2022 May

Winter was approaching and I was a little worried about the new water pipes under the house freezing and bursting. We bought special insulation tubes that are specially designed for this. It was a simple job but involved a lot of awkward angles crawling around under the house.

      The insulation tubes were easy to use, they could be cut with scissors, applied at angles and around corners, and I soon worked out some way to get them to stay up on their own.

      I was listening to podcasts as I crawled around under there to keep me entertained, constantly losing my scissors cos they were behind me. At some points it was a bit confusing because the copper pipes were a mixture of cold water, hot water, and gas. They were coming off and going to the hot water system, then coming back in, then one was going to the gas stove with gas, and then the water ones were going off to the shower, the basin, the laundry and the sink. The ones with green plastic around them are the hot water so at least that's easy to keep track of. The silver tape around the black insulation is special insulation tape which is extra sticky, so perfect for this situation.

     The hot water system has water in, gas in, and water out. I thought the gas pipe probly didn't need to be insulated. I used some zip ties to hold these tubes on.

     I was glad that I insulated the pipes when I did because the very next month the temperature went down to zero and everything was frozen. I was very happy with the peace of mind I achieved for a comparatively small cost and easy job.

Another job that needed doing was filling the gaps under the ridge cap where it sits on top of the corrugated iron. After perusing all the options the best solution seemed to be aluminium sheeting which we cut to size. We held a corro offcut against the aluminium and copied the wiggle with a permanent marker, then cut along the wiggly line by hand with a pair of tin snips. This was thin enough to cut and bend to the right size and shape but strong enough to keep out wind and fire embers. The bushfire rating for our house (BAL 29) required there to be no gaps smaller than 4mm anywhere around the outside of our house. We already had aluminium mesh inside the roof but wanted to have something that was better at keeping out wind and rain.

    Josh climbed up on the roof, unscrewed the ridge cap a little and slid our custom made gap filler underneath and re-attached the ridge cap. We were worried that the shiny aluminium would be unsightly on the roof compared to the grey, so bought the Colorbond matching grey paint and painted it after application. You can't even see it anymore.

 2022 January

     Over a year since the stainless steel tank was delivered (November 2020), we finally got around to putting up the downpipes. The gutters on our house run along each side, a 10 metre length on the north side and a 10 metre length on the south side. The photo below shows the south side. On the left you can see the separate verandah roof gutter which has its own downpipe into a 100 litre plastic tank.

      This meant that the downpipes had to come down from each side separately and then join in the middle, and then go across the gap to go into the tank. This was quite tricky because you can't just put both sides into a central pipe at once - there is no plumbing part to suit this situation. I can only guess that's because the two flows of water will hit each other and slow down too much. This meant that one side had to come down at a different angle to the other side, but there is only so much wiggle room you can do when fitting one pipe to another pipe. The solution Josh came up with was to install a bit of a wiggle which you can almost see coming down from the gutter on the left hand side.

          The distance from the house to the tank was a bit too far for the downpipe to support itself without sagging, so Josh constructed a support pole to keep it staying upright and stable. First he made a metal box for the base, ready to fill with concrete.

Then he filled it with a concrete mix and attached some leftover metal framing to be the support pole.

          Below you can see the finished set-up.  We also installed a first flush diverter to try and keep the water going into the tank a bit more clean.

          The first flush diverter is the grey pipe which comes straight down along the house wall below the white pipes. It is designed to fill up with water when it starts raining, and has a round empty plastic ball the same width as the pipe inside it. When the ball floats to the top, it hits a seal so that the rest of the rain goes straight into the tank. This means that any leaves, dirt, bird poo or other nasty stuff gets washed off into the diverter, and the rest of the rainwater is much cleaner and goes into the tank. The diverter has a small hole at the bottom so that it slowly drains away and is ready to repeat the process the next time it rains.

     The diverter is designed to drain into a garden hose, so you can direct it away from your house. Unfortunately the bottom seal always leaks so I had to put a container underneath to catch both the drips and the intended leakage, and then another hose coming from the bottom of the container which goes down into a garden bed. Below is the tiny hole it is designed to slowly leak from.

         The pic below shows the ball and the filter just before I reassemble after cleaning. This kit was available from Bunnings for about 20 bucks, and then you supply your own pipe, and adjust the length to suit the size of your roof.

          We also added an outlet pipe for when the tank overflows as you can kinda see on the right of the below pic. The pipe comes out just below the top of the tank, turns a corner and goes down the side of the the tank, turns another corner and the pipe continues a couple of metres away from the tank.

          We painted the pipes with grey paint which is tinted to exactly match the Colorbond grey on the trim of the house. This both changes it from looking horrible ugly to quite classy, and also protects the plastic pipes from degrading as quickly in the sun. Unfortunately plastic hates being painted and it peels off with the slightest bump, but a few coats mostly did a decent job.

          I will admit that these downpipes have blown down a couple of times when we have had big strong winds come through with storms, but a quick repair job and they have been faithfully putting water into our fancy tank every time it rains. It was even overflowing after the heavy rains we have had over the last month. Very happy!

 2021 December

          At this point we started trying to nail down details of how the kitchen layout would go exactly. This is the suggested kitchen layout from the kit home company, which has the stove on the internal wall adjoining the bathroom, the sink along the window and the fridge in the other corner.

           Here's one experiment with the difficult space available.

          We have two corners and corners are annoying. You can't put your stove in a corner as then it's too hard to get things out of the oven. Cupboards in the corner are always awkward as it is difficult to access the space. You can get fancy solutions to access that corner but they are EXPENSIVE. We didn't want to put the sink or the stove along the side walls as it meant running the pipes further and creating potential problems in the future if there was a leak. We definitely wanted the sink at the window so you can get a cool breeze on your face while washing up, and a nice view out the window. The giant walk-in pantry seemed pretty cool - like a secret room inside your house - but it cost $2000 just on its own. Ouch.

        Josh's cousin designed this fancy kitchen for us, which looks great but has the stove on the internal wall and the fridge kind of blocks off the room. Another problem with having the stove on the internal wall is that the range hood would have to vent out the ceiling instead of just venting straight out the external wall, much more difficult and expensive installation. Probly not the best to have the stove next to the fridge either cos the poor fridge would get hot whenever you cook something. It's such a tricky space cos it's just a little bit small. But thanks Mel for the design! (Also just imagine the sink is under the window).

          The Bunnings Kaboodle website has a great section where you can put in the measurements of your specific space and build your own digital kitchen with their cabinets. Very easy to use and then it gives you a list of all the stuff you need to buy and how much it will cost. All I heard was Oh Kaboodle is so much cheaper than any other kitchen options, I don't know how much other kitchen options cost though. The below design has the stove against the side wall which wasn't really what we wanted. Also having the fridge in this spot kind of cuts off the kitchen from the rest of the L shaped Kitchen Dining Living area which could make it feel cramped.

          The below design has the stove on the left of the sink and the fridge on the right of the sink, with a kitchen island in the middle of the room. We are thinking that if we put the kitchen island on wheels then we can move it around as desired, over to the side of the kitchen if we want the central area clear. We would also love to have the island bench overhanging on one side so it can be sat at like a breakfast bar. The cupboard on the wall above the stove is designed to have a rangehood inserted in to the bottom so that it's hidden from sight.

          The below kitchen design is basically the same but with black doors and a few other additions. This design ended up costing about $3000.

        As we are off-grid the only viable option for a stove is a stand-alone gas stove, which we purchased from a local store. I have heard rumours about the government banning gas ovens for some reason, but still allowing gas cooktops, but these units are still available in certain stores (not Bunnings) so not sure what the real deal is there.

          We got the stove connected and were able to use it even though the rest of the kitchen wasn't ready. It made a lovely warm place to sit next to on a cold day - the closest thing we had to a heater!

 2021 November

Ok let's go back in the time machine - and remember when the plumber Steve came out for a day of work from Lismore and installed our plumbing rough-in. The photo below shows the kitchen - on the left is the gas pipe coming up ready to join to the gas stove, and on the right is the hot and cold water pipes coming up ready to join the kitchen sink. They are all copper pipes, and the green side is the hot water which is covered with a plastic layer which helps keep in insulated , the heat stays in while it travels from the hot water system.

The below photo shows the bathroom. On the left is the hot and cold pipes for the laundry tub, and hot and cold pipes for the washing machine. In the middle is the hot and cold pipes for the bathroom basin. On the right is the hot and cold pipes for the shower/bath. You can see they come in to the middle to a central mixer, then one goes up for the shower head and one goes down for the bath tap.

The below photo shows the copper pipes which run under the house. Sorry it's at such a crazy angle but it turns out it's really hard to take photos while lying under the house! You can see the green covered pipes from the hot water, and the copper pipes for the cold water and the gas.

We also got a tap put on the outside of the house, to attach a hose onto. Great for watering the garden!

An electric water pump was placed under the house, connecting the water from the stainless steel tank to all of these copper pipes. This pump is connected to the solar power. It was placed on a concrete slab that the plumber brought with him, put on top of a bed of gravel. The gravel was stuff we had left-over from the truckload we had delivered for the tank stand.

Below is the instant gas hot water system. We had to specify to the plumber that we needed an off-grid system, as he had only previously installed on-grid systems which need to be plugged into electricity to work. This one has a clever design with an inbuilt hydro-electric generator that lights the gas as soon as the hot water tap is turned on. Amazing! This saved us from having to get a special outdoor power point installed just for operating the gas hot water system. This hot water runs to the kitchen sink, bathroom basin, bathroom shower-bath combo, laundry tub and washing machine.

In the below photo you can see the two large gas bottles which have been installed, connected to the copper pipes for the gas. These bottles supply gas to both the gas hot water system and to the gas stove. They were placed onto pre-made concrete slabs which the plumber brought with him, settled onto a gravel base. The gas bottles were delivered by the local rural supply store at Tabulam. Thanks Mark!

In the below photo you see the gas stove connected to the gas, in the spot where it will live when the kitchen is finished. You can't see it in the pic as it's behind that cardboard, but there is also a drain outlet for the kitchen sink in the floor.

Below you can see the washing machine which is temporarily hooked up to the water inlet, which is behind it where you can't see. Also behind it is the outlet pipe which the waste water goes into, then into a drain pipe which takes the water away from the house.  We can wash laundry plugged into the solar power when it's a nice sunny day no problem, don't have to run the generator for that anymore! 

     On the right side of the pic you can see the drain outlet which will be used for the basin drain in the future. At this point the drain outlet for the bath/shower was not placed, as we needed to know exactly which bath we were getting before it could be put precisely in the right place. You can't quite see it in this pic but there is also a floor drain placed right in the  middle of the floor. 

     We did have a bit of problem for a while when the antechinus figured that it could climb up into the house by scampering up this drain hose, but we fixed it by shoving some aluminium mesh into the hole and that managed to keep it out. Naughty creatures!

          I can't remember exactly but I think the plumber cost around $4000, and the gas bottles were about $250 delivered.

 Jump to 2021 September and Josh put up solar panels! This photo shows the first bottom row of six panels which are 350W each, which - for those of you who don't know - is a very high ability to generate electricity per panel. Older solar panels will often be around 120W, so more than twice as powerful which means you need less panels on your roof for the same amount of electricity creation. The plan is for another row of 6 panels above this.

Then in November Josh's brother came for a visit and brought along some supports he'd made for attaching under the house. 10mm steel plates were welded to the house posts, then bolted to lengths of bar which attached to another piece on the other side with a turnbuckle in the middle for tightening. Unfortunately the weather was against us with constant rain and only a short window of time to do it in, but the boys managed to work out how to get it done just in time. These supports made a difference in the structural integrity of the house with immediate results. Thanks Ben!

 November 2020

     Then our water tank got delivered! Here it is on the back of the truck which was towing a trailer with more tanks. The company was in Brisbane so must have left pretty early in the morning to get our place by about 9am. They were called Select Tanks and were very easy to deal with in every way. The long vehicle wasn't able to go up our driveway, so he pulled over to the side of the road and dropped off the trailer, and then just drove the truck up our driveway.

     Josh says for the unloading of the tank, they laid down soft mats, rolled the tank down a ramp off the back of the truck, rolled it over to the tank stand and stood it up as it wasn't heavy. We had our friend come round to give a hand too. I was at work at the time, so by the time I got home it was already sitting happily on top of the tank stand that we had made. It's very shiny! We decided to get a stainless steel tank as we required either a metal or concrete tank for bushfire resistance. Most people around here just get plastic tanks are they are cheaper, but most of them melted in the bushfires we had 3 years ago and I saw a lot of people getting new plastic tanks to replace them, which seemed quite short-sighted. Also plastic carries risks of contaminating your drinking water with unhealthy chemicals.

    Concrete tanks are hard to find around here, and have a reputation for cracks. Regular metal tanks will rust out in not too many years and they have an inner lining of plastic anyway - not good for bushfires! So for only a slight increase in cost (I believe it was $4,400 including delivery), we decided on stainless steel which has the advantages of

- pure clean drinking water

-won't rust

-bushfire resistance

The corrugated sides of the tank match very nicely with the corrugations of the exterior of the house.

Attached to the tank is a 65mm storz fitting, which is a requirement for bushfire regulations. This means that a Rural Fire Service truck can easily attach their hose to our tank if they need to use our water to protect our place from bushfire. There is also a regular tap for easier access to the water.

     So that the empty tank didn't blow away we ordered a truck of water to be delivered. The tank is 22,000 litres so we ordered 10,000 litres. This was at the height of water shortages so there was quite a wait for people getting the water from the Casino council, but lots of companies to choose from.

Here's a pic of the inside of the tank after the water delivery!

 2020 March

     Here's Josh sanding down the filler in the gaps between the yellow-tongue flooring. As you can see there is a cord coming off this sanding tool which means that we would have had to run the generator to have electricity to run it.

Below you can see another one of the internal wall frames going up, all the pieces numbered and assembled according to the printed plans. This wall separates bedroom 1 from bedroom 2. You can see the Ryobi battery drill in this pic which  means that we didn't need to run the generator when screwing this wall together. Also in this pic is the rubber mallet, another important tool for persuading the pieces to go together when they are being a bit stubborn!

One of the interesting design details is the way the bottom of the door frame is part of the installed wall, and then you have to cut it out, otherwise you would trip over it. As you can see in the below pic, the piece has just been cut out but carefully so as not to cut the floor.

And there's another wall done.

Hmmm I have just realised that I have done this a bit out of order! But seem to have missed these so putting them up now anyway lol!