our beachhouse "two".

Inspection

I had my framing inspection today. A pass! and I am upto date with my inspections! the guy spent a whole hour looking over things.



ocean views from the roof.



funky plastic plumbing that has just become legal in nsw. They have just gone through the once in 100 years plumbing review.

Plumbing fixtures chosen

Graham had the plumber in recently and he needs to know all our fixtures. So today I went to Reece to pick them all out.

The showroom had a range of showers connected up, with pushbuttons to operate them, which Louka found quite exciting.

We'd already picked the washbasin (same as in our flat) which probably helped. I went in and asked for everything in the highest water-saving star rating, because that's what our BASIX certificate requires. They told me everything is the same anyway, which didn't help. So I gave them some general guidelines (bath size, mixer tap preference, etc) and went with the cheapest or their recommendation for everything, which simplified everything. I thought.

Except when I got home and actually checked our BASIX certificate, it required 6 star rated bathroom and kitchen taps. Which don't seem to exist, or if they do they're not available at Reece, where everything is 4 star. So I updated our certificate and of course it no longer passed. Graham suggested getting a bigger rainwater tank, so I increased the size from 3,000 litres to 3,200 litres, and now we pass again.

Plumbing Inspection

The plumbing inspector came and queried the height between the main drain and downstairs bathroom floor waste. Fortunately it just made the minimun height. He finally signed off and that was good.

I finished the cages for the stand alone piers and for the sydney water piers down the north side of the house. Sydney water requires that their drain is protected by piering.

I've just got 6 piers in the middle of the house. Hopefully I will get these done tomorrow.

Draining In

The plumber came around and roughed in the drains. The inspection will be on Friday :)

I welded up a cage for another pier - much easier. It should not take much time to do the rest now that I know what I am doing. I use a MIG welder which inheritly is low hydrogen to maintain the strength of the reo.

I spoke to a concretor and I have arranged for some steel fixers and the concrete to be poured on Friday next week.

Pier Forms and Plumbing

Yesterday and today, I got stuck into completing the pier forms and getting some plumbing done.

I arranged for a plumber to remove the boundary trap and plumbing that would exist in the foundation. He just pretty much cut the sewer at the boundary and put in a 90 degree angle to shoot the drain vertically and re-connect my toilet. I also got him to move the water meter further towards the letter box - now it is right out of the way :)

The plumbing inpector will need to look at the plumber's handy work so I shored it up to keep the sand out.

My pier form work is almost finished. You can see the post stirrup being held in place using some timber. I routed out a slot in the top timber for the post to sit in.

Piers

I found that the accuracy of the bored piers were not up to scratch, so I have decided to realign the columns by cutting them back and placing a smaller column on top.

Today I just put a plywood top on all the piers. One of them, I cut a 30cm diameter hole with a router. I put the hole exactly where it should be. The form work for this is quite interesting. Concrete put huge pressure on the form work and it can be a bit tragic if thing blow. To this end I have securely fasten the plywood to the piers using blocks of wood.

Some steel arrived today. Not everything - I'm going to have to chase them up about this.

I also spoke to a couple of plumbers, one of them called his mate - a real sales man who didn't seem to be interested in what I was trying to do. He seemed to want to sell me every single upgrade possible. Fortunately, the other plumber was down to earth and was OK with my suggestion - which is just to put a riser from the sewer and deal with the rest after the footing have been poured.