Yellowtongue Floor

     Josh has now finished attaching the yellowtongue floor to the floor frame.

     In this picture you can see the box of screws, tube of glue/sealant, and the drill, along with the yellowtongue sheets partially finished. It took 2 days of Josh working on his own to put all the yellowtongue down. They now just require a little more glueing and screwing, and then the next stage is wall frames. First we need to wait for the kit home company to send us the missing plans, it's been several days and still waiting for a reply...

Yellowtongue

     Over the weekend we had some friends visiting, and took the opportunity to move the yellowtongue out of the storage shed down to the house site. Laying the sheets on the joists, we covered them up with tarps for a bit of weather protection as rain was predicted. Yellowtongue is a type of particleboard flooring made from "precision milled wood flakes and bonded with moisture resistant synthetic resin". This was provided with the kit home when it was delivered. Each sheet is 3.6 metres long by 90 cm wide and weighs 30kg, which Josh says is not that heavy and he is able to carry it on his own. It may not sound like a lot of weight, but imagine lifting a 30kg backpack or box - that's pretty heavy. When he and I were carrying them together I found it to be an almost unbearable weight, as for me around 15kg is just getting beyond what the limit of what I can carry. Whilst I CAN carry 15kg, I know that I am pushing my body to its limit, and doing so will definitely lead to long term damage (and pain!). So I had to tell him that I could not help carry the boards as they were too heavy for me.

      On the Friday before everyone arrived Josh carried 7 of the sheets down to the house site on his own, which is around 100 metres down a hill on rocky and uneven ground. He said that the weight of it was not so much the problem, as was the length and width of the sheets, making them very unwieldy. So he created a tool made of a camping shovel, with the head folded to a 90 degree right angle, and 2 G-clamps. This allowed him to carry the sheets underneath his arm like a really large surfboard. His body was very sore the next day after carrying all those sheets at an awkward angle, combined with the constant tromping back up the hill to get the next sheet. The boys helped carry the rest of the boards with two people on each board, and it was lovely to see all the work get done so quickly and easily (of course it was easy for me - I was just watching!). THANK YOU GUYS!!! All done in a couple of hours, after waiting for two months trying to figure out how to get this done.

      The next step is to cut half of the boards to the right size, and the other half will stay full length. I figure the easiest way to do that is to make a temporary floor on the joists out of the yellowtongue, and then lay them over the sawhorses in order to cut them with the orbital saw which has been purchased for this express purpose. We will have to remember to measure twice and cut once, as we do not have any yellowtongue to spare - and getting more on site would be both difficult, and expensive. We have 20 sheets, which is JUST enough, but could really do with one more anyway. Once they have been cut, they need to be placed in exactly the right spot and screwed to the metal joists. Hopefully this will be a trick that we figure out BEFORE we do it the wrong way!

Screwed Top Hats

     This arvo Josh spent a couple of hours screwing the top hats down.

     He has now started talking about cutting the yellow-tongue particle board flooring into the right lengths. First we need to re-arrange the storage shed, as the yellow-tongue was piled up in there BEFORE we brought up all of our belongings out of storage. Also I think we need a strong assistant to lift those floor boards, as they are HEAVY! Too heavy for just me and Josh, as I discovered when we moved them the 30 metres from where the truck dropped them off into the shed. Ouch!

More Raking

      The other half of the joists have now been screwed to the brackets, a relatively quick and easy job.

 
         After 2 more days of raking I still haven't finished clearing the house site, but I am nearly there!

     As you can imagine, a bucket of rocks is quite heavy and I have gotten quite tired of carrying them over to the driveway, but at least the driveway is looking better every day.
     While I was sitting there quietly sorting my rocks, a pair of yellow-tailed black cockatoos flew low overhead and landed in the nearby banksia tree.

     It has been a delight to watch the wildlife enjoying the new plant growth down in the clearing, with the tiny finches and wrens sharing bushes, and the cute little quails pushing their way through the grass. Quite a change to the birds which hang around in the trees around the caravan and the shed.
     Meanwhile Josh found the brackets which need screwing on next, appropriately called 'top hats'. He spent the afternoon bending them into shape so now they are ready to screw the joists to the bearers.

Raking House Site

     The rest of the joists haven't been screwed in yet, but here is a photo of them after they were placed. The last one is waiting for the rest to be screwed in before being placed.

     Note the trees which will be the view, and the small mountain behind it. Absolutely beautiful watching the mists drift across it, and the sun on it in the afternoon - this will be our living room window!
     I exhausted myself yesterday raking under the house site to remove the rocks - big and small - so that in future when we are crawling around under there (because it will inevitably happen) it will be less uncomfortable. It is pesky work, and after 6 hours in the hot sun I only have one third of it done. Luckily there is added motivation - the smaller rocks along with the lumps of clay (of which there are plenty) are collected into a bucket and poured onto the driveway at the most troublesome spots.

Finished laying joists

          Yesterday Josh laid all the joists, and drilled half of them to the brackets. It was a quick job, lucky because he did not start until quite late in the day! It was lovely to be working out of the sun, and in the afternoon chill, to counter the hot sweatiness that you get when doing physical work. He also enjoyed not having to constantly having to get down on his knees in the dirt, as was the case when drilling the piers. This photo was taken when only halfway done, before it got too dark to take photos.

          Next step is to finish drilling the joists to the brackets, then to lay the under-floor insulation.

Finished piers!

     Today is not a very exciting photograph, but it is a very exciting day nonetheless. Today Josh finished bolting down all of the piers!

     The next step is to put some more of the joists on...