Category Archives: Building

The house is (mostly) insulated – pink & fluffy

Despite the cladding and flashing not being installed, the builders went ahead and installed the insulation. R4.1 Pink batts to the ceiling, and R2.7 pink sound shield to the walls. This level of insulation gave us a 7.5 star house, so we decided that spending more money to upgrade it to a higher level justContinue reading “The house is (mostly) insulated – pink & fluffy”

Nexteel vs Colorbond…. More delay!

We chose to clad the house in Maxline using Nexteel, a rival paint system to the ubiquitous Colorbond. We thought Colorbond Night Sky was too harsh against second hand bricks, and while Monument looked good, in some lights it has a real greenish tinge, which we don’t like. We did the shed in night sky,Continue reading “Nexteel vs Colorbond…. More delay!”

And still we wait – our fingers are crossed just a little more tightly

Just been notified that we’re back to the original building supervisor who was swapped out because he was too busy to manage the build. The new building supervisor has just been laid off – financial pressures. Quite worrying when you hear of so many companies going under. We’re assured that it will be all OK,Continue reading “And still we wait – our fingers are crossed just a little more tightly”

Septic Tank & Sand Filter – Valley Septic are legends

To get approval for the house we had to get a Land Capability Assessment (LCA) done – a survey done by an engineer including soil samples to determine what type of water treatment is required, and what the water distribution field should look like – size and method. The engineer who did our LCA determinedContinue reading “Septic Tank & Sand Filter – Valley Septic are legends”

The Brickies are finished – finally

So about 4 months after the house was ready for them, the brickies finally finished their part of the build. They came randomly for about a month doing a little bit here and there, using rainwater collected from the shed roof into an ex-honey containing IBC (hopefully the mortar won’t attract ants!) and our petrolContinue reading “The Brickies are finished – finally”