I remember buying Gardenias as fragile, temperamental, and as I seem to recall expensive pot plants in the UK. Well here they're large shrubs, small shrubs, prostrate ground cover shrubs, hedging or - as here - grown as standards! We bought this one not long after we arrived and it's taken us a while to work out how to look after it: lots of water, not too much wind (although it's been falling over in its pot regularly with all the wind), get rid of woolly aphids and scale insects as soon as you see them and water in lots of liquid seaweed fertiliser as soon as the leaves start to yellow... and so here it is, looking luscious and starting to flower again at the beginning of summer. Mmmmmmm what a gorgeous smell.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Garden/ia
I remember buying Gardenias as fragile, temperamental, and as I seem to recall expensive pot plants in the UK. Well here they're large shrubs, small shrubs, prostrate ground cover shrubs, hedging or - as here - grown as standards! We bought this one not long after we arrived and it's taken us a while to work out how to look after it: lots of water, not too much wind (although it's been falling over in its pot regularly with all the wind), get rid of woolly aphids and scale insects as soon as you see them and water in lots of liquid seaweed fertiliser as soon as the leaves start to yellow... and so here it is, looking luscious and starting to flower again at the beginning of summer. Mmmmmmm what a gorgeous smell.
Scenes of devestation
Hmmm... this is what the car port that was attached to the side of the office/studio now looks like, after three days of severe wind warnings. Michael and I actually didn't hear the collapse and were alerted to it by Patrick, who went off to work and discovered his motorbike was under this lot!
Luckily his bike wasn't damaged and I was able to hold up the roof (with some effort, mind you!) so that he could wheel it out from underneath. I wonder what our landlord will make of this one?
Friday, November 21, 2008
Builder number #3
We have no choice but to look at other builders, so I can now introduce the lovely Jim into the mix. He came to see us last week, saw my models, looked at our plans, went away with copies and will - hopefully - come up with a price. He reckons about $1,500 per square metre, so perhaps we'll be back to sawing off bits of the house in an effort to make it more affordable? We'll let you know in the next exciting episode...
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The bottom line
Well the tag-line for this blog is "Great house: small budget: big ideas", so you could always see that we were heading toward difficulties along the way, and I think we've just ploughed straight into 'the money problem'.
You'll recall that we have two potential builders in our sights, Dan and John. John said up-front that he thought it would cost at least half a million dollars to build our house and Dan thought it might be cheaper. John doesn't want to do a costing exercise but Dan has just finished his, and the bad news is that even he thinks the house - not including the studio - will cost half a million dollars to build, which would be OK if we had the money...
The economic situation isn't helping. Importing anything now costs a lot more owing to the fact that the dollar is weak, and the raw cost of materials for building our house has increased by something like 40% in the last twelve months. While we're trying to use local products where possible, such as sustainably farmed timber from local forests for example, the overall cost of materials has gone up as suppliers have increased prices across their product ranges.
Dan has also pointed out that we have expensive tastes, which probably won't be a surprise to most of you! Mind you, I don't think we've gone overboard with things. If I was being snobby about it I would suggest that our European mind-set simply means we're interested in quality products rather than shoddy stuff. We're not interested in gold-plated taps; we want taps that will work for 20 years and more without discolouring, and with the right sort of ceramic disk technology that will work when the water supply comes from a rainwater tank rather than a mains system. We don't want architraves and a decent plasterer costs more than a bodger who uses skirting boards, architraves and cornicing to hide the defects in his workmanship. We could just build the whole house from cement-rendered brick, but we don't like the look, we don't like the associated environmental issues, and we don't want to be patching cracks for the rest of our lives. We could skimp on insulation but it seems like a false economy, especially when we'll be on a solar electricity system that won't allow us anything in the way of electrical heating or cooling. Spending money up-front on appropriate insulation for walls, floor and ceiling is the only sensible answer... and so it goes on.
I'm not quite sure yet how this leaves us. Michael and I haven't really sat down and done the hard work of reviewing our cash-flow, looking at different mortgage options or trying to trim costs. Our Plan B had been to postpone the office/studio building until later, using the second living room as a temporary workplace until we could afford it. We've already ditched the idea of a swimming pool until much later in the proceedings. But as Dan's costings - and we've been through them properly - mean we can't afford to build the office/studio yet anyway, we're going to have to think of a very difference Plan C, and an extremely creative Plan D as a backup.
Funnily enough I'm not despondent. Things haven't got to the stage where I'm seriously worried that we won't be able to build anything at all: we just have to review things and be creative. Often I find that when I first think of something I can't see how to change it, but after a period of reflection it usually occurs to me that there are more options than I had previously thought. What it might mean is a further delay, although hopefully not a huge one as I think it was a condition of our avoiding Stamp Duty on the property that building work had to commence within two years of purchase of the land, which would take us to the end of March next year. More news when we've come up with some ideas!
You'll recall that we have two potential builders in our sights, Dan and John. John said up-front that he thought it would cost at least half a million dollars to build our house and Dan thought it might be cheaper. John doesn't want to do a costing exercise but Dan has just finished his, and the bad news is that even he thinks the house - not including the studio - will cost half a million dollars to build, which would be OK if we had the money...
The economic situation isn't helping. Importing anything now costs a lot more owing to the fact that the dollar is weak, and the raw cost of materials for building our house has increased by something like 40% in the last twelve months. While we're trying to use local products where possible, such as sustainably farmed timber from local forests for example, the overall cost of materials has gone up as suppliers have increased prices across their product ranges.
Dan has also pointed out that we have expensive tastes, which probably won't be a surprise to most of you! Mind you, I don't think we've gone overboard with things. If I was being snobby about it I would suggest that our European mind-set simply means we're interested in quality products rather than shoddy stuff. We're not interested in gold-plated taps; we want taps that will work for 20 years and more without discolouring, and with the right sort of ceramic disk technology that will work when the water supply comes from a rainwater tank rather than a mains system. We don't want architraves and a decent plasterer costs more than a bodger who uses skirting boards, architraves and cornicing to hide the defects in his workmanship. We could just build the whole house from cement-rendered brick, but we don't like the look, we don't like the associated environmental issues, and we don't want to be patching cracks for the rest of our lives. We could skimp on insulation but it seems like a false economy, especially when we'll be on a solar electricity system that won't allow us anything in the way of electrical heating or cooling. Spending money up-front on appropriate insulation for walls, floor and ceiling is the only sensible answer... and so it goes on.
I'm not quite sure yet how this leaves us. Michael and I haven't really sat down and done the hard work of reviewing our cash-flow, looking at different mortgage options or trying to trim costs. Our Plan B had been to postpone the office/studio building until later, using the second living room as a temporary workplace until we could afford it. We've already ditched the idea of a swimming pool until much later in the proceedings. But as Dan's costings - and we've been through them properly - mean we can't afford to build the office/studio yet anyway, we're going to have to think of a very difference Plan C, and an extremely creative Plan D as a backup.
Funnily enough I'm not despondent. Things haven't got to the stage where I'm seriously worried that we won't be able to build anything at all: we just have to review things and be creative. Often I find that when I first think of something I can't see how to change it, but after a period of reflection it usually occurs to me that there are more options than I had previously thought. What it might mean is a further delay, although hopefully not a huge one as I think it was a condition of our avoiding Stamp Duty on the property that building work had to commence within two years of purchase of the land, which would take us to the end of March next year. More news when we've come up with some ideas!
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A visitor
And not one I'd like to see again any time soon. Michael's been away for a few days and I've had a disturbed sleep every night! First, Michael forgot the time difference and rang me very early in the morning, then I had cockroach heaven, and latterly I've had a little Ella person creeping into bed with me at about 2am. So last night it wasn't much of a surprise when a voice said, "Mummy..." next to my ear at 2:30am. I was very tired and told her to go and get her pillow and then she could come into bed with me for a while, but I woke up damned quick when she said she'd 'trodden on something' in the corridor outside her bedroom while getting her pillow. I thought it was probably a dratted cockroach, so was taken aback when I switched on light to have a look and saw... a snake slithering away from me!
I really did have to look twice in order to believe my eyes, even though snakes are prevalent around her and we do live in the bush so it's not really surprising to find one. But the big problem was then, what to do? I know nothing about snakes! Ella jumped onto my bed and was told to stay there; I put on my knee-length Ugg boots (recalling that I'd read many people get bitten on the ankles, I figured it would be wise to protect them), and then followed the snake, armed with a heavy pillow.
It wasn't a big snake: about 40 - 50 cms long, with a light tan body, markings along its back, and a small head. I guessed it was a juvenile, and hoped that if I could drop the pillow on it, I'd be able to trap it... but it got upset at me following it, and from a position under Ella's bed it bent up into an 'S' shape and looked as if it was thinking about striking me, so I stayed very still and we eye-balled each other for about 20 minutes until it relaxed a bit and I moved gently away to get the phone book and a phone. What do you do when you've got a snake under your daughter's bed at 2:30am on a Saturday morning??? I decided to ring WIRES, which is a national wildlife rescue service for which I've seen posters... the number didn't say it was 24 hours, but they must have an overnight 'on call' service because eventually a groggy female voice answered and the lovely Donna helped me out. I explained that I was an ignorant pom, described the snake, commented that I couldn't secure the room because we have sliding internal doors and it could easily get out, and she said she'd get a reptile expert to ring me back. So about 15 minutes later, during which time the snake decided to move towards the back of Ella's room out of sight, Tom rang me from Nana Glen which is about 25 kms away.
He made me describe its appearance and manner, and then said 'Oh f^%$, I'd better get down there', and asked me to station myself in the corridor to monitor the position of the snake, which I did for half an hour until he arrived. Bless him, he managed to catch the snake and took it away, tied into a pillow-case. Apparently not many people notice the 'S' shape in the neck, but that told him it was either a tree snake or an Eastern Brown snake, which was what was worrying him. The tree snake is venemous but a bite would be the equivalent of a horse-fly sting: unpleasant but not dangerous, whereas a bite from an Eastern Brown snake would mean a visit to hospital - I can't believe Ella trod on it and wasn't bitten!
By the time Tom arrived, Patrick had got back from his Hallowe'en party (earlier that evening I had the pleasure of making him up to look like a ghoul!) and all had been explained. Patrick looked after Ella while we hunted the snake, and once Tom and the snake had gone we all sat down and phoned Michael, whom I knew was in the lounge at LA airport waiting for his plane. I'd badly wanted to phone him while I was sitting in the corridor waiting for Tom to arrive but didn't think it was fair to tell Michael all about it when he would have worried and not been able to help.
So anyway, it was past 5am by the time we all got back to bed, and the phone rang at 8am, 9:30am and 10am, so I can't say I've caught up on much sleep... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I really did have to look twice in order to believe my eyes, even though snakes are prevalent around her and we do live in the bush so it's not really surprising to find one. But the big problem was then, what to do? I know nothing about snakes! Ella jumped onto my bed and was told to stay there; I put on my knee-length Ugg boots (recalling that I'd read many people get bitten on the ankles, I figured it would be wise to protect them), and then followed the snake, armed with a heavy pillow.
It wasn't a big snake: about 40 - 50 cms long, with a light tan body, markings along its back, and a small head. I guessed it was a juvenile, and hoped that if I could drop the pillow on it, I'd be able to trap it... but it got upset at me following it, and from a position under Ella's bed it bent up into an 'S' shape and looked as if it was thinking about striking me, so I stayed very still and we eye-balled each other for about 20 minutes until it relaxed a bit and I moved gently away to get the phone book and a phone. What do you do when you've got a snake under your daughter's bed at 2:30am on a Saturday morning??? I decided to ring WIRES, which is a national wildlife rescue service for which I've seen posters... the number didn't say it was 24 hours, but they must have an overnight 'on call' service because eventually a groggy female voice answered and the lovely Donna helped me out. I explained that I was an ignorant pom, described the snake, commented that I couldn't secure the room because we have sliding internal doors and it could easily get out, and she said she'd get a reptile expert to ring me back. So about 15 minutes later, during which time the snake decided to move towards the back of Ella's room out of sight, Tom rang me from Nana Glen which is about 25 kms away.
He made me describe its appearance and manner, and then said 'Oh f^%$, I'd better get down there', and asked me to station myself in the corridor to monitor the position of the snake, which I did for half an hour until he arrived. Bless him, he managed to catch the snake and took it away, tied into a pillow-case. Apparently not many people notice the 'S' shape in the neck, but that told him it was either a tree snake or an Eastern Brown snake, which was what was worrying him. The tree snake is venemous but a bite would be the equivalent of a horse-fly sting: unpleasant but not dangerous, whereas a bite from an Eastern Brown snake would mean a visit to hospital - I can't believe Ella trod on it and wasn't bitten!
By the time Tom arrived, Patrick had got back from his Hallowe'en party (earlier that evening I had the pleasure of making him up to look like a ghoul!) and all had been explained. Patrick looked after Ella while we hunted the snake, and once Tom and the snake had gone we all sat down and phoned Michael, whom I knew was in the lounge at LA airport waiting for his plane. I'd badly wanted to phone him while I was sitting in the corridor waiting for Tom to arrive but didn't think it was fair to tell Michael all about it when he would have worried and not been able to help.
So anyway, it was past 5am by the time we all got back to bed, and the phone rang at 8am, 9:30am and 10am, so I can't say I've caught up on much sleep... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sunday, October 26, 2008
More snaps of the architect's model
I must confess that I haven't glued the house model together yet, so it's in one piece thanks to the wonders of masking tape. But here you are, some photos!
I made models of some furniture. The main bedroom & en-suite cantilever out from the main building slightly
A view of the whole with roofs, planter boxes and front verandah!
This may not look much but is the cause of some angst:
the tall storage unit/bookcase that is the centrepiece of the open-plan living area, with its kitchen-side island unit
I made models of some furniture. The main bedroom & en-suite cantilever out from the main building slightly
A view of the whole with roofs, planter boxes and front verandah!
This may not look much but is the cause of some angst:
the tall storage unit/bookcase that is the centrepiece of the open-plan living area, with its kitchen-side island unit
So where are we?
Well, we're creeping forwards, albeit slowly.
As regards the sale of the house we're currently living in, I discovered - by reading the local paper, mind you, not because either our landlord or managing agent thought to tell me - that our landlord has slashed the price of this place. Indeed, the advert has the price crossed out and the literate phrase, "Ouch! Make me an offer!" written over it. All of which presumably indicates that the pressure is on him to sell at least one of his properties and he's taking action accordingly. I am sure he would maintain that there's no need for us to panic, but somehow our comfortable belief that as the property was vastly over-priced and therefore wouldn't sell and therefore there was no need to panic is evaporating... Consequently I am about to start ringing round estate agents and making bookings to view properties. I'll go and see what I can this week, while Michael's away, and shortlist some properties (hopefully...) to look at when he gets back next week. It's a total pain in the neck.
Meanwhile, back at the block... We HAVE the DA paperwork for the house but the council planning officer apparently 'didn't notice' that the plans were submitted with a swimming pool clearly marked, hence a number of frantic phone calls which have resulted in Christian having to submit additional paperwork for additional approvals which will result in an additional Construction Certificate and associated additional fees. Ho hum. Quite how one could have 'missed' a large pool clearly marked in both text and plans I'm not sure.
Construction Certificates do seem to me to be a licence to collect money. We paid whopping fees to get the DA, for which the 'average' processing period through this council is allegedly 12 weeks, or so they like to claim. But in fact it's taken over 20 weeks and they managed to miss the pool. But then, of course, one has to get Construction Certificates, which effectively sign off at various benchmarks throughout the construction phase, resulting in an Occupation Certificate if you've ticked all the boxes in the process. We've had to separate out the Construction Certificates for the shed and the house, otherwise the completion of one would be dependent upon the completion of the other, and of course we need the shed to be built first to provide us with storage and the builder with amenities during construction. Separating out the Construction Certificate for the pool will at least mean we can get an Occupation Certificate for the house without needing to complete the pool (which we can't yet afford to build!), so that makes sense, but I do find paying for another one slightly annoying. We're haemmorhaging money and the build hasn't yet started. I'm not exactly surprised, though; after all, I have watched several series of Grand Designs with a certain amount of horror!
We should get the Construction Certificate for the shed through this week, which will enable the shed contractor to employ a concreter to pour the slab. This then needs to dry (about a week to ten days, I think) before the walls and roof can be put on. Then we will have somewhere we can store our stuff - including all the boxes currently in the house plus excess furniture, given that we'll have to up-sticks and move soon.
We won't get the Construction Certificate for the main house through until we've signed a contract with a builder and they've presented copies of their licence and insurance to Council. And we can't get our mortgage finalised with the bank until we've engaged a builder and signed that contract... and we're waiting for Dan Duffy to get back to us with an indication of a price before we can decide what to do. Both he and John Newton are still in the running, but we are slightly worried about John's view of things: he maintains he can't build the house for less than $500,000 which is all very fine but we just don't have that kind of money. We thought initially that he might not be that interested in the job, given that he seems to be in demand locally, but jobs must be drying up at the moment because he phoned us to enquire how we were getting on. However, he's not willing to go through a pricing process for us: he just wants to give us a rough estimate. He has offered to 'supply goods at cost' for the build and negotiate a fixed builders' fee on top, but I have to say that everyone we've mentioned this too has shaken their heads and said it's a con, as we'd have no way of knowing whether the price of the supplies was genuine, the lowest available or heavily marked-up! And I have to say that while it appears to be a generous offer, it isn't as transparent as it seems... Dan, by contrast, is out there pricing everything up and looking around for good suppliers at the best price, and wants to talk to us about the various options and the cost implications thereof. Hmmm. We'll see what happens.
So there you go. I have three main tasks - in addition to my own work! - while Michael's away: nag Council about getting the Construction Certificate for the shed into my sticky little mitts; pursue Dan about his pricing exercise; and finding us somewhere else to live in the meantime. Lucky me!
As regards the sale of the house we're currently living in, I discovered - by reading the local paper, mind you, not because either our landlord or managing agent thought to tell me - that our landlord has slashed the price of this place. Indeed, the advert has the price crossed out and the literate phrase, "Ouch! Make me an offer!" written over it. All of which presumably indicates that the pressure is on him to sell at least one of his properties and he's taking action accordingly. I am sure he would maintain that there's no need for us to panic, but somehow our comfortable belief that as the property was vastly over-priced and therefore wouldn't sell and therefore there was no need to panic is evaporating... Consequently I am about to start ringing round estate agents and making bookings to view properties. I'll go and see what I can this week, while Michael's away, and shortlist some properties (hopefully...) to look at when he gets back next week. It's a total pain in the neck.
Meanwhile, back at the block... We HAVE the DA paperwork for the house but the council planning officer apparently 'didn't notice' that the plans were submitted with a swimming pool clearly marked, hence a number of frantic phone calls which have resulted in Christian having to submit additional paperwork for additional approvals which will result in an additional Construction Certificate and associated additional fees. Ho hum. Quite how one could have 'missed' a large pool clearly marked in both text and plans I'm not sure.
Construction Certificates do seem to me to be a licence to collect money. We paid whopping fees to get the DA, for which the 'average' processing period through this council is allegedly 12 weeks, or so they like to claim. But in fact it's taken over 20 weeks and they managed to miss the pool. But then, of course, one has to get Construction Certificates, which effectively sign off at various benchmarks throughout the construction phase, resulting in an Occupation Certificate if you've ticked all the boxes in the process. We've had to separate out the Construction Certificates for the shed and the house, otherwise the completion of one would be dependent upon the completion of the other, and of course we need the shed to be built first to provide us with storage and the builder with amenities during construction. Separating out the Construction Certificate for the pool will at least mean we can get an Occupation Certificate for the house without needing to complete the pool (which we can't yet afford to build!), so that makes sense, but I do find paying for another one slightly annoying. We're haemmorhaging money and the build hasn't yet started. I'm not exactly surprised, though; after all, I have watched several series of Grand Designs with a certain amount of horror!
We should get the Construction Certificate for the shed through this week, which will enable the shed contractor to employ a concreter to pour the slab. This then needs to dry (about a week to ten days, I think) before the walls and roof can be put on. Then we will have somewhere we can store our stuff - including all the boxes currently in the house plus excess furniture, given that we'll have to up-sticks and move soon.
We won't get the Construction Certificate for the main house through until we've signed a contract with a builder and they've presented copies of their licence and insurance to Council. And we can't get our mortgage finalised with the bank until we've engaged a builder and signed that contract... and we're waiting for Dan Duffy to get back to us with an indication of a price before we can decide what to do. Both he and John Newton are still in the running, but we are slightly worried about John's view of things: he maintains he can't build the house for less than $500,000 which is all very fine but we just don't have that kind of money. We thought initially that he might not be that interested in the job, given that he seems to be in demand locally, but jobs must be drying up at the moment because he phoned us to enquire how we were getting on. However, he's not willing to go through a pricing process for us: he just wants to give us a rough estimate. He has offered to 'supply goods at cost' for the build and negotiate a fixed builders' fee on top, but I have to say that everyone we've mentioned this too has shaken their heads and said it's a con, as we'd have no way of knowing whether the price of the supplies was genuine, the lowest available or heavily marked-up! And I have to say that while it appears to be a generous offer, it isn't as transparent as it seems... Dan, by contrast, is out there pricing everything up and looking around for good suppliers at the best price, and wants to talk to us about the various options and the cost implications thereof. Hmmm. We'll see what happens.
So there you go. I have three main tasks - in addition to my own work! - while Michael's away: nag Council about getting the Construction Certificate for the shed into my sticky little mitts; pursue Dan about his pricing exercise; and finding us somewhere else to live in the meantime. Lucky me!
Extreme weather
After a week or so of unusually inclement weather things are returning to normal. but last Tuesday we had a HUGE hail storm, as witness these photos:
Normally the scene should have shown bright spring sunshine, not hail stones bigger than a large egg...
Some were the size of my fist, but the storm had stopped by the time I ventured out and it was melting!
Normally the scene should have shown bright spring sunshine, not hail stones bigger than a large egg...
Some were the size of my fist, but the storm had stopped by the time I ventured out and it was melting!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Little boxes on the hillside
At home I've continued to enjoy myself with making a model of our new house, from the architect's plans. It's been tricky in places! Mainly, I think, because the plans have been printed and reprinted on different printers, with the result that not all the sheets are to exactly the same scale. Although technically the plans are 1:100 at A3 size, variations in printing mean that they're not all the same, which has made resolving the design of the roof particularly difficult. Luckily I'm enjoying the challenge and here are some working photos from this morning.
Anna Fisher was very helpful, telling me that usually architects' models are made from foam core and mount board, which saved me the hardship of trying to cut thicker greyboard and paint it white.
The house, without internal walls, obviously
This is the bedroom end
Looking into the studio - office building
There's a garden storage room on one end; I made models of the larger furniture!
I have to say that making the models is fascinating: not in an Airfix-ated kind of way, but because making the models and seeing how the spaces fit together gives me a huge insight into how the building is going to 'work' for us. Already I'm conscious of how much bigger the studio/office building is compared to the house's main living areas! I want to finish the models soon, partly so that Michael and I have a chance to think carefully about the way the spaces work, and partly so that our builder and our architect can use them.
Anna Fisher was very helpful, telling me that usually architects' models are made from foam core and mount board, which saved me the hardship of trying to cut thicker greyboard and paint it white.
The house, without internal walls, obviously
This is the bedroom end
Looking into the studio - office building
There's a garden storage room on one end; I made models of the larger furniture!I have to say that making the models is fascinating: not in an Airfix-ated kind of way, but because making the models and seeing how the spaces fit together gives me a huge insight into how the building is going to 'work' for us. Already I'm conscious of how much bigger the studio/office building is compared to the house's main living areas! I want to finish the models soon, partly so that Michael and I have a chance to think carefully about the way the spaces work, and partly so that our builder and our architect can use them.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Water, water
Water does seem to play a big part in our life at Wakelands Road, particularly when there isn't any. You'll recall us running out of water late last year when we didn't understand how the bore/tank/hose/tank/pump system worked, and the belly-laughs we had trying to convince our managing agent that the noise of water in our bedroom betokened the hot water system gaily pumping our drinking water out into the paddock...
A week or so ago the "water feature" that diverts half of the pool cleaning pump away from cleaning the pool ceased to flow because the motor went and the motor had to be replaced as the water went green and furry.
Yesterday we tried to turn on said new pump and nothing happened: no water flowed through the water feature and into the swimming pool, but we don't think the motor has failed (although we're not sure what the problem is, exactly).
Today's moment of amusement came when Michael tried to turn on the pump leading from the bore up to the above-ground holding tank, thinking that he'd pump up a tankful of water and use it to help fill the swimming pool which has been gradually going down through evaporation as we've had quite a dry winter. Well nothing happened. Or more accurately, the pump sprang into action as soon as the power was switched on but nothing came out of the ground.
Does this mean that there's no more water in the bore? I guess it could be the case, after all I don't suppose we're the only household around here using the bore - it would be quite odd if a geological feature like that was reserved exclusively for this house. Or does it mean that co-incidentally the water pumps are failing almost simultaneously?
Whatever the answer, our problems are compounded by the fact that it's a bank holiday and our managing agency is closed, and as it's the school holidays our landlord is away. Of course, this house is also on the market, and our landlord is going to be thrilled to bits that things are breaking down at a point when he's trying to sell the place because he doesn't have any money, so I daresay we won't be popular when he finds out!
Talking about selling the house, one of the selling agents brought around an American family on Saturday to look at things, but they didn't get as far as looking in the office where Michael, Ella and I were holed up because as they said to Jim, they really loved the scenery but would bulldoze the house! They also commented that for the money they'd expect everything to be spick-and-span. I don't envy the agents, really. The house is on the market with two companies, one of which is the agency through whom we rent it, and both agents had the tricky task of telling our landlord that they think he's put it on the market for too much money. Jim said our landlord clearly thinks they don't know how much he paid for it, but of course they have access to previous sales figures through the Land Registry. So they know that he's asking $100,000 more than he paid for it two years ago, and the problem is that the market here is stagnant and the house has been quietly deteriorating. Our landlord has put in a new kitchen, but it's nothing flash and hasn't been properly finished so it would have cost him $8,000 at most and certainly doesn't justify the hike in price.
Anyone buying this place would have to spend money on the spa (which is cracking and will need to be replaced), the swimming pool (a 25 year old concrete pool with deteriorating grout and half a cleaning system which has broken below-ground pipes), the pool area (rotten timbers and uneven tiling), the gutters (almost all of them need serious attention), the roof (decidedly dodgy and leaking), the bathrooms (all of which need renovation) and the windows (all of which have corroding aluminium frames). All up you'd probably have to spend the best part of $100,000! And for the same money around here you could buy a 4 or 5 bed new build home on less land but with a new pool and ocean views...
Who knows what will happen. My money is on our landlord reducing the price of the house he lives in and managing to sell it, and thus booting us out of here so that he can move back in. I'll cope well enough with that as long as it happens after Christmas! I just don't want to up sticks and move again now. If we can get our building going and put the shed up, and if I can see progress and we have to move the other side of Christmas then I might be more sanguine about the idea of living in a caravan on-site, or moving into the shed for a while. We could just say stuff it and set about finding a new home for 6 - 9 months right now, but I don't have the energy and we've got enough other changes on the cards, not least getting our daughter through the process of starting at a new school.
A week or so ago the "water feature" that diverts half of the pool cleaning pump away from cleaning the pool ceased to flow because the motor went and the motor had to be replaced as the water went green and furry.
Yesterday we tried to turn on said new pump and nothing happened: no water flowed through the water feature and into the swimming pool, but we don't think the motor has failed (although we're not sure what the problem is, exactly).
Today's moment of amusement came when Michael tried to turn on the pump leading from the bore up to the above-ground holding tank, thinking that he'd pump up a tankful of water and use it to help fill the swimming pool which has been gradually going down through evaporation as we've had quite a dry winter. Well nothing happened. Or more accurately, the pump sprang into action as soon as the power was switched on but nothing came out of the ground.
Does this mean that there's no more water in the bore? I guess it could be the case, after all I don't suppose we're the only household around here using the bore - it would be quite odd if a geological feature like that was reserved exclusively for this house. Or does it mean that co-incidentally the water pumps are failing almost simultaneously?
Whatever the answer, our problems are compounded by the fact that it's a bank holiday and our managing agency is closed, and as it's the school holidays our landlord is away. Of course, this house is also on the market, and our landlord is going to be thrilled to bits that things are breaking down at a point when he's trying to sell the place because he doesn't have any money, so I daresay we won't be popular when he finds out!
Talking about selling the house, one of the selling agents brought around an American family on Saturday to look at things, but they didn't get as far as looking in the office where Michael, Ella and I were holed up because as they said to Jim, they really loved the scenery but would bulldoze the house! They also commented that for the money they'd expect everything to be spick-and-span. I don't envy the agents, really. The house is on the market with two companies, one of which is the agency through whom we rent it, and both agents had the tricky task of telling our landlord that they think he's put it on the market for too much money. Jim said our landlord clearly thinks they don't know how much he paid for it, but of course they have access to previous sales figures through the Land Registry. So they know that he's asking $100,000 more than he paid for it two years ago, and the problem is that the market here is stagnant and the house has been quietly deteriorating. Our landlord has put in a new kitchen, but it's nothing flash and hasn't been properly finished so it would have cost him $8,000 at most and certainly doesn't justify the hike in price.
Anyone buying this place would have to spend money on the spa (which is cracking and will need to be replaced), the swimming pool (a 25 year old concrete pool with deteriorating grout and half a cleaning system which has broken below-ground pipes), the pool area (rotten timbers and uneven tiling), the gutters (almost all of them need serious attention), the roof (decidedly dodgy and leaking), the bathrooms (all of which need renovation) and the windows (all of which have corroding aluminium frames). All up you'd probably have to spend the best part of $100,000! And for the same money around here you could buy a 4 or 5 bed new build home on less land but with a new pool and ocean views...
Who knows what will happen. My money is on our landlord reducing the price of the house he lives in and managing to sell it, and thus booting us out of here so that he can move back in. I'll cope well enough with that as long as it happens after Christmas! I just don't want to up sticks and move again now. If we can get our building going and put the shed up, and if I can see progress and we have to move the other side of Christmas then I might be more sanguine about the idea of living in a caravan on-site, or moving into the shed for a while. We could just say stuff it and set about finding a new home for 6 - 9 months right now, but I don't have the energy and we've got enough other changes on the cards, not least getting our daughter through the process of starting at a new school.
Monday morning, 6am
I couldn't sleep last night, probably not helped by our darling daughter's incursion into our bedroom after she'd had a nightmare. Usually I can nod back off again without a problem, but not today, so after fidgetting for an hour I decided to leave Michael in peace and sneak off to the office to catch up on a few things! As I write there is that lovely early-morning cool in the air, with the scent of wisteria wafting in from outside and a band of marauding wood ducks advancing across the paddock. Lovely. I can also hear, from the sound of the hot water tank which is in the office, that Patrick is up and about and having a shower, ready for work. He's going to be a bit surprised to see me up!
Anyway, never mind all that. I was going to refer to a few websites I've found recently that contain things I'd love to have for the house but can't afford...
It seems, looking at what I've been looking at recently, that I have a bit of a love affair with paper, particularly in sculptural form. I stumbled across the somewhat improbably named FlexibleLove website a while ago, after I saw pictures of their expandable cardboard seating in a design magazine. I just love the incongruity - and what you might call sustainability - of using cardboard for seating. Sadly, however, the cheap nature of the materials is rarely reflected in the price...
Farm Design's furniture uses similar materials in some of its furniture, but while I love Giles Miller's Pool Rocker I'm not going to pay GBP750 for it... If I'm that keen, I'll have to use all the boxes from moving house, cut them up and work out something for myself! The thing is, though, I'm perhaps being a little unfair about the cost of design and of the work that goes into making something. No matter what the end result is made from, someone has spent considerable time and effort designing and making it, and the high unit costs for the production model reflect that, as I know from making my own work. So the truth is that I would pay the money (if I had it), but sadly can't afford the item.
I clearly do love cardboard, for another website that caught my eye was Bloxes.com. I could see myself making something from these just because they're so ingenious. I'd say Andrew Wilson and Aza Raskin have had a lot of fun with them, judging by some of the photos on the website... Just great for kids, I reckon, viz. the giraffe!
Perhaps my favourite website for corrugated paper furniture and products is Molo. They make honeycomb paper structures that act as seating, partitions, lamps and dividers, and the overall effect is beautiful. They're based in Vancouver and if I had the money I really would buy some of their products. So there.
Anyway, never mind all that. I was going to refer to a few websites I've found recently that contain things I'd love to have for the house but can't afford...
It seems, looking at what I've been looking at recently, that I have a bit of a love affair with paper, particularly in sculptural form. I stumbled across the somewhat improbably named FlexibleLove website a while ago, after I saw pictures of their expandable cardboard seating in a design magazine. I just love the incongruity - and what you might call sustainability - of using cardboard for seating. Sadly, however, the cheap nature of the materials is rarely reflected in the price...
Farm Design's furniture uses similar materials in some of its furniture, but while I love Giles Miller's Pool Rocker I'm not going to pay GBP750 for it... If I'm that keen, I'll have to use all the boxes from moving house, cut them up and work out something for myself! The thing is, though, I'm perhaps being a little unfair about the cost of design and of the work that goes into making something. No matter what the end result is made from, someone has spent considerable time and effort designing and making it, and the high unit costs for the production model reflect that, as I know from making my own work. So the truth is that I would pay the money (if I had it), but sadly can't afford the item.
I clearly do love cardboard, for another website that caught my eye was Bloxes.com. I could see myself making something from these just because they're so ingenious. I'd say Andrew Wilson and Aza Raskin have had a lot of fun with them, judging by some of the photos on the website... Just great for kids, I reckon, viz. the giraffe!
Perhaps my favourite website for corrugated paper furniture and products is Molo. They make honeycomb paper structures that act as seating, partitions, lamps and dividers, and the overall effect is beautiful. They're based in Vancouver and if I had the money I really would buy some of their products. So there.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Progress
We have development approval! We have development approval! We have development approval!
Well, clearly we don't have it in our sticky mitts yet (too much to hope for, we're only 6 months into the planning process...) but we have been reliably informed that it was being typed up on Monday to be posted to our architect, scanned and then passed on to us. So we spent a couple of hours down at the Council offices yesterday filling in forms and paying over outrageous sums of money to get the whole Construction Certificate process underway. For the uninitiated, Construction Certificates are a way of progressively inspecting and certifying the build once it's underway, so that it can be said to conform with bye-laws, planning constraints etc.
On a slightly LESS enthusiastic note, we also have the proposal for a Coffs Harbour by-pass which, if the relevant legislation goes through and the land is bought up and so on, will pass within a kilometre of the bottom of our block, although it will be partially hidden by trees. I suspect we'll get some noise from it; eight lanes aren't quiet, after all. However, it isn't even going to be started for another decade and Australians seem generally quite sanguine about living near big roads so I doubt if it will have any effect on the financial value of the land. And it's so far into the future, who knows what will happen?
Well, clearly we don't have it in our sticky mitts yet (too much to hope for, we're only 6 months into the planning process...) but we have been reliably informed that it was being typed up on Monday to be posted to our architect, scanned and then passed on to us. So we spent a couple of hours down at the Council offices yesterday filling in forms and paying over outrageous sums of money to get the whole Construction Certificate process underway. For the uninitiated, Construction Certificates are a way of progressively inspecting and certifying the build once it's underway, so that it can be said to conform with bye-laws, planning constraints etc.
On a slightly LESS enthusiastic note, we also have the proposal for a Coffs Harbour by-pass which, if the relevant legislation goes through and the land is bought up and so on, will pass within a kilometre of the bottom of our block, although it will be partially hidden by trees. I suspect we'll get some noise from it; eight lanes aren't quiet, after all. However, it isn't even going to be started for another decade and Australians seem generally quite sanguine about living near big roads so I doubt if it will have any effect on the financial value of the land. And it's so far into the future, who knows what will happen?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Fingers crossed..?
The first potential buyers for this place come round on Friday, and there's a possible visit lined up for next Wednesday too. Apparently the next-Wednesday-visitors are a couple from Dorrigo who want to buy an investment property and rent it out, so who knows, if they were to proceed they might be interested in letting us stay put...?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Solar power for gadget freaks
OK, here's some funny stuff. We've been having a lovely conversation with Steve from Bellingen Solar, who is a very nice chap who came round and smiled at us again yesterday. I do think we must be a great source of amusement locally, for all sorts of reasons.... especially this one.
When you embark on the whole road-to-Damascus-solar-conversion thing you have to take a stock of your current electricity consumption in order to determine the necessary size of your save-the-planet solar power system. This exercise requires a small gadget that plugs into your power points and appliances and laughs itself silly at the resulting HUGE consumption figures. Wonder why we've been delaying this part of the process? Anticipatory embarrassment, that's why. Only now we're up to genuine embarrassment because we've discovered that our 52" plasma TV consumes ONE THIRD of our total electricity.
ONE THIRD. By itself. Not even counting the media centre and the sound system.
No #1 daughter's expression is incidental. She's indicating scale, not humour
This is really embarrassing. Our TV consumes FOUR TIMES MORE POWER than Michael's powerful server uses. TWICE what our fridge and freezer combined use when they're drawing full power from the system on a hot day with their doors open.
What does this mean, apart from the fact that we clearly have a very large TV screen? Well in solar electricity terms it means we need a $40,000 stand-alone system JUST TO POWER THE TV.
What does that mean in financial terms? We'll be selling the TV shortly. And please don't talk to me about things like under-floor heating for the bathrooms OR air-conditioning, because right now these items can't squeeze onto the "if my wish-list had a wish-list..." list. Instead, we're going to be SO green we won't know ourselves, and we'll be replacing said LG plasma screen TV with an LCD screen TV very shortly on the basis that even if we can't sell the plasma TV the LCD screen replacement will pay for itself immediately by NOT costing $40,000...
When you embark on the whole road-to-Damascus-solar-conversion thing you have to take a stock of your current electricity consumption in order to determine the necessary size of your save-the-planet solar power system. This exercise requires a small gadget that plugs into your power points and appliances and laughs itself silly at the resulting HUGE consumption figures. Wonder why we've been delaying this part of the process? Anticipatory embarrassment, that's why. Only now we're up to genuine embarrassment because we've discovered that our 52" plasma TV consumes ONE THIRD of our total electricity.
ONE THIRD. By itself. Not even counting the media centre and the sound system.
No #1 daughter's expression is incidental. She's indicating scale, not humour
This is really embarrassing. Our TV consumes FOUR TIMES MORE POWER than Michael's powerful server uses. TWICE what our fridge and freezer combined use when they're drawing full power from the system on a hot day with their doors open.
What does this mean, apart from the fact that we clearly have a very large TV screen? Well in solar electricity terms it means we need a $40,000 stand-alone system JUST TO POWER THE TV.
What does that mean in financial terms? We'll be selling the TV shortly. And please don't talk to me about things like under-floor heating for the bathrooms OR air-conditioning, because right now these items can't squeeze onto the "if my wish-list had a wish-list..." list. Instead, we're going to be SO green we won't know ourselves, and we'll be replacing said LG plasma screen TV with an LCD screen TV very shortly on the basis that even if we can't sell the plasma TV the LCD screen replacement will pay for itself immediately by NOT costing $40,000...
Friday, September 12, 2008
Another day, another builder!
Well, one more builder, Dan Duffy, to be precise. Perhaps Michael should be blogging about the meeting as I had to run off to a Focus group meeting half-way through, but he's busy trying to fix our Media Centre which died last night so he's off rummaging for spare parts!
I find it very interesting how different people are in their approach to things. Dan's been involved in some fairly 'green' buildings in the past, including for the local Steiner school in Coffs Harbour, which is about as whacky as buildings get locally. So he wasn't at all phased by our ideas. We want a timber frame? No problem. Want a square set finish to the interior? Fine. Double glazing? Expensive, but a good idea and it will pay for itself if we're in the building for long enough? But the really great part of the discussion (which, of course, I missed) was that he reckoned on a brief look at our plans and a lengthy talk to Michael that it might be possible to do the house and the office/studio for around $350,000 which is much more like the size of our budget! I'm not going to hold him to it, mind, and he needs to go away and do a proper costing of things, but it is a figure that gave us renewed hope in a week of major depression about the fact that we have to leave here and we might not have enough money to build ourselves a new home! And that is a large difference in price: $350,000 works out at about $1,150 per metre square instead of $1,500 per metre square...
Michael and I have been feeling quite stressed out about having to move. Again. Into our third home in two years and with all the associated cost and sheer inconvenience, just when we were relaxing into thoughts of Christmas around the pool! It's crap, really, and we are very upset about it. The rental market is difficult round here at the moment: apparently some houses have thirty or so people going to see them, and agents are holding 'open days' for rentals which is something I've only seen in big UK cities before. Now admittedly we might be looking towards the top end of the market in order to find something sufficiently large for us both to be able to work from there as well as live, but even so it isn't good news.
It's been amusing in a slightly embittered way to talk to the two agents who will be trying to sell this house. Our landlord is clearly aware that he's treading on eggshells with us at the moment and he has taken some trouble to ensure both agents realise that they must NOT, on ANY ACCOUNT, annoy me! So anyone being shown around will have to be pre-approved, to deter sticky-beaks (a lovely phrase!), and I'm to understand that viewings will be at my convenience. I must say it's nice that he's taken the effort to say all this. Of course he's also saying that he'll ensure a long settlement period so that we can rest assured we'll be able to stay here until after Christmas, but frankly I can't see that happening, and I can't rely on it being the case because it is out of his control. Who in their right minds is going to pay $840,000 (who indeed!) for this house and then say, yeah, fine, the tenants can stay in it until next year? More likely the place will sell just before Christmas and we'll be out on our ears just at the worst time of year when any family that's going to move moves because it's the long school holiday and they can get their kids into school at the beginning of the academic year... and it's also peak holiday season so houses are snapped up on short-term lets for families holidaying in the area, and other houses that might become vacant aren't because the tenants understandably don't want to move house over Christmas.... I know I'm being really whiny, but the situation just feels grim, and I am SO fed up with it!
I find it very interesting how different people are in their approach to things. Dan's been involved in some fairly 'green' buildings in the past, including for the local Steiner school in Coffs Harbour, which is about as whacky as buildings get locally. So he wasn't at all phased by our ideas. We want a timber frame? No problem. Want a square set finish to the interior? Fine. Double glazing? Expensive, but a good idea and it will pay for itself if we're in the building for long enough? But the really great part of the discussion (which, of course, I missed) was that he reckoned on a brief look at our plans and a lengthy talk to Michael that it might be possible to do the house and the office/studio for around $350,000 which is much more like the size of our budget! I'm not going to hold him to it, mind, and he needs to go away and do a proper costing of things, but it is a figure that gave us renewed hope in a week of major depression about the fact that we have to leave here and we might not have enough money to build ourselves a new home! And that is a large difference in price: $350,000 works out at about $1,150 per metre square instead of $1,500 per metre square...
Michael and I have been feeling quite stressed out about having to move. Again. Into our third home in two years and with all the associated cost and sheer inconvenience, just when we were relaxing into thoughts of Christmas around the pool! It's crap, really, and we are very upset about it. The rental market is difficult round here at the moment: apparently some houses have thirty or so people going to see them, and agents are holding 'open days' for rentals which is something I've only seen in big UK cities before. Now admittedly we might be looking towards the top end of the market in order to find something sufficiently large for us both to be able to work from there as well as live, but even so it isn't good news.
It's been amusing in a slightly embittered way to talk to the two agents who will be trying to sell this house. Our landlord is clearly aware that he's treading on eggshells with us at the moment and he has taken some trouble to ensure both agents realise that they must NOT, on ANY ACCOUNT, annoy me! So anyone being shown around will have to be pre-approved, to deter sticky-beaks (a lovely phrase!), and I'm to understand that viewings will be at my convenience. I must say it's nice that he's taken the effort to say all this. Of course he's also saying that he'll ensure a long settlement period so that we can rest assured we'll be able to stay here until after Christmas, but frankly I can't see that happening, and I can't rely on it being the case because it is out of his control. Who in their right minds is going to pay $840,000 (who indeed!) for this house and then say, yeah, fine, the tenants can stay in it until next year? More likely the place will sell just before Christmas and we'll be out on our ears just at the worst time of year when any family that's going to move moves because it's the long school holiday and they can get their kids into school at the beginning of the academic year... and it's also peak holiday season so houses are snapped up on short-term lets for families holidaying in the area, and other houses that might become vacant aren't because the tenants understandably don't want to move house over Christmas.... I know I'm being really whiny, but the situation just feels grim, and I am SO fed up with it!
Friday, September 5, 2008
The new road …
I realise I've been a bit slack in getting photo’s up here and thought I'd try some new technology - Microsoft Photosynth. Just click on the image to wander down our new road!
Builders
We had a great two hours with a local builder called John Newton yesterday. He was recommended to us by a friend's friend who is exactly the sort of person we'd want to build our house but can't because he's too busy with other projects...
How do you choose a builder? Answer: I don't know. I guess that you have to like them, because they're going to see you at your best and at your worst, they're going to find out a lot about you, you're going to pay them an awful lot of money, and they will be responsible for delivering your dreams in three dimensions with a roof on top.
John seems very nice: calm, practical, no nonsense. He runs a tight ship, so to speak, employing regular builders and tradespeople whom he trusts, and he seems to have a focus on a quality finish. He also knows and likes our architect, and likes Christian's work, which helps. So far, so good. The down side was that he thinks - without doing a full costing - that he'd be charging us around $1,500 per square metre and that our budget, therefore, is inadequate. Damn! Now $1,500 per square metre will buy you the structure (frame, walls, floor joists, flashings, chimney, roof), basic electrics (internal cabling, connection to your power system, wall sockets and power points, light switches etc), basic plumbing (connection to your sewage system, internal plumbing, taps and shower heads), some internal cabinetry (standard kitchen/larder/cupboard/bathroom units with standard tops, basic shelving, doors, skirting boards and architraves if you want them), internal flooring (tiles, carpet and wooden floorboards) and a spray-paint finish. Not included, as far as I'm aware, are toilets, bidets, baths, shower screens/cubicles, kitchen appliances such as cooktops or ovens or dishwashers, light fittings, airconditioning, windows, exterior work such as outside lights or patio tiling or decking, or your swimming pool! And if you want anything fancy you're going to pay extra for it too.
Anyway, 223.5 metres of house plus 84 metres of office/studio comes to 307.5 square metres of internal floorspace which at $1,500 per square metre comes out at $461,250 of basic build cost. I understand that one ought to allow around $100,000 for internal fit-out and 20% contingency... OUCH! I guess I need to go back to my spreadsheet.
How do you choose a builder? Answer: I don't know. I guess that you have to like them, because they're going to see you at your best and at your worst, they're going to find out a lot about you, you're going to pay them an awful lot of money, and they will be responsible for delivering your dreams in three dimensions with a roof on top.
John seems very nice: calm, practical, no nonsense. He runs a tight ship, so to speak, employing regular builders and tradespeople whom he trusts, and he seems to have a focus on a quality finish. He also knows and likes our architect, and likes Christian's work, which helps. So far, so good. The down side was that he thinks - without doing a full costing - that he'd be charging us around $1,500 per square metre and that our budget, therefore, is inadequate. Damn! Now $1,500 per square metre will buy you the structure (frame, walls, floor joists, flashings, chimney, roof), basic electrics (internal cabling, connection to your power system, wall sockets and power points, light switches etc), basic plumbing (connection to your sewage system, internal plumbing, taps and shower heads), some internal cabinetry (standard kitchen/larder/cupboard/bathroom units with standard tops, basic shelving, doors, skirting boards and architraves if you want them), internal flooring (tiles, carpet and wooden floorboards) and a spray-paint finish. Not included, as far as I'm aware, are toilets, bidets, baths, shower screens/cubicles, kitchen appliances such as cooktops or ovens or dishwashers, light fittings, airconditioning, windows, exterior work such as outside lights or patio tiling or decking, or your swimming pool! And if you want anything fancy you're going to pay extra for it too.
Anyway, 223.5 metres of house plus 84 metres of office/studio comes to 307.5 square metres of internal floorspace which at $1,500 per square metre comes out at $461,250 of basic build cost. I understand that one ought to allow around $100,000 for internal fit-out and 20% contingency... OUCH! I guess I need to go back to my spreadsheet.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
It never rains...
Our landlord just popped in for a brief chat, to tell us that he's putting this house on the market!
BUGGER
Better get on with building our house then, I suppose.
BUGGER
Better get on with building our house then, I suppose.
Quoting, quoting, one, two, three
Now as we have no experience at all of building a house apart from that gained from watching in horrified amazement at the antics of people on Grand Designs, we are being guided by our architect as to what needs to be done next. Christian has been telling us to get on with discovering what we'd like to build the house with - everything from what windows we like to which light switches we'd like on our walls. Along the way we've discussed the number of powerpoints needed where, hanging systems, hardwood flooring, tiles, shower screens, louvered windows, cupboard fronts and laundry units... the list seems very, very long. And now that we are forming opinions about things we've started going out to get quotes, which is at once very exciting and absolutely terrifying!
Take windows, for example. Most people would agree that they would like to have windows, probably windows that open in some fashion. If you've lived in the UK you'll be familiar with double-glazing and might take it as read that double-glazed windows are sensible, even in a warmer climate, because they keep out hot sun in summer as well as keeping the heat in during winter. Fine, so you think you might like to have double-glazed window units.
But if you have environmental concerns, what sort of window frames do you choose? Aluminium frames are cheap and the metal can be recycled at the end of its life, but aluminium frames leak heat around the edges unless you go for a 'thermal break' system. Wood looks nice, but what about cutting down forests? How can you be sure that your timber is from a sustainably managed forest, and what about the sort of paint we would need to maintain a timber window in a humid, seaside environment? It isn't going to be low-VOC, water-based paint... PVC and u-PVC used to have a bad name environmentally speaking, but now people talk of them as having 'low embodied energy' and a long life-span without the need for on-going maintenance, so as long as they're responsibly produced and aren't going to 'off-gas' in your home maybe they're the best solution? Or why not go for something different; how about pultruded fibreglass frames? Modern technology means that fibreglass can be mixed with resins (both containing a percentage of post-consumer waste) and turned into a very stable, non-warping, maintenance-free, thermally efficient window frame with a life-span of 50 years and able to be recycled at the end of that time. Choosing your window system is NOT an easy task.
Well we'd like to look at pultruded fibreglass double-glazed units, as our first option, followed by PVC frames or thermally-broken aluminium frames as our second and third choices. We can find suppliers for all these options in Australia, although no-one makes them within a 500 km radius of here (which means un-environmentally friendly road freight costs, but possibly better than flying in the frames from elsewhere - although more on that in a moment!), but price becomes the next big issue.
When I asked Christian how much he thought windows should come in at he felt that $10,000 - $20,000 for single-glazed aluminium frames was a good ball-park figure, and that leaves plenty of room for maneouvre! I know we're going for double-glazed units, which are unusual in Australia, but even so the three quotes I've had so far have come in at $41,000, $57,000 and $80,000! Just slightly more than I'd bargained for. So now I'm in the mad situation where I email UK-based double-glazing companies to ask for quotes to include shipping to Australia, in the honest belief that the price might be lower! Crazy, and not very ecologically sound but there comes a point at which money is the biggest issue and we certainly can't afford to spend the best part of $100,000 glazing our house.
I guess the big question is why double-glazing isn't a popular option here? I think it will become more popular: Australians use a huge amount of energy per head of population in what is a small nation, despite its geographical size. Many Australians live in areas that experience extremes of heat and cold. Perth, for example, in Western Australia, can get to zero or below in the winter and yet has temperatures as high as 40 degrees centigrade in the summer. Sydney drops to around 10 degrees C in the winter and regularly goes over 40 degrees C in the summer. The trouble is, everyone just turns on the air-conditioning. Coffs Harbour has a fairly regular temperature, which is one of the bigger reasons why we moved here. Although this winter has been unusually cold, temperatures normally only vary between about 18 and 30 degrees C during the year. We want double-glazing to keep the heat in during winter and keep the summer heat out, and thus save the load on our solar electricity system so that we don't need to switch on any air-conditioning.
Leaving windows aside, the other amusing quote I've had has been for the material with which to make cupboard fronts for the large storage unit and island unit in our 'kitchen pod', which will be in the middle of our open-plan living/kitchen/dining area. My colourful idea is to front both units with sliding doors that reveal an array of shelves and storage areas behind them rather than individual cupboard and doors. I thought that if the sliding doors were made of translucent resin panels they could slide over each other, creating new colour combinations and we could back-light them so that the units could function as big lightboxes in the evenings. Cool idea, really silly price: I've been quoted over $25,000 just for the resin panels - no sliding mechanism, no cupboard units to mount them on... just the material, in sheets, to make up into the sliding doors! Now that I've sat down, laughing, for a while I'm searching out alternatives.
Take windows, for example. Most people would agree that they would like to have windows, probably windows that open in some fashion. If you've lived in the UK you'll be familiar with double-glazing and might take it as read that double-glazed windows are sensible, even in a warmer climate, because they keep out hot sun in summer as well as keeping the heat in during winter. Fine, so you think you might like to have double-glazed window units.
But if you have environmental concerns, what sort of window frames do you choose? Aluminium frames are cheap and the metal can be recycled at the end of its life, but aluminium frames leak heat around the edges unless you go for a 'thermal break' system. Wood looks nice, but what about cutting down forests? How can you be sure that your timber is from a sustainably managed forest, and what about the sort of paint we would need to maintain a timber window in a humid, seaside environment? It isn't going to be low-VOC, water-based paint... PVC and u-PVC used to have a bad name environmentally speaking, but now people talk of them as having 'low embodied energy' and a long life-span without the need for on-going maintenance, so as long as they're responsibly produced and aren't going to 'off-gas' in your home maybe they're the best solution? Or why not go for something different; how about pultruded fibreglass frames? Modern technology means that fibreglass can be mixed with resins (both containing a percentage of post-consumer waste) and turned into a very stable, non-warping, maintenance-free, thermally efficient window frame with a life-span of 50 years and able to be recycled at the end of that time. Choosing your window system is NOT an easy task.
Well we'd like to look at pultruded fibreglass double-glazed units, as our first option, followed by PVC frames or thermally-broken aluminium frames as our second and third choices. We can find suppliers for all these options in Australia, although no-one makes them within a 500 km radius of here (which means un-environmentally friendly road freight costs, but possibly better than flying in the frames from elsewhere - although more on that in a moment!), but price becomes the next big issue.
When I asked Christian how much he thought windows should come in at he felt that $10,000 - $20,000 for single-glazed aluminium frames was a good ball-park figure, and that leaves plenty of room for maneouvre! I know we're going for double-glazed units, which are unusual in Australia, but even so the three quotes I've had so far have come in at $41,000, $57,000 and $80,000! Just slightly more than I'd bargained for. So now I'm in the mad situation where I email UK-based double-glazing companies to ask for quotes to include shipping to Australia, in the honest belief that the price might be lower! Crazy, and not very ecologically sound but there comes a point at which money is the biggest issue and we certainly can't afford to spend the best part of $100,000 glazing our house.
I guess the big question is why double-glazing isn't a popular option here? I think it will become more popular: Australians use a huge amount of energy per head of population in what is a small nation, despite its geographical size. Many Australians live in areas that experience extremes of heat and cold. Perth, for example, in Western Australia, can get to zero or below in the winter and yet has temperatures as high as 40 degrees centigrade in the summer. Sydney drops to around 10 degrees C in the winter and regularly goes over 40 degrees C in the summer. The trouble is, everyone just turns on the air-conditioning. Coffs Harbour has a fairly regular temperature, which is one of the bigger reasons why we moved here. Although this winter has been unusually cold, temperatures normally only vary between about 18 and 30 degrees C during the year. We want double-glazing to keep the heat in during winter and keep the summer heat out, and thus save the load on our solar electricity system so that we don't need to switch on any air-conditioning.
Leaving windows aside, the other amusing quote I've had has been for the material with which to make cupboard fronts for the large storage unit and island unit in our 'kitchen pod', which will be in the middle of our open-plan living/kitchen/dining area. My colourful idea is to front both units with sliding doors that reveal an array of shelves and storage areas behind them rather than individual cupboard and doors. I thought that if the sliding doors were made of translucent resin panels they could slide over each other, creating new colour combinations and we could back-light them so that the units could function as big lightboxes in the evenings. Cool idea, really silly price: I've been quoted over $25,000 just for the resin panels - no sliding mechanism, no cupboard units to mount them on... just the material, in sheets, to make up into the sliding doors! Now that I've sat down, laughing, for a while I'm searching out alternatives.
There aren't many pictures, are there?
I realise that there aren't many pictures, and of course that's because neither Michael nor I have put up any of the photographs we've been taking on our increasingly frequent visits up to the block... which is a long way of saying that I'm about to up-load some photographs to show you how things have progressed during the last few months. This translates into an explanation of how we've been spending TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars!
First off, the road, which back in March looked like this...
... and by the end of August looked like this, very handsome, having been properly engineered with culverts underneath at crucial points to give water somewhere to go instead of ruining the surface (you can just see the white ends of the pipes in the photo), and having been compacted and covered with a good thick layer of gravel.
When we last posted photographs we'd also got started on the house pad (when I say 'we', I do of course mean 'John Lacey' and his merry men, since my awesome skills don't yet extend to driving an excavator.
In January the back wall of the semi-excavated pad looked like this: a rough, almost vertical wall showing marks where the excavator had bitten through it. It wasn't 'battened back' so the surface was still loose and crumbly.
Looking along the house pad from the top of the road, this was the view: a basic platform without any shaping or drainage channels.
By March John had begun to shape the back of the pad (this time the shot is taken from just in front of the tree fern you can see in the previous picture, looking back towards the top of the road), putting in slopes and channels to direct run-off water coming down the hill away from the house.
Now the back wall looks like this: it has been well and truly battened back and now has two 'benches' in it i.e. platforms that break up the slope, making it more stable. Initially we built it with only one batten and a 45 degree angle to the slope, but the geotech report came back recommending a 43 degree slope and two battens, so we took out our wallets and called John up again...
As you can see, the digger had a lot of fun going round in circles moving mud, clay, rocks and tree trunks! This photo was taken from where Michael was standing in the previous picture.
And this is a close-up shot of one of the battened slopes, showing the banded colouring of the layered
clay/Argillite.
First off, the road, which back in March looked like this...
... and by the end of August looked like this, very handsome, having been properly engineered with culverts underneath at crucial points to give water somewhere to go instead of ruining the surface (you can just see the white ends of the pipes in the photo), and having been compacted and covered with a good thick layer of gravel.When we last posted photographs we'd also got started on the house pad (when I say 'we', I do of course mean 'John Lacey' and his merry men, since my awesome skills don't yet extend to driving an excavator.
In January the back wall of the semi-excavated pad looked like this: a rough, almost vertical wall showing marks where the excavator had bitten through it. It wasn't 'battened back' so the surface was still loose and crumbly.
Looking along the house pad from the top of the road, this was the view: a basic platform without any shaping or drainage channels.
By March John had begun to shape the back of the pad (this time the shot is taken from just in front of the tree fern you can see in the previous picture, looking back towards the top of the road), putting in slopes and channels to direct run-off water coming down the hill away from the house.
Now the back wall looks like this: it has been well and truly battened back and now has two 'benches' in it i.e. platforms that break up the slope, making it more stable. Initially we built it with only one batten and a 45 degree angle to the slope, but the geotech report came back recommending a 43 degree slope and two battens, so we took out our wallets and called John up again...
As you can see, the digger had a lot of fun going round in circles moving mud, clay, rocks and tree trunks! This photo was taken from where Michael was standing in the previous picture.
And this is a close-up shot of one of the battened slopes, showing the banded colouring of the layeredclay/Argillite.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Speedy Gonzales
The last post started with me bemoaning how fast time was flying, etc, etc and here I am eight months later saying exactly the same thing. Well, there hasn't been much to blog about since the beginning of the year, except for the earth works that have been done on the block and the fact that our planning application finally went in...
Now, however, we might at last be about to get going in a big way! Last Friday Christian Fisher, our architect, phoned to say that he'd spoken to the planning officer and confirmed that all the required paperwork was in and that there weren't any objections. The week before we went up to the block with Christian and a lady called Justine, from the Rural Fire Service, to look at bush fires issues and that was all OK. And we've just had a call from Dave O'Meara, our consulting engineer, to say that the soil contamination report was fine and that residual arsenic levels in the soil are almost at natural levels which is great.
Bush fire protection is of course a critical issue in this country, especially as we're probably a good 20 - 30 minutes away from the 'town' fire brigade, working on the length of time it might take from the bell ringing at the station to a hose being unreeled on our block. It's more likely that a fire would be attended by the Rural Fire Service, and they have a huge amount of power in terms of planning decisions based on whether they think you're building a sensible structure in a sensible place or a potential fire-disaster in a stupid place. Key elements that they look for include an 'asset protection zone' which is an area around your house that is largely free of flammable material such as trees or leaf litter, things like gutter guards which prevent build-up of flammable material in your gutters that could ignite from sparks, plenty of available water (which in our case is a terrific 100,00+ litres of rainwater in tanks plus the contents of the swimming pool if we can afford one), and an accessible road and a turning circle for the fire engine. If you're unlucky/stupid enough to want to build very close to a potentially hazardous area the Rural Fire Service can completely veto your plans OR put in place stringent alterations and requirements including the use of particular kinds of building materials, glazing etc, and ALL buildings require their approval before the owner will get the precious 'Occupation Certificate' that allows them to live in their new house once they've built it! As long as we build what we've said we'll build, where we've said we'll build it, the pre-approval we got at the meeting should mean that we have no problem obtaining the Occupation Certificate. Phew!
Now, however, we might at last be about to get going in a big way! Last Friday Christian Fisher, our architect, phoned to say that he'd spoken to the planning officer and confirmed that all the required paperwork was in and that there weren't any objections. The week before we went up to the block with Christian and a lady called Justine, from the Rural Fire Service, to look at bush fires issues and that was all OK. And we've just had a call from Dave O'Meara, our consulting engineer, to say that the soil contamination report was fine and that residual arsenic levels in the soil are almost at natural levels which is great.
Bush fire protection is of course a critical issue in this country, especially as we're probably a good 20 - 30 minutes away from the 'town' fire brigade, working on the length of time it might take from the bell ringing at the station to a hose being unreeled on our block. It's more likely that a fire would be attended by the Rural Fire Service, and they have a huge amount of power in terms of planning decisions based on whether they think you're building a sensible structure in a sensible place or a potential fire-disaster in a stupid place. Key elements that they look for include an 'asset protection zone' which is an area around your house that is largely free of flammable material such as trees or leaf litter, things like gutter guards which prevent build-up of flammable material in your gutters that could ignite from sparks, plenty of available water (which in our case is a terrific 100,00+ litres of rainwater in tanks plus the contents of the swimming pool if we can afford one), and an accessible road and a turning circle for the fire engine. If you're unlucky/stupid enough to want to build very close to a potentially hazardous area the Rural Fire Service can completely veto your plans OR put in place stringent alterations and requirements including the use of particular kinds of building materials, glazing etc, and ALL buildings require their approval before the owner will get the precious 'Occupation Certificate' that allows them to live in their new house once they've built it! As long as we build what we've said we'll build, where we've said we'll build it, the pre-approval we got at the meeting should mean that we have no problem obtaining the Occupation Certificate. Phew!
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