perfect positioning

Latest progress - the containers are finally on their piers and the house has a shape!!

Seems to have taken forever to get to this point. I'd been ready to move them since after New Year - but I realised I had to have underfloor insulation of R1.3 for my Basix requirement. Then I thought it was going to be difficult to put it in once the containers were in place as I only have crawl room of around 3-400mm. So I devised a system of putting it down first.This involved fencing wire criss-crossing the piers like a spider's web:

I left this wire in place for almost three weeks to check it would last the distance.Then I covered this with a knitted nylon netting (usually used to keep birds off fruit trees):

(Yes - it does look like a giant trampoline!)

I then left this in place for a week to make sure it stayed in place. Then yesterday I covered the mesh and wires with insulation batts and then tied them down with 0.8mm (25kg) fishing line to make sure they didn't go anywhere overnight. I found these R3.5 certified batts online for $33 per 9sqm - around half the standard store bought price.So I thought you can't have too much insulation and it was such a good price.

                                                    

 

Paul helping tie down batts:

(The bare patch on the right was left free of batts so the first three container ends could be accessed whilst lowering them onto the piers. As soon as the third was in position, and while the crane operators were hooking up the 4th, I unfurled the netting, cable tied it in position, and threw on the batts ready for the last container.)

This morning the Franna crane arrived - I expected it to be bigger, but it did a surprisingly easy job of moving the containers around. It was all done in about two hours.At $231 per hour (including GST) and 1 hour traveling time - I was really pleased with the cost. I had heard of $3,000 -$4,000 figures bandied about for cranes for containers.

 

All done and ready for the next stage!