Lorri's One day House in Cradoc Tasmania-- update. 5/6/17

A lot of the more interesting heating solutions common overseas yet under-utilised here can be had much cheaper overseas and by importing them yourself; the biggest concern is what do you do if they fail - is it cheap enough to just keep replacing them at your own cost - since you'll have no warranty & nobody for your insurance company to chase if they fail and cause damage to the home etc?

Hi SileNceR, Yes its worth thinking about the down sides, I think we have decided to ship the radiators and TRV and Grundfos pumps over and the rest is just either copper pipe or PEX pipe, not sure yet. We have to talk to the plumber still about all this.There's not much to fail on them so we are okay with the chance of having a problem. Just for instance the TRV's, we need 10 of them are costing $140 here for the 10 in total, so $140 compared to $700 in Australia,that's a very big difference for the same item.

The information Council wanted will be ready on Friday so we are told, but what worries me is they said the drafters should be finished drawing up the plans on the 22 Aug, I thought they were finished with doing all that.

So still waiting, they said should be ready to start building in 9 weeks, so I hope so.

If the pumps are AC powered just make sure they'll work OK here without an issues or the savings might not be worth the headache.

Well hello everyone, we have some progress at last after been told we will have a contract on 6 december, so if we are happy with it I guess we will go ahead within 20 days from signing it.
Then the fun starts, we are still overseas but heading back soon with a stopover in Thailand on the way.

Cheers
Lorri

Well to my surprise we have a start date of 6th march. Signed the contract the other day. Went to the block on Thursday and there was pegs everywhere!
Build time of 150 days.so October 9 is the end date. Not sure whether to feel happy excited or what.
Cheers Lorri

Pretty exciting stuff. Location looks very cool

Hello, your site and views look wonderful! Then again I don't think I've seen a tassie site on this forum that isn't gorgeous . Good luck with the build, I'll be following.

Sudden stop on build due to house being in wrong spot, so SS tell us, we got a call to go to site, digger guy rang SS and said house is wrong. So we get there and SS says house should be on pad, so out comes measure and nope it's right. SS said he has been out before and assumed it was to be on the pad. Said it will be easier to build on pad. So we agree to move it if it is best. Then we get an email after a week, saying it will have to be sent back to planning, then building and plumbing. 42 days then 14 day working that is!so then next thing is because of moving it it will up the bal to 40 instead of 29. So we need new report, got email from bal guy, Tassie just brought some new rule in on 23 Feb and doesn't know if we can do it. Bloody hell!

Wow that does suck. Very sorry to hear about the trouble. Can't you just move it to the correct place or is there more to it?

Well we told the builder to just build it where it is shown on the plans. We don't want to wait for months and there is this thing with the BAL! So we can put the house where we wants as we have the room. 5 meters to the right is not a massive problem. So they started work agin today.

Today's work.

We have been working on the block all week, cleaning up a bit, cutting bits of dead trees that have fallen down etc, the soil is clay and on top of it there is this very fine dust that just blows off in the breeze, you can't get a grip in it with the ute backing up, it's like there's no goodness in it.
As the land slopes down hill rather steeply, I have been thinking about when it does rain, it will be like a waterfall going over the front, would putting some of those trees along in a line slow this down?

Yes but you will need to dig some holes and put something in to hold the trees back or they will get pushed down the hill by the water too

Thanks , we will have to put some thought into how we want the place to look, maybe some terracing etc as well as the logs to slow it down. I seem to recall there is some netting or matting that you can buy to do it as well.

Hi all, slow progress so far, the digger guy is still digging around where the waffle slab is going. I think he needs a bigger machine, but he's getting there!

We have been chainsawing all week, all the trees that are down, we have been cutting up and stacking ready for when we need them for the boiler. We have barely touched them, as there are loads of them everywhere. The block has never been touched, so there is a lot of fuel, and I would rather burn it in the boiler than wait for a bushfire to do it. It's amazing the amount of twigs and bark on the ground ,there are a lot of stringybark trees on the block and we have to clear a certain amount for the BAL. Digger guy knocked some trees down too, so that's more we have to cut up!

Great to see some progress

Well so much for progress, diggerguy told us on march 7tht he was off, said he could not do any more until driveway was put in. And that nothing could be done on the build due to the fact that the house pad was too high so no access for any trucks etc. Well excuse me he is the one who did said pad.
So we get driveway guy to come out next day, gave him builders contact details and he said he can't get to it for two weeks. So he waits a week before contacting builders and we got an email from him saying he met builders on site on the 24th and will be in touch, so nothing has been done since 7 march. Not happy.

Hi all, well met with driveway guy onsite and he said the earliest he can get to do the driveway will be after Easter! I can't believe how it is, told two weeks, then told two week, then now after Easter. If we knew he was going to take this long we would have found someone else. Really amazed that the builders still have not been in touch to see what is going on.
Wonder if they will say this extra time is our fault, and add it to the build time.

Ugg. Sorry to hear. Again with the delays.

Yes, the delays are not good, 5 days work since 20 Feb. The only good thing is that we are getting to clear up a lot of the dead wood and clear some areas that need doing.

Everytime it rains, even just a shower the ground is impossible to work on, the clay sticks to your boots and everything, so the longer they leave it the more rain we will get, making it harder for them. All that yellow dirt is clay, it's everywhere.