Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Building in Chittering Retreat... 61Sep 12, 2013 9:10 pm lowerchittering, If you want to increase your rainwater harvesting yield and improve the water quality as many other rural properties have now done, I suggest that you start a thread in the Eco Living sub forum. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat... 62Sep 12, 2013 10:23 pm Thanks for the tip SaveH2O, I'll have a flick through and read what's already been discussed. AKB, the tank does look big but they make bigger ones , its a Pioneer tank, 200k litre tank. It's funny though the more work and structures go on, the more spacious it feels. It was a bit hard to get a real feel for space when it was empty as there wasn't anything you could reference to get a realistic perspective. TRACYW, we think its pretty special too. It's quite exciting planning the landscaping. Some of it sort of just happens and other things need a bit of forethought (which is sometimes hard, when there's dirt everywhere). Having an little excavator would be really handy. They did the main slab footings today. Some of the pad footings for the posts, were to mushy so they'll let those dry out before pouring the footing (you can see in the pics from my previous post) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Had a visit from the limestone wall man, he'll be starting on the wall next week. We've come up with a pretty good design, which we've broken up into 5 stages. This first stage is about 30m long, 21m straight and the last 9m curves to the right and tapers down back to ground level. This is the wall right next to the shed pad. Hoping for at least some dry days soon so they can get the slab and rest of the footings done. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat... 63Sep 13, 2013 12:53 am Your tank will have a vertical riser. These require a lot of velocity to transfer particulates and the inevitable build up of crud in the pipes is why wet systems need to be flushed. This is wasteful but unflushed water becomes anaerobic if there is bacterial activity. If you branch a 40 mm pipe off the riser's base and connect it to an inlet fitted 100-150 mm or so above the bottom of the tank, it will provide a low restriction flow path to the tank that will flush the pipe every time it rains. Just use the black reinforced pond hose between the pipe and the inlet valve for the flexible coupling. You will need leaf diverters fitted to the downpipes to have this system. As the water retained in the wet system will then be at the height of the water in the tank and not the height of the riser above the tank as per other systems, less water will be retained in the pipes above ground. Good leaf diverters are also more beneficial than first flush diverters but if you also have first flush diverters, consider having ones that have manual emptying as the dripper type have high yield losses. You can interconnect the manual type so that 1 or 2 poly pipes drain to a flush holding tank that can then be used to gravity water gardens/lawns/trees etc. Whatever you do, don't make the mistake that I see so much of on this forum and fit the first flush diverters to the top of the vertical riser. This only collects the settled water in the riser whereas the first flush is still at the other end of the wet system. Rainwater is also acidic due to the CO2 in the air. Don't use copper pipe. You should also use Fluidmaster 400UK063 cistern valves. http://www.haron.com.au/fluidmaster_products.html Remove the plastic pig's tail flow restrictor from the bottom of the shank and also replace the standard mains pressure seal with the optional very low pressure 242LP071 (red) seal. Cisterns fill slowly and this makes it easier on the pump. You will also save thousands of pump start/stops every year if you have a large pressure tank, nothing less than 80 litres. The tank can be away from the pump. A pressure tank also allows the pump to operate at its greatest efficiency with less stress. For outdoor use, use an 18 mm hose rather than a common 12 mm garden hose. You can attach a short length of 12 mm garden hose to the end so that you can use the standard 12 mm fittings. At 20 lpm, an 18 mm hose has roughly 8 times less friction loss than a 12 mm hose. Most people are sold unnecessarily large pumps that are strangled during the thousands of short start/stops when recharging cisterns every year. Are you running power to the tank? You would need a jet pump if you were drawing water to the house. Obviously, I don't know the contours. Most houses also have very poorly designed roof drainage. I can give you a link to one of my sites if needed that explains the traps. Most plumbers, architects and builders are either clueless in this area or they don't care and put fashion ahead of function. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat... 64Sep 13, 2013 8:36 pm Wow SaveH2O! Thanks for all that info - years of experience and know how condenced into a very handy guide/how to! We will be running power to it to run a water pump for the house. Will read over that again once we get to that stage. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat... 65Sep 18, 2013 9:30 am Hi Lowerchittering, SaveH2O is always very insightful. When it comes to a tank you need a pretty good pump if you have two store house or bigger. You need to look for a water pump that can delivery, good flow, good pressure and use as little electricity as possible. When it comes to that time and you need some advice please feel free to give as a call. You may even opt for a submersible pressure pump if you particularly need a silent pump. Some examples can be found http://www.4pumps.com.au/categories/pressure-pumps/ I hope that helps. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat... 66Nov 04, 2013 8:47 pm Thanks 4_pumps. I actually purchased a grundfos pump from the local supplier who I got the tank off. SaveH20, I took your advice and purchased a grundfos 100L pressure tank. I also purchased a Cynortic Water Guard Gold to keep my wife happy. It's been quite hectic with work having been nearly all around the world in the last 3 months. Finally back to get back on with things. We actually had a hick up after the footings were poured. The builder engaged their engineer into carrying out a penetrometer test on the pad as he didn't believe it was compacted. The annoying thing is this judgment was made based on the side cast material. Anyway, it came to light that the only test they could use to characterize the density was a nuclear densometer, which unfortunately can only test 300mm at a time, which by the way would have been great if we were told this at the start. We only used a penetrometer also, which isn't applicable to the sandy gravel. Basically, because there was no way of testing it properly as it was, the only choice was to rip all the footings out, dig down the fill side and start again. We've just finished the last lift today, final test will be tomorrow, by the way the pad is just as compacted as it was before, but lets not get into that ). I'm being hopeful that the builder can organize the repeg, footings and slab before the end of this month. After all that, I must say that I'm still happy with our relationship with the builder. They have actually been very amicable in all this and the engineers have also been quite accommodating. Hopefully no more pain to come, but after this I'm preparing myself for everything and anything. Ready to move on again! I'm being optimistic in thinking we'll have footings, slab and brickwork done before the December shut down - hopefully I can let the pictures do the talking No pictures = no progress. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 67Nov 04, 2013 9:04 pm Wow lowerchittering that sounds like quite a lot of extra work, here's hoping for a smoother run here in. Ps was up your way the other week to go to the Bindoon Rodeo <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=62083">viewtopic.php?t=62083</a><!-- l --> Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 68Nov 05, 2013 8:34 pm Cheers AKB, we've got our fingers crossed! I haven't been to a rodeo since I left Kununurra. Did you go up Neaves Rd? Did you notice The Maze making pretty good progress with 'outback splash'? Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 69Nov 05, 2013 10:26 pm Yep sure did it looks real close to being finished My sister use to live in lower chittering but now lives in Bindoon so I get to go past the maze frequently . Ps rodeos in kununurra how cool would they have been? <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=62083">viewtopic.php?t=62083</a><!-- l --> Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 70Jan 11, 2014 1:42 pm We had another drama before the end of last year. Everything was scheduled for a footing/slab pour in November '13 (round 2). We then got a phone call the slab was out of level up to 150mm in one corner. Again another cancellation! Not the builder's fault though the fault of the earth worker. Anyway had to get more sand in and another earthmover for final trim. Then it was Christmas break and nothing else happened. Builder opened again on the 13th of Jan. We've organized water tank power to be run (finally in) the wall has slowly been going - we've used up over 500 blocks so far (mix of 500s and 1000s)- so much more to go. Another terrace above this one once back filled. Plan is for footings Mon and slab Tue. Fingers crossed as this is the 3rd shot at it. I'm hoping I have some pictures to put up! Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 71Jan 12, 2014 1:09 am Good luck, hope slab goes down this week. Love your plans. We're also building with RI, but still in early stages. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 72Jan 12, 2014 5:40 pm Gees, i thought you would be half way through your build by now! You must be feeling a little frustrated! My build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64437 Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 73Jan 13, 2014 12:43 am Cheers Ardie - fingers crossed! I wont believe anything until I can walk on the slab . Tracy, the frustration wore off a while ago . I just stopped worrying about it. A big learning curve for us. The one positive is we should be able to catch some good winter rainfall before moving in . I just hope everything goes smoothly once it all starts. The blue gums we planted in Aug are kicking butt too - some have fallen victim to that flock of stray sheep, overall a good chunk have survived. Really hoping I can put some pics up of the slab this Wed! Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink...Finally a SLAB 75Jan 15, 2014 12:19 am Finally had the slab poured today! As well as veranda, carport and patio post!
Some slab pics Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Some wall pics (not creamed/pointed yet), this bends 90 deg to the left of where I'm standing and will curve around another 10m to follow the gradient of the natural ground behind. Another 2 courses to go on top (1 course buried). The base is about 1.5m thick. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Finally, let the building game start! Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 76Jan 15, 2014 12:25 am Yay, congratulations on slab! Bet you thought this day would never come. Enjoy:-) Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 77Jan 15, 2014 12:28 am Thank goodness for that! My build thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=64437 Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink 78Jan 15, 2014 12:40 am Cheers guys! Feeling very relieved, it was almost hard to get excited about it with all the dramas. I'll be more excited about the brick work starting and the house taking shape! Power to the tank has been sorted to and temp pole sorted. So my owner power run and earthworks are done and dusted, ball is now in the builder's court - woohoo! If we decide to do this again, it will be owner builder I think. I've bought some jarrah sleepers, so I've decided to use them on the second tier, which will be 3-4m back from the lower wall and about 1.2 mhigh. I'll set steel Ibeams in the ground and drop the sleepers in. Just to break it up a bit. I'll run the retic from the biosystems around that whole terrace for greenery, so it will be limestone, green/fruit trees then the jarrah and rusty I beams. Also have 3 terraces behind the house, the middle being a driveway that wraps around the left of the main driveway and around to the back. Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink...Slab finally d 79Jan 15, 2014 9:47 am Congratulations on the slab! It looks huge I love the sound of your terraces as well <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=62083">viewtopic.php?t=62083</a><!-- l --> Re: Building in Chittering Retreat...Redink...Slab finally d 80Jan 15, 2014 8:39 pm Cheers AKB, I was told today the brickwork will start after Australia day weekend. Fingers crossed! I've also been advised that the plumbers forgot to put in the dry wastes, so the slab needs to be cut at those sections to fit the plumbing. I think I know the answer but just checking to see if anyone has had experience with it. I want to build a small 20 square metre retreat in my backyard, it will have a… 0 14990 Hey guys building a new place through a volume builder and just wondering if i should complain to the site supervisor as we just had plasterboard installed. Looks like… 0 11864 |