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Hard Surfaces

The outside is finally starting to take shape. Our new garage/shed went in a few weeks ago, after several delays. It is still awaiting rendering on the front and a panel lift door.

Once the garage was in, the concrete drive was poured. The slope up is more than we would have expected, but it just goes to show how sloped the block is even when it looks flat.

Paving outside the back door and up to the front door plus a bit of retaining wall was done too – after the expected associated delays of course!

The rainwater tank was also rolled down the block to behind the garage and is now plumbed in (thankfully all our pump etc that we had kept from our old tank was still working) so we’ll be on rainwater once it rains.

Apart from a front fence, we’re up to soft surfaces outside now!

Garage in with matching skillion roof to house. Mesh ready for concrete pour.

Paved entertaining area and path to front door and retaining wall.

Concrete in.

Of course, these things could never be expected to happen smoothly. A week after the concrete had been poured the pavers were delivered and the forklift ran over the edge, cracking the concrete. So our new, fresh concrete only lasted a week without damage… it will be fixed in the next few weeks at the delivery driver’s expense.

On the upside, while the driveway was at a greater slope than anticipated, the concreter was able to use some of our reclaimed besser blocks as a wall in the concrete and they are now permanently part of our drive, hidden in the slab holding back the dirt.

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Working on the inside

After the demolition of the garage we had a bit more tidying up outside to do – scrap metal to be recycled, a whole lot of timber and carport rubbish to go into a skip, dirt to be moved everywhere.

Meanwhile, inside the house we had blinds installed on the northern windows, cupboards and robes in the alcoves and bedrooms, and a new dining table made from Tasmanian Oak to match our kitchen benchtop.

Demolition

Before we could get started on any other outside developments we needed to demolish the old besser block garage and carport that we had been using for storage and site office during the build. In retrospect, perhaps it would have been more efficient to put our stuff in storage elsewhere and demolish the shed and concrete while the main house was being demolished. It probably would have been quicker and cheaper to demolish everything at once.

Demolition occurred in several stages. First the asbestos “deep 6” roof sheets on the garage had to be removed. A minor saga in itself – we were about to go with one company who quoted, Company E, when another asbestos removal company B advised us not to. B said they had heard reports of E being tracked by Safe Work SA. B reported to Safe Work SA that E was still seeking work, and advised me as such. I contacted Safe Work SA and they confirmed that E was on their “watch list” for not completing jobs satisfactorily and getting nasty with customers when they asked for ALL the asbestos to be removed. In the meantime, B felt sorry for us that we were getting the run around so reduced their quote in order to be more competitive with E…. we ended up going with Company B, but only after several weeks of phone calls and trying to work out reputations.

We had our carport frame and oregon roof trusses in the garage removed by someone on gumtree who wanted to build his own carport etc. Once that was done we knocked out the besser blocks in a rather satisfying self demolition.

We got a bobcat in to cut up and remove the concrete from the carport and under the garage – to all those who quoted, while it was a besser block garage, there were no “H” footings, just under the walls and a huge crack down the middle of the floor should have indicated such to you. Trades should stop taking women to be fools.

Knocking down besser blocks by hand.

The bob cat comes in to scoop up the concrete.

Getting rid of the carport concrete

Out come the foundations

All gone

Third coat render (external)

After handover we began moving in and emptying the old garage of all our furniture and boxes that had been stored there. There was still lots to be done inside and around the house. The third coat render of the outside (in “sandstone” colour lime based render) happened over a couple of weeks, then took another couple of weeks to dry out. Now the house looks complete on the outside (it looked fairly patching left in its second coat render state!)

Third coat render outside drying out

Outside of house – shaping the window edges.

South side of house render completed and drying out

 

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