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!

 March 2020

We continued with the internal framework of the house, using the steel pieces which were pre-cut, pre-drilled and numbered so easy enough to place in the right order according to the plans, and screw together. The bedrooms have built-in wardrobes with their own steel framing.

And the sides...

Then we stood the frames up and screwed them in place, may have required some banging with a rubber mallets and a few select words to get them to sit right!

Other exciting things that happened this month was that I got a part-time job, and that COVID hit. Not that COVID restrictions actually affected us much as we live like hermits by choice as much as we can anyway.

April 2020 - Our little house looking lush in the rainy season. You can see the plywood on the left of the house and on the verandah, ready for the next step.

Which was the laying of a thin (7mm) plywood floor over the top of the yellow-tongue floor, with a blue underfloor layer which you can see in the back far right. We had help from family with this, so thanks so much to Ben for all your hard work! Again!

The photo below shows some of the tricky cuts of the plywood floor to fit around some of the steel framing.

Here is Josh using a tape measure to ensure he is screwing down into the right places, missing the screws from the previous layer of yellow-tongue.

Then I had a go at levelling some of the joins between the sheets of plywood, as there was the occasional height gap of a few mm. I tried using the Ryobi battery-powered planer but it didn't work too well as it just chipped pieces off the top layer of the plywood. More effective was the Ryobi battery-powered sander, so I managed to make it flat enough to remove any trip hazards.

Then we were busy during the cooler months of the years collecting wood to keep warm in our wood stove in the shed, so nothing much happened until

October 2020 - we had the delivery of our stainless steel water tank arranged, and made a tank stand ready for it. First we made a perfect circle the right size marked out with rocks (never a shortage of rocks on this property!)

Then inside the rock circle we added a layer of metal mesh lined with shadecloth...

Designed to be strong enough yet thin enough to hold the gravel in place, with the benefit of being able to drain rainwater.

And had a delivery of gravel poured into it - here's Josh guiding the truck sluice around the circle to get a more even spread.

In the end it was more gravel than we needed (which is good) so we shovelled off the excess and have it ready to use for other projects.

The frustrating thing with gravel is that it is about $50 worth in itself but then you have to pay a few hundred dollars for delivery - definitely can't fit it into the back of a hatchback! All worth it in the end.