Browse Forums Owner Builder Forum Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 321Aug 22, 2021 8:50 pm Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Still needing the manure mulch, but the whole veggie garden is now turned over, and I found about 20 bok choy which had self seeded so I replanted them, moved the chives, and dug up, divided and moved the rhubarbs. It's almost ready for planting out for Spring. The next job was to build and flash the final side of the roof. It still needs capping and painting. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I also put floors in both sheds: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And despite all the windy weather we've been having, this morning I finally started the facade cladding by putting up the first sheet: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And typically, no sooner had I put in the last screws than the winds arrived and made it impossible to continue. Naturally, tomorrow has 20-40mm of rain and winds over 30kph (Which usually means at my place over 40 and gusts of 60kph!!) A neighbour took this pic early this week on a very frosty morning: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Keen to add more facade cladding but the next calm day is not until Friday Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 322Aug 29, 2021 4:14 pm Spent most of my time putting up more panels. It's slow going - they are tricky to do on my own (They weigh close to 20kgs each). 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 ⋅ They were the easier ones! The next ones are on the overhanging awning and I had to plan a way of supporting them while I adjusted the spacing and then get some screws in to fix them. With the above bank of 18 panels, I was able to screw a length of timber to sit the panels on while I went about screwing them in place. So these next lot have slowed me down somewhat. Also, unlike the other wall cladding panels elsewhere on the house, this lot I decided to pre-drill and countersink the holes first. Much more sensible!! Also, the vertical gaps between panels has a strip of black flashing plastic stapled on the battens. And the horizontal gaps have a premade metal flashing strip designed to angle water out of the gap and not sit there causing problems. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ That's as far as I got today. Just finished the 4th one on the overhang when the rain started so a good time to pack up and come home. A nice storm approaching during the week: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Yesterday my back was sore so I stopped putting up panels, and amongst other things, I set up the simple door pivot I did last year, to paint a couple of doors for the sheds - 2 right angle brackets clamped to the ends of my saw horses! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ That's all for now. Let's see how much I can get done before next Sunday! As we are now in lockdown (and school is too) - I am currently teaching from home which means I can take my laptop to the house and still do some building work while I monitor students progress online. Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 323Sep 05, 2021 5:05 pm Just a single photo post today! The past week - barring a day at school and a day when the weather was too wet and windy to work outside (though I did stand in the rain and plant some veggie seeds!!) - was spent putting up the last of the panels. The ones on the awning were slow going, and then I quickened up when I reached the block of 9 on the right hand end. I figured you'd be bored looking at each panel going up, so here is the facade paneling finally finished. I have to say I am very pleased with the result, and relieved they are all up. Next is filling the 1,1207 screw holes with epoxy, sanding them back and painting all the panels with 4 coats of paint. I still need to do the soffit under the overhanging verandah as well as the capping on the top. Then sand and paint all the window reveals, 2 top coats on the white ply panels on the window section, before I cut, sand, stain and attach the vertical slats. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 324Sep 20, 2021 3:23 pm Move along ....... Nothing to see! Even though I've been working almost every day out on the house - there isn't that much to see. Much of the work is sorta 'behind the scenes' so isn't really pic-worthy! I finished the facade soffit, and it has had its first undercoat. I also finished the entire facade capping, but as yet only the part over the containers has had all 4 of its painting coats. The other parts haven't had any. (I sensibly pre-painted the pieces over the containers but was too eager to get the other parts installed as there was a break in the windy weather and I didn't want to miss the window of opportunity.) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I've epoxied all the screw holes on the 41 panels and sanded them back. (Here they are looking like they've a severe case of Clearasil.) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I have also been making some more bird deterrent strips to put around the parapet edges once all the painting is finished. The ferocious winds are back (September is notoriously bad weather wise - it can yo-yo from hot, sunny and still to freezing, wet with almost cyclonic winds on a daily basis.) Yesterday and today I tried to make a headway on painting the panels. Yesterday my ladder was blown over onto my head (I wasn't on it fortunately) and made me drop the paint roller onto the grass! You should have heard the language....! Today was even windier so I packed it in by midday and found other things to do. And then the rain started! Tomorrow morning at least, is meant to be calm-ish. Hopefully I can get the entire facade's first undercoat on. I had to buy online some 10mm wide masking tape to protect all the black strips between the panels from the paint roller. That's why the dark lines delineating the panels is not too evident in the photos. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 325Sep 21, 2021 4:16 pm Quick update as I managed to get the whole front undercoated today (1 of 2) The weather was fine when I started and then a storm blew in very quickly from the south. Some rain started falling as I finished the last panel but as it was from the south none of it touched the panels (which face north.) I'm really happy with the way it looks. (Remember - the blue doors, as nice as they look, are only that colour because they came like it as an undercoat and it will not be staying!! Even if it IS a nod to Mid Century Modern.) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 328Sep 25, 2021 7:44 pm I've finished all 4 coats of the front. Now the masking tape between the panels has been removed, the grid effect is more obvious. 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 ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Currently working at catching up with more painting on various parts of the house (1st and 2nd top coats mainly) and cutting, sanding and staining the slats for the front. Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 329Sep 29, 2021 5:18 pm Looking absolutely stunning in the landscape. Well done mate. Sometimes all it takes is paint to bring things to life. We all know the journey is far longer. Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 331Oct 07, 2021 6:31 pm It's been a long time coming! Front of the house is pretty much done, just a few small jobs like front door handles, shed door on the left to be hung, and a small panel replaced on the right. I'm glad I went with the slats - it breaks up the mass of white. Timber is stained with Japan Black.by Feast Watson. It may need another coat - not sure so will live with this for a while before deciding. 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 ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 332Oct 31, 2021 8:14 pm Nothing much dramatic to post lately - I've just been finishing a few small and sometimes fiddly jobs. Plus kids (and yours truly) are back at school. Also I have started trying to get quotes for a small (3.6kWh) solar power system with battery (off grid) ground mounted. I've only had 2 responses so far and I think they're pretty stupid!! The first - $25,000! And the second said "off the top of my head you'll be looking at $30 - $40,000 I've priced individual components and I get around $10 - $12,000. Surely labour can't be that much. Are they just making up numbers??!! Well back to the small jobs - first I put on the front door handles: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ A lot of people like to make a feature of their door hardware - not me!! I also hung the two shed doors and made architraves for them - and 4 coats of paint for all: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ (I still have to make 2 pieces of matching skirting as a bit of bad planning on my part had the height of the shed wall at 2450mm - 50mm taller than a standard sheet of fibro!) I put up a small missing panel on the west end of the facade - but didn't get a pic - this was before: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And I lined the east shed with insulation - this will house my solar batteries, circuit board and my upright freezer: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I also used insulation off-cuts to line the west end wall inside the house in the main bedroom. This wall is comprised of the three door ends of the 3 adjacent containers. Because of how they are made there was extra space between the actual doors and the timber frame. So as it was west facing I thought it wouldn't hurt to throw extra insulation in. There will still be fibre batts set into the frame: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ It might seem like overkill but when is too much insulation ever a problem? This is the wall schematic: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ _______________________________________________________ I've had to tackle some serious mowing: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And a fair bit of time getting my summer veggies in (rhubarb, red and white onions, bok choy, spinach, zucchini, dwarf beans, rocket, coriander, chives, radish, basil, capsicum, pumpkin, and mint) It's greening up nicely: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I have quite a few Grass Trees growing on my land (they are neither grass nor trees!!) This is the only one so far with flower spikes on it. I'm not sure if these are the species that grow trunks. . Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ From the road: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ From down the road: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 333Dec 22, 2021 1:04 pm Schools over until the end of Jan so I can work on the house every day. Since my last post, we had the wettest November on record. Now, records falling don't really tell you much - if the highest temp. on record for December is 41.5, you cannot be certain that there were not a huge number of December days that got to 41.4 degrees. But November's rainfall was 10mm less than DOUBLE the previous record! And December is close to doubling the average for this month. So it's been WET! (Not that I'm complaining after several years of drought.) Work on the house has continued slowly with many small tasks being ticked off. One thing I've been meaning to do for ages was to finish painting the exterior. Quite a lot of it has needed one or both top coats. So in between the rainy spells I've sorted that out. Weeding 25 acres has also taken considerable time, as has the veggie garden. I ended up getting about 7 quotes for a solar panel and battery off grid system of around 3-3.5kWh. I really wanted a Lithium Ion battery as they have a far superior discharge rate than lead acid or gel batteries. But they are pricey. I received several quotes of around $25,000 - and they were with gel type batteries. And then a Victorian company quoted me $12,850 WITH a Li-Ion battery!! So I've paid my deposit and the gear is being sent up early January and the installer has been organised for late January. So I'm very pleased and excited about that. It comes with 8 x 390W panels. (One company I emailed for a quote called "On Grid Off Grid Solar" wrote back saying 'Sorry - we don't do off grid'!!?? Errrmm - it's in your company name?!!) One thing I needed to do however, was to make the solar array stand for the panels. To get one made I was looking at a couple of grand. Fortunately I had some 100mm square tube left over from a facade "fail" project which turned out to be perfect. All I needed was several lengths of angle iron, concrete and paint. Optimum panel inclination is the same degrees as the latitude of location - in my case 35 deg. Plus facing true north. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The old steel supports - repurposed! 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 ⋅ Coat of metal primer: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And then a colour coat of metal paint ('Mangrove' - to match the water tank) Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Next I need to poison the grass underneath, lay some builders plastic and gravel to stop regrowth. Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 334Jan 04, 2022 6:30 pm I had Xmas Eve, Day and Boxing day away visiting the grand-kids, and the following day entertaining friends from Qld who dropped by for a quick catch up. They were my first days off work since the June long weekend, so I needed the break!! I finally made a start on putting up the ceiling panels on the back verandah. I've wanted to do this for the longest time as birds persistently and continuously try to get into the roof space. Even with netting and insulation foam around the edges, they would peck away at the foam trying to get in, not to mention crapping all over the wall and deck. I had to resort to some serious deterrents: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I also needed a run of windless days which are hard to come by down this way! I got to use my panel lifter (bought new in April 2018 for under $180 and never used!!) for the first time - and boy, did it make the job easy! It gave me some practice for when I gyprock the inside ceilings. 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 ⋅ It doesn't have the battens yet to hide the joins between each panel (they'll be the same size as those on the wall) Also the edges will have 18mm square moulding. (as soon as the hardware store gets some in!) This pic shows the first undercoat - but today I finished the 2 undercoats and 2 topcoats (didn't get a photo but it doesn't look much different to this!): Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ My neighbour took this pic of the house from their place next door: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 335Jan 22, 2022 6:20 am Finished the trim and battens on the verandah ceiling and everything had their 2 undercoats and 2 topcoats. I have to say, after so long looking at the trusses it now looks nice and schmick! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ No more birds roosting in the rafters and turning the deck into a Jackson Pollock!! And recently I made a start on the 'Barn Door' style main bedroom door using a container panel off-cut. I bought some 40x40mm angle iron, cut the panel to fit and now needs to be cleaned up, painted and a handle applied. I've had the roller mechanism for almost 3 years!! 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 ⋅ I intend painting it the original colour and adding a few decals of container text to it. Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 337Feb 06, 2022 6:23 am Back teaching 5 days a week for almost the whole term as I need to replenish the coffers. But getting some small stuff started. Being impatient, after finishing painting the steel door I just had to install it to see how it looks. I'll leave it there so it's not in the way but it'll have to come down when I gyprock the walls. There are some dents in it which I like as the containers I used for the house were lowest grade and retired so they were also a bit battered and worn. I also put up a 140 x 45 header above the door as it has to carry a lot of weight. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And on the rollers! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Put some more skirting around the base of the house so I can back-fill up to the top of the piers. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Got the 600mm deep trench for the solar cable (here it's only half deep). Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And I noticed some nice textures that appeared on the facade's vertical slats after staining: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 338Feb 20, 2022 3:59 pm Teaching 5 days a week is so tiring that I am not getting value out of my weekends at the house. (9am - 3pm in the classroom is more exhausting than 8-10 labouring on the build!!) So I have taken this coming week off before I begin a 6 week full time stint for a teacher on sick leave. So not much building work done during the past fortnight just finishing off some small details here and there. (More trim, all the steel skirting around the house is done, and I've ordered steel plate to lay in front of the facade on the eastern side to pick up and install on Tuesday.) Quite a lot of time has been spent outside either on weed patrol or in the disaster of a veggie garden. Each year seems to present one or two weeds that go crazy. This year it has been the mullein plus the horse weed. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Mullein, I believe, is sold in European nurseries as a decorative plant. Here it's a PITA!! And some of it grows to over 2 metres high. Horse Weed has also gone a bit crazy this year. Good for nothing, and annoyingly it leave dead sticks poking up everywhere when it dies which hang around looking untidy for months! I also spend quite a lot of time wandering my 25 acres with secateurs and a bucket collecting thistle heads (Scotch, Milk and Saffron) as the seed/flower heads will continue forming seeds even if you uproot the plant. (And they can stay viable for up to 9 years.) A combination of apathy and constant cloudy, wet weather with almost no sun all spring and summer has resulted in a miserable veggie garden this year. Despite lots of fertiliser, lime, compost and seaweed extract, most of my veggies have struggled. Plants and veggies are a shadow of their usual selves. My usual 12 pumpkin holes (usually sewn with 5 seeds each, and thinned to 2) didn't germinate after 3 weeks. So I put another 2 seeds per hole. When they finally sprouted I ended up with only around 7 seedlings in total. And they have struggled ever since: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ The wet was great for weeds, and after sewing onions and beetroots, the weeds took off, and the veggies struggled to keep up: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ This was the harvest: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ (I still have around 80-100 pickling onions to harvest.) The beetroots were all different sizes and only provided these jars of pickled beets: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ In a normal year I should have had 4 times as many. And don't laugh - the capsicum plants are only knee high (instead of waist) and are giving me these: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Green beans, rocket, rhubarb, cos lettuce, green and purple basil, even zucchinis (usually hard to kill!) have done very poorly this year. My solar installation was delayed - it now looks set for Feb 28-30th. Hopefully this coming week I can get a bit more done. Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 339Feb 26, 2022 4:05 pm Quick update. Still waiting for my solar - promised it will be one day next week! So I got a good start on the planter boxes at the base of the east facade. As I decided to put in planter boxes late in the planning (ie I had already built the bearers supporting the facade!) I had a fair bit of tweaking to do with the timber and with the boxes I made to drop into position. This is where the planters will go: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I thought for quite a while as to what material to use on the surface. It needed to be strong but thin (I didn't want it covering any of the facade panels) so I settled for steel plate. I went for 4mm 'black' (ie ungalvanised) steel as I want it to rust. That way the colour will sit better with the decking and blend well with the surrounding. Once it has achieved its patina I will coat it to slow down the rusting process. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I will be raising the soil level around the house to the top of the concrete piers so they will not be seen. After the steel went into place and I went home, it rained overnight and rust is already forming!! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Each of the four 700mm x 700mm boxes had to be bespoke to fit within the bearers and joists. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ This is one (upside down with drainage notches) is covered with a couple of coats of a below-ground waterproofing membrane. The planter box will sit on a layer of gravel, have the lower half filled first with some largish rocks then gravel, a layer of geotextile, then soil. I am thinking of having native swamp foxtail grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides) in them all: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I'm quite pleased as during the week I put in my very first piece of wiring. And a homemade grommet!! (An electrician mate advised me on the correct type of wiring to buy.) I needed to cut through the container wall. It's for the outside light above the backdoor and will have a modern flattish rectangular bunker light when I find one that's right! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Tondelver House - Shipping Container Build 340Mar 26, 2022 3:26 pm Well the good news is.....I have: 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 ⋅ Yes it looks a small system (3.12kWh) each panel is 390W but all the solar calculations show this should be quite enough for me for the time being (a single person, with instant gas hot water and gas cooking.) The beauty of this system is it is easy to add to. And I love the tiny Li-Ion battery (bottom right sitting (temporarily) on a milk crate! Its 500 x 380 x 125. But as this house is a super budget build - I can add later if/when it is needed. (Who know - an electric car might be in my future.) Once I am living here I will save so much money (I'm currently a renter) I should be able to save quickly. I was on site for the installation and was able to help out. It was beneficial for me too as I was able to observe, ask questions and understand a lot about the system. Solar panels and house (the panels face true north but the house is about 11 degrees west of T.N so that my big windows do not look directly at the neighbours house. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I was also able to get a couple of other tasks done, time has been short as I have been teaching full time for the last few weeks. I finally roofed the space between the house and west shed - it needs lining (after I have wiring to the shed run through the beams) and guttering, but at least it helps protect the doorway from rain. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I put in a back deck light (not connected yet) it's 1420 lumens (about 100W incandescent equivalent) and uses 15W. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And for the past few years water run-off down the drive have created gulleys in the road base: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ So I installed a drain. It doesn't get masses of water, but like the Grand Canyon, once a fissure starts it keeps getting bigger over time! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I've packed 1.5 tonnes of road base in the gulleys so far and will probably need another half tonne. Another issue at the gate is that it has dropped. The gate is 4.5 metres long and such a large cantilever has caused one end to sag over time. It was starting to drag on the ground. So I attached a small wheel and buried an off cut from a PFC beam into the ground. Problem solved! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And March being the wettest on record, the mushrooms have started appearing. They are large and taste amazing! Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ And today I went wandering in the paddocks to de-head thistles and found this beauty: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ At half a kilo I will get a couple of meals out of it. This morning at 7am: Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ 1 10673 Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 19847 hi guys. Please be nice. First time home builder in Qld. I would like some feedback please on whether I should build my granny flat first before my main house at the… 0 5294 |