1 Stubborn Rock & More Delays

During this week we found that we can get our shed slab poured on 300mm of fill. So we organised to get our tank excavated, by Ben Barker of Barkers Excavation, and to move the excavated earth onto the slab site. When I went down on site, the surveyors had pegging out our house which I marked out with marking paint.

We then realised that the shed & house would fit but there would be no physical way to drive a car in or out of our shed if we had to move the shed because of the rock in the way. Ben gave John a call who has a larger dozzer the Leon, 26 Tonnes vs 18 Tonnes. John had a look at the site and is confident that he can remove all of the rock that is in the way of our shed, he will have a go at this job around Wednesday 7th April. Hopefully we will have some good news by the end of next week. Ben is going to still excavate our tank site for Bega Concrete Tanks to install the week after Easter, at least we will have something underway. All progress on our house & shed slab is on hold until John gets on site and has a go at this stubborn rock!!!

With all the above said, when we see views like this it makes it easier to push on!!!

Trying To Get Things Started

Today Mel & I traveled to the property to meet up with our concreter Boris, our plumber Greg, our excavator Leon & the surveyor Steve. Leon has said it is about as much as he can do with the site. We are still left with a large rock right where our shed needs to be and thinking about moving it to the left to get it off the rock area.

Boris still thinks it is a very rocky & un-even surface and will have to get in contact with the shed company about altering the shed slab.

The surveyor is going to be back on Monday to peg out the house. We are now toying with the idea to rotate the house slightly to have the edge of the house run along the cut line to give us more space where the rock is.

Hopefully everything will come together and we can get a start on our slab the week after easter.

Mel's Trip to the property

Today, Mel went down to the property to meet with Leon & our drafts person Ken. We had a bit of a problem with a 'rock' that does not want to budge. Mel & Ken talked about house position if we could not move the rock and that we should get a surveyor on site to mark out the house position. Will have some better news next week.

Our Cleared Block

Before

After

Its started. Leon was able to start clearing on Monday the 22nd of Feb. After about a total of 2 - 3 days work we are left with what you see below. It is great to see our veiw opened up even though it was a little sad to see all of the trees gone. All we hope is that the house we will be building will contribute 10x back to the environment than the trees that we have cut down. We will, of course, be re-planting alot and hopefully re-juvinating the area. Anyway, with that said, we are underway. It feels good to have finally started. The cutting should be finished by the end of the week.

Mother Nature's Delay

Who would have thought that on the day we could actually get the land clearing started that the Bega area has a record rain fall. 127mm in one day. Oh well, I think we might be delayed until next week. Fingers crossed.

Here We Go

We went out to site today and met with Leon. He is really keen to start and, depending on the weather, is able to start as early as Tuesday. We are really excited and can't wait. We have included some more photos we took this time so everyone can get an idea of the work to be done just to start building. Will be heading down next weekend to check on progress so this is the last time we will be seeing the block like this.

WE HAVE APPROVAL!!!

Well.......we just found out from council that we have approval to start building. All the paper work is being processed through council now and we should be able to start within the next week or 2. We just have to wait for our consturction certificate to come through after our '$520 Contribution' to coucil carparking. Will keep everyone posted but everything should start going gang busters over the next few months......so will keep everyone posted.

A little set back

Mel & I were a bit bummed today. We found out that all the wood that we tracked down we cannot use in our build. Because it was oregon timber and we are in a termite area it is not a good timber to use. It's not all bad because we can re-sell it but there was alot of work put into collecting and processing this timber but we would rather sell it rather than have our house eaten buy termites. We have to roll with the punches though and we can't do much appart from go with what the plans say.
Still not word from council, hopefully not to much longer though.

Whats Happening In The New Year

Well........Our plans are still in at council. We have hit a little snag on the idea of a Straw Bale house in a bush fire prone area. We had to send a CSIRO report, which was to us by Bohdan Dorniak (http://www.bdcoarchitechs.com.au/), who conducted the survey. If it was not for him and his report we would not have got this far with council. Everything now rests in the hands of the RFS, so we have our fingers crossed. The thing is, in comparison to other types of houses (Fibro, Timber or Brick Veneer), Straw Bale should be the best choice in this type of area because a Straw Bale wall is so tightly compressed and sits behind 40mm - 50mm of render that there is no air to fuel the fire, unlike the Fibro, Timber or Brick Veneer which have pockets of air between that & the plaster inside. My opinion is Straw Bale should be the councils 'house of choice' in a Bush Fire Prone Area for this reason.



Everything happening with the Development Application has not stopped us picking up bargains to build the house though, we just picked up some great slate tiles today. We wanted a natural stone on top of the concrete slab to help with the thermal mass of the building.



We also picked up 10 (160x 160) American hard wood posts from my work which was used as pallets for some heavy machinery. Work was going to burn them until I saved them for the bargain price of $1. We really would like to use them for decking or roof posts, we will see how they fit in to the build. We will hopefully have an answer from Council toward the end of the month and will keep everyone posted.

Our Little Timber Mill

On Saturday I went up to Mum & Dad's, with Bethany & Trav, to unload our bounty of timber. Big day and alot of hard work, thanks to Mum & Dad for the day. This is how we did it;

1. We had to de-nail all the timber. Sore hands by the end of the day and we also managed to break a hammer.

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2. We then sorted out the timber in lengths & types. Any that we could not use, we had sawn down into smaller peices, which will be used for 'noggins' in the building process.

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3. We were then left with our 3 sorted 'piles' of Oregon, Treated Pine & Hard Wood. Most of which can be used in our build or at least be swapped for what we need.

Just A Little Timber

Dad & I drove up to Newcastle today to pick up some timber we won off Ebay. Looks like a lot but this is only about a 1/4 of what we need. The good thing is we got it cheap & it was really good quality oregon timber. A bit of work to clean it up but that does not cost anything except our time.

Our Plans Are In!!!

Our plans are finally in to Bega Council. Mel & I drove down to Bega today to sort a few things out while also submitting our plans. Ken had dotted all the i's & crossed all the t's. We were quietly confident on our way home that our plans should be fine. When we walked the plans to council, that even the ladies lodging the development application, looked to see Kens name on the covering letter and said 'Oh Ken Gordon has done these plans, should be no worries at all'. Made us feel very happy. We also met with Leon Russel, to discuss further details of our land clearing. We also sorted our our shed details too. Everything is looking good and progressing well.

Our Final Plans Are Here

Our final plans are here. We have not really changed much from the last, just a few minor details, but we are ready to put them into council now. We can't wait. We are heading down to Bega next week, hopefully to submit them and also talk to our land clearer, Leon Russell. We can really picture living in this house, the layout & space really suits us as a family. If you have any comments we would really like to recieve them. Will let everyone know how it goes with council, this could be a long process but we have faith in Bega council and Ken Gordon, our drafts person. Fingers crossed it does not take to long.

Little Treasures

On the weekend, the kids & I went to help clean out my late Grandfathers house. This has been an on going thing for about the last 4 to 5 months now. Some people may have said he was a bit of a hoarder, but Mel & I say he was just saving a few things, for us, to help build our house. There has been alot of treasures found, including these cast iron lamp posts that Dad is wheeling up to the trailer. We have found bathroom sinks, tiles, mirrors, windows, pipe work, furniture & a fireplace. Some very old & beautiful items. Still no plans as yet, hopefully soon.

Still waiting for our plans

Just thought I'd give a quick post, just so anybody keeping track of us did not think they were missing out on anything......we are still waiting for our plans back from the drafts person. We are hoping to get something back soon so we can get something done before Christmas. We have alot lined up but this will all be pending on the plans coming back soon, council approval & the land being cleared. Fingers crossed we will have something back from Ken by the end of the week. We will keep you posted.

Update to Plans

Mel & I went to the property today to see Ken and discuss the final plans for our property. We think we have nailed it now and can't wait to see them drafted. We should see something early next week, can't wait. We have so much lined up as soon as we get the go ahead from council.
1st its the land clearing, Leon Russel from Russels Earthmoving & Excavations
2nd we now have our shed lined up
3rd We have got our concreter lined up too
4th The tank from Bega Concrete Tanks
5th Then our Biolytix System should go in.
We have also found our roof at Mordek too. We are picturing everyday the finished product. Should be good to see. Will keep everyone posted when the final draft comes through and hopefully we can get some of the above work done before Christmas.

Our New Design

We have a new house design. After our awesome time in Canberra with Andrew & Leanne, talking to Tom Chen & Frank Thomas, we have come up with our new design which, we believe has passive solar and thermal mass properties. We have a few changes, which are going though our drafts person, Ken at Gordons Drafting. At the moment but should have our plans finalized by the end of the week and then into Bega council.

Our House Plan

Our preliminary house & layout plans have arrived thanks to Gordon's Drafting Services in Bega. Mel & I are very excited. Only a few changes, but I think it looks really good. You can see our wind turbine in this view and also our awesome doors/windows off our living & bedroom areas that we picked up cheap on Ebay. We should hopefully have our plans through council soon and then it is finally time to start building.

What makes our build eco friendly

Besides our house being built from straw bales, which has amazing insulation properties, we are incorporating the following;

• Solar Panels from Clear Solar
• Biolytix is supplying us with our Black & Grey Water system.
• Pyramid Power, in Pambula, is helping us with our Solar Hot water & Install. They are in our area and I feel know the best system for our climate. They are also installing our Biolytix System too.
• Rhino Tanks is supplying us with a 126,000L Tk
• We are going for a natural roof insulation, probably wool or shredded paper. We have not chosen anyone as yet there.
• Straw Bale, our walls are coming from Trent at straw.com.au from Coleambally, NSW. It is a bit far away but has the best straw to build with.

We are so excited to start our build. Should not be long until we receive our plans too which I hope to share with you all too.

Our Small Plot

This is our lovely, 6 & 1/2 Acre, bush block. As you can see it has a nice little slope to it, but has not stopped us from wanting to build on it. The top of the block is mainly filled with 'Stringy Bark' & 'Bloodwood' trees. We are going to try and minimalise the amount of land we are clearing and is going to make us a little upset to see them knocked down but we are going to try and use them as much as possible during the build. We will have a mobile saw mill who will cut most of the timber to size for the framing required and the leaf tops, bark and un-usable wood will be used for mulch. All the 'dead wood' around will be used to keep us warm on the cold Wallagoot nights.