Solar System

2023 February 

    Installing a solar system is pretty complicated, so Josh did a lot of research to make sure that everything was safe and legal. First we needed somewhere under the house to put the connectors that come out of the batteries, and turn the power into something useable. Here is the metal box which has been attached under the house, ready for installing the inverter and other associated paraphernalia. This box is actually a gun safe from Bunnings, as it was a reasonably priced and suitable sized metal box which was readily available. Hanging down in front of it you can see the wiring that the electrician put in during the electricity rough-in. It was placed here ready for connecting to the solar system in June 2022. This would sit and wait for a while before more action happened to it.

     Josh continued putting up the plywood walls and the kitchen looked pretty good. I was working on filling the gaps on the walls as Josh was working on putting up more walls.

     We discovered some of the trickier parts of this material. It didn't like to lay perfectly flat and some sheets stuck out from the sheet next to it by quite a few millimetres.

It was time to try and find a good wood filler. I wanted something that was able to be sanded and painted, but was also had a bit of flexibility in it so that it wouldn't crack when the wood moved. This was one of the products I tried. Also I was hoping that it would be easy to apply into tricky places. This product was very light, as it seemed to have been whipped with lots of air like a mousse. I didn't like it enough to buy it again, especially at nearly $15 for a pretty small amount.

Another product we tried was Spakfilla. It was $12 for a much larger amount. They say on the pack that if it gets a bit hard you can just add a bit of water to get it soft again, which really doesn't seem like something that you want to be having in your walls.

Every screw hole needed to be filled, and they looked like this before filling. They had to be cleaned up of all the splinters around them before filling, so I used a stanley knife or a sander to get them neat and tidy. Also the ones that weren't quite deep enough had to be screwed in a bit further, so I pulled out the drill for that.

And they looked like this after filling. You can see in this shot that I have been sanding the joins between sheets to try and make them flat. This was difficult as the plywood has such thin layers that when sanded, it revealed the layer below it. I had already learned this when sanding the plywood laid down for the floors. Also the plywood would flex when the sander was pressed on it, and then bulge back out when the sander was removed, so it was impossible to get flat joins. Ah well.

This wall alone would have taken a few hours to fill all the holes and the gaps. Easy enough until I had to be crawling around on the floor for the bottom ones, and then up and down the step ladder to reach the top ones, and trying to remember to take everything that I needed with me each time I went up, including knife and drill if needed. For application I tried the spakfilla tool which is a plastic rectangle, and also a flexible knife. Each had its own advantages and disadvantages.

 Then I sanded off the filler to try and make the wall lovely and smooth. I wasn't happy with this product which refused to sand down to a thin layer, instead just removing itself from the area completely and revealing the screw once it was sanded down a little bit. I think it was the Nordsjo expensive mousse one.

Time to try yet another product. This polyfilla was about $17 from Bunnings, but the pack in this picture is an old one I found somewhere.

This wall corner looked a bit of a mess after I tried to fill it in nice and smooth.

Here's an example of a tricky corner join I was filling. It was difficult to fill such narrow gaps and took ages for each section.

I went back and tried again the method of mixing sawdust with wood glue as a filler. It was not very good as it had a lot of shrinkage and then dried very hard and was extremely difficult to sand.

Here is yet another product I tried in the elusive search for a good wood filler.

Here is a pic of me from July 2023 with the sander, continuing to work on the walls a bit more each day.

Yet another product being tested. I mustn't have liked it because I didn't buy it again.

Wait there's more. No I didn't like this one either.

I had added some more safety equipment for the heavy duty sanding, I didn't want to breathing in the plywood or the filler.

My favourite wood filling product by far was the Polyfilla Large Cracks, I even went back and bought a few more of these they were so good. So by my count I tried 8 different fillers before deciding on a good one.

Next time we will be putting up the first ceiling, in May 2023.

 2022 October - Screwing up the Internal Plywood Walls

          Wham bam screw the plywood to the frame, easy peasy! Well, no, unfortunately not. The plywood is 1200mm wide and 2400mm long. The framing widths are - well I measured 10 different widths and then I stopped measuring. Suffice to say that the framing is very random and not designed for easy installation of internal wall panels. So we had to decide whether it was more trouble to cut every single piece of plywood to size to fit the framing, or to install extra framing in the right spot for each sheet to remain whole.

          We had some spare metal ceiling battens so Josh had a go at cutting them to size, screwing them to the framing and and then attaching the plywood. The below image is the back side of the wall.

          This wasn't really ideal as there was too much flex in the plywood joins. There was some further experimentation with wooden battens but nothing was really working. We really didn't know how much support the plywood would need, and could only learn from testing various ideas. 

        There is almost no information online about using plywood as a wall material. Everyone assumes that all buildings are a) timber framing and b) gyprock sheeting. We didn't want gyprock or cement board as it just gets holes in it too easily. I think it's a stupid building material and I don't know why it is so popular. Maybe it is to keep the handymen in a job as they are constantly fixing it when it breaks. Also we didn't want the hassle of doing all the plastering over the top. Such a waste of time, money and energy when you can just screw up a plywood sheet and then paint it. You need special tools to install gyp, and it costs more money in the long run. 

        Eventually the decision was made to cut every single piece of plywood to size to fit the wall framing. The plywood just had too much bend in it and needed a lot of support. This meant that there was a lot of skinny bits of plywood offcuts. Some of these would be wide enough to be used somewhere else but not all of them. This might mean that the calculations of how much plywood was needed will be off. Oh well.

Below is the bedroom wall with 4 sheets across. There is still a gap across the top that needs filling too.

Next was the living room wall.

Then November rolled around and it was time to start breaking out the insulation. Below you can see the wall behind the insulation is done up until the ceiling battens, And this means that there is insulation installed in the cavity behind the plywood. This sounds easy enough but required a lot of setting everything up to be covered in sheets before starting work to try and reduce the amount of itchy insulation getting on everything. Also in this pic you can see the wall on the right is now finished all the way up to the ceiling. I don't have any pics of the insulation up before the plywood was screwed on because I was avoiding the whole area while Josh was working to try and keep those itchy fibres from getting on me, so you'll just have to imagine it.

Below is the second bedroom, with both the walls on the left and the back having insulation placed inside them.

And below is the two walls on the outside of the bathroom.

Then December rolled around, and the living room walls continued.

In the background of this photo below taken in January of 2023 (of a special visit from an old friend) you can see the kitchen wall done on the left and the living room wall finished to the right.

Next update will be documenting 2023 February, when the solar installation is upgraded.

 Delivery of plywood and insulation

        Ok let's time travel back to 2022... In September we finally had our delivery of insulation and plywood for internal wall cladding.

    We wanted to get insulation that was
*not itchy

*not expensive

*available locally

*made from environmentally friendly materials eg. recycled

*Not toxic to humans

        After extensive research of all the available options, the best decision was definitely Earthwool, as it was available from Bunnings, a good price and made from 80% recycled glass. Also apparently it doesn't make you itchy. But there was a problem - it was impossible to buy. For one thing, Covid had destroyed supply chains. Also, something about a fire at the Earthwool factory in Asia meant that we could not even special order it from Bunnings. There was none available in Australia apparently. And none coming in the foreseeable future. 

          The Bunnings at Lismore said they get their stock from Queensland so they suggested we try the Bunnings at Grafton who get their stock from Sydney, but still there was none available. And geez it's hard to get someone from Bunnings to answer the phone, it just rings out most of the time. And you can't just pop into the store when it's an hour and half drive to Lismore EACH WAY and 2 1/2 hours to Grafton EACH WAY. That's lot of petrol money and an entire day wasted! So we had to work out another product.

        After contacting all the local suppliers the only option was Pink Batts. Definitely not ideal because they are super-itchy, though they are still made from 80% of recycled glass and bio-soluble. This means that any inhaled fibres will dissolve in your lungs and hopefully won't cause bad things to happen to your body.

        For the walls we got R2.0, which is a number which measures the insulating value. We couldn't go higher than this as that is the maximum which fits in our wall width of 7cm. This R value meant that we met the official government requirements for the insulating quality of our house. 18 bags for $60 each was $1000. For the ceilings we got R3.5, which is 17.5cm thick. There is plenty of room in the ceiling so no need to worry about it being too thick. 8 bags for $67 each was about $500.

        As for the plywood, we ordered 7mm for the walls of most of the house. CD Non structural Warrior at just under $50 each for 75 sheets was about $3,500. Each sheet was 2400 x 1200mm. For the bathroom we got Marine ply at 9mm thick, 11 sheets for $114 was about $1,200. They called it DesignerPly Hardwood, whatever that means. Each sheet was 2440 x 1200mm according to the order form, but I think the marine ply was actually a little wider than that.

        So we ordered all of the 2 types of insulation and 2 types of plywood from the one local place as it was simpler, and also as they offered delivery. You can't get delivery from Bunnings without paying hundreds of dollars. This stuff was definitely not fitting in the back of my hatchback! We actually had to wait over 5 weeks after ordering, as the local hardware and timber store were themselves waiting for a delivery from their supplier before they had enough of the right stock for our order. The delivery fee was $66 which is fair considering it was about a 2 hour drive round trip for them, and a while for loading and unloading of the heavy items.

        Finally delivery day rolled around and we asked our wonderful friend to come over and help lift off these sheets. The smaller sheets were about 13kg each, and the larger sheets were nearly 20kg each, which I think is pretty heavy but Josh doesn't think so apparently. I would have loved to be able to help carry them but had to recognise my physical limits so I didn't damage my body. The delivery driver was an old guy who couldn't help carry anything either which was unfortunate. Me and the driver had a chat while the boys were unloading, and oh boy, I could tell he was a Barnaby Joyce voter. That's what they are all like in Tenterfield! He had a young guy as an offsider who was lovely and worked very hard unloading, poor thing had to stop for a drink partway through as it had turned into a bit of a hot day and he was bright red in the face. So I appreciated very much all the work he was doing for us.

        Above is the pile of 7mm plywood, and below is the separate pile of marine ply.

         Then we had a bit of problem when the truck tried to leave, as the driver didn't listen to us when we told him not to back too far down towards the house as it was quite slippery and wet. So of course the truck's tyres were just spinning in the mud. Luckily our wonderful friend had his 4wd ute and was able to give the truck a bit of a pull to get it out. Between the lot of them it turned out that Josh had to be in charge and tell them all where to drive - even though he didn't even have his driver's licence at this point!

     Anyway it was a good day in all, and great to finally have the materials we needed to continue on with finishing the internals of our house. Here's the total of the costs, not including the screws which will be needed to attach to plywood to the walls.

$1000

$500

$3,500

$1,200

equals $6,200

Considering I earn $500 a week that's over 3 months wages!

Filling Gaps

2022 August

As part of the building requirements for our house, we had to meet bushfire standards. We fulfilled most of these simply by having metal cladding on the outside of the house, but another rule to meet Bushfire Attack Level (BAL) 29 was that there is not allowed to be any gaps smaller than 2mm. This is so that in the event of a bushfire, embers blown by the wind won't be able to get into the house and start a fire. It's a great rule! Many houses burn down because of accumulated dried leaves which are lit by flying embers, so it's best to keep them all out as much as possible.

     We have had to be very inventive as there are very few products available to fill some of the trickier gaps, such as the gap under every single wave of the corrugated iron. This is where the roofing sheets are screwed to the battens. This is a very difficult area to access as you cannot get to it from the outside due to the gutter being in the way. From the inside it's also very difficult to get to as the roof finishes around 400mm from the edge of the house. The best solution we came up with was using roofing silicone to fill all those pesky holes. It was tricky to convince this somewhat runny product to stay upright enough to fill these gaps, but I figured out a few techniques to get it done. So I climbed up the ladder with the caulking gun loaded, stuck my arms into the gaps and did the best I could.

     It was a very time consuming job, and my hands got tired from squeezing the caulking gun at an awkward angle so I could only do a section at a time. The gap was so narrow that my elbow would get stuck if I didn't have it bent exactly the right way to be able to pull it out again! I had to remind my claustrophobia not to panic, especially while balanced on a ladder lol.

     I tested out all the different types of silicone and found that the clear one was the best. Something about the white one made it a completely different texture. Hopefully these will last quite a while, as they are meant to be UV resistant. This will also keep leaves, dust and rain from going inside our eaves, not to mention any birds or insects which might want to make nests in there.

     Unfortunately the gaps above the windows could not be accessed from inside, and could not be siliconed from outside, so I had to come up with another solution.

     We purchased aluminium flashing from Bunnings, and I placed a sheet of Colorbond on it and drew a line with a permanent marker. Then I cut out this line with a pair of tin snips.

     This aluminium flashing is very easy to work with, basically like alfoil but thicker. It wasn't the most perfect fit when I shoved it in, as I literally could not see what I was doing but oh well, better than nothing.

     Also this month was our council building inspection for the frames of the house. This was our first inspection since the holes for the footings. Our council inspector is very nice, and helpfully pointed out a couple of things that we should do, but overall was very happy with our work. What a relief after all the effort we've put in to do things right!

     One problem we had to fix was that the copper pipes for the plumbing was directly touching our metal floor supports and metal cladding The plumber was so used to working with houses which have wooden support beams and cladding that he didn't realise that the two metals touching together would create a reaction that leads to corrosion. In fact the corrosion had already started happening in one place! It was an easy enough fix, I just got an old bicycle tube and chopped it into pieces, unscrewed each screw enough to fit it under, and shoved the rubber in and then screwed the screw back in. 

     It meant another day of grubbing around under the house, and sore muscles in very strange places. It's funny how used we get to gravity being a certain way up!

     The building inspector also wanted some more screws WITH A WASHER (apparently makes all the difference) in the edges of the walls where it met the floor, and near doorways, so that was another easy fix.

He also said that the internal framing needed one more bracket for support as per the plans, so Josh bought something suitable from Bunnings and screwed it up.

     Next month - figuring out how to attach the ends of the ceiling battens, and delivery of the insulation and plywood internal cladding.

More Solar Panels and Electrician Rough-In

 2022 May

     Finally we were ready to attach the second row of solar panels to the roof. Josh had constructed special racks to the right size and placement and with little screw-on holder things. 

     We only had to get the panels onto the roof.

     Each panel measured 1070 by 840 mm and weighed about 10kg. 'Only' 10kg says Josh. Well I think that 10 kg is pretty heavy! Anyway between Josh on the roof and me at the bottom of the ladder we got them up there, and I only blew out my knee once (still ruined 2 years later as I write this). A reminder to everyone to try and do things the easy way and don't push your body too far no matter what other people say.

     Josh installed all those proper electricity things like breaker switches and whatnot, not my area of expertise! With double the solar panels we now had extra electricity production.

     Then in June we had the electrician come and do the wiring rough-in for the house. This meant running all the wires inside the walls ready for lights, light switches, fans, smoke alarm and power points. First we had to decide how many power points we wanted, and where they were going to go exactly. I didn't want them low down on the wall so that I would have to bend over every time I wanted to plug something in, so we decided to have them about 900mm high. Of course we wanted lots of power points but keeping in mind the cost we didn't want to spend a stupid amount of money, because the electrician was charging us a certain amount for each one.

     We also decided to get BLACK light switches and power points. The electrician wasn't actually sure if they were available but he looked it up and yep, only slightly more expensive but so classy. It would go with all the other black design elements that we wanted to incorporate. White, or even worse beige, now seems so ugly to think about! The electrician brought his teenage son who is his apprentice, and they listened to what we wanted and we made a plan for the circuits. At the end of it all there was a spaghetti of wire going in and out of random holes all over the house.

     It was all a lot more complicated than it seems at first thought.

     With all the wire in place that now means the insulation could be put in the walls, and the plywood internal cladding screwed up. The electrician said Josh could cut the holes in the plywood for the plugs and switches, and then he could just screw the powerpoints straight onto the plywood. He was a bit confused because most houses have gyprock walls which require a metal frame to be screwed to the wall first before the powerpoint can be attached. We are certainly doing things a bit differently!