Well - a bit of progress since my last post.

Plumber has been back and completed all of the external work.

And I finished the hot water tank enclosure.

The planter boxes are now filled with Purple Fountain grass (Pennisetum advena Rubrum)

And the electrician has been to do the 'rough in'.

I also made my bathroom vanity - the doors are made from floorboard offcuts. (Temporarily in place)

And most recently I have been attaching gutters to the two shed roofs. As they are both quite small in area I decided to try using drip chains instead of downpipes.

 And I finally got around to completing the boxed in main roof downpipe.

Now I am waiting for about another 10 - 15mm of rain so that the water level in my main tank is raised enough to meet the house outlet valve so I can pressure test the internal plumbing looking for leaks before I start lining the bathroom walls for tiling.

I have booked a waterproofer/tiler to do the waterproofing (in NSW I am not allowed to do it) and will get him to screed the levels and tile the floor to make it worth his while to come out.(Waterproofing is such a little job!) I will then tile the walls.

Wet, wet, wet...

Well the third La Niña in a row has had repercussions for my build as the constant rain and miserable weather has impacted my ability to work outdoors.

Also the plumber, who has been and completed the 'rough in' on the inside of the house has not been able to return to complete all of the outside work (septic and water tank attachment and roof down-pipe, sewerage and water pipes etc) as the ground is so sodden that his heavy machinery and truck full of gravel would potentially become bogged.

But since my last post I managed to lay the Tasmanian Oak tongue and groove floorboards. It was all completely hand nailed as the staple gun (and compressor) I bought for the job jammed during a practice run!

I sent it back but decided to make a start by hand. By the time the company fixed it and sent it back I was over a third of the way through and decided to continue it all by hand.

It was a very slow process as I first had to select each board to make sure the board ends didn't line up in subsequent rows.

The a strip of adhesive applied, board laid in place, each end had to have nail holes pre-drilled (to stop splitting) and then angled nails driven every 200mm, then punched down.

 

I worked out that with no issues (like warped boards) one 7m line of floorboards (the width of the main room) would take me 35-40 minutes. 

The entire floor would take a minimum of 90-110 hours!

Warped boards treatment:

 
The plumber has put in all the  necessary pipes for the kitchen and bathroom. (I can't believe what plumbers charge - per hour it is double what I earn as a casual teacher.) 

 

 

I've also been spending quite a bit of time (when it isn't raining) outside getting the veggie garden back into shape for Spring and Summer, as well as the annual Spring weed spraying marathon! 

 

Cow manure 'tea'

 

Most recently I have been building an enclosure that suits the house, for the heat pump water heater.

Planters

 Finished the planter boxes for the area under the east facade.

Lay sheets of 4mm steel on the bearers. And left it unsealed to rust.

Then I made boxes out of ply and coated them with a rubber membrane to protect them. They sit on a thin layer of gravel and have triangular cutouts along the base to facilitate water drainage. 

The bottom third of the boxes were filled with largish rocks, then a layer of gravel on top to the halfway mark. The gravel will have water permeable textile on top before soil is added. 

Im planning on having native swamp foxtail grass in the planters but need to wait until spring to plant the seeds.

Mushroom time again and there's been so many huge ones I cant cook enough of them! One weighed in at half a kilo and I was able to make mushroom 'steaks' from the cap!

Solar connection

Solar  panels and battery have at last been installed! The house hasn't been wired yet but I've connected an extension cord through the ceiling from the electrical shed into the house, so can at last boil the kettle etc. 

I've ordered a new microwave and when it arrives on Tuesday I'll bring my 9 yr old one out to the house so during the approaching winter I can make some hot snacks.

If anyone is wondering why this build is taking so long - I calculated my income over the past 7 years since I went back to casual teaching (because my bank balance dropped below $4,000!) has averaged $36,500 a year before tax. 

Out of that I am renting a flat in the nearest town, building this house AND managed to take 3 overseas trips totalling more than 10 weeks! 

So, at the very least, I'm bloody good at economic management 😆

I've also fixed the water run off at the driveway gate which was causing deep ruts to form. 2 tonnes of road base filled the channels.

The 4.5 gate was beginning to drop and drag on the ground when closing the last metre, so a wheel and a buried off cut of steel PFC beam - problem solved!

Currently I'm digging another channel from the solar cable trench down to the water tank to lay an electric cable for the future electric water pump. Then I can backfill the trench.