Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Its a little weird really after all this time to look at the room and realise that we can use it for its intended purpose as our working studio. What is even stranger  is that it turned out exactly as planned.

We had finished the cupboards and knew that there was a lot of trim to be put up. Between the windows, above the windows, around the cupboards, skirting board. The list went on and on. After much thinking about what sort of trim and realising that there were small discrepancies that needed ironing out it appeared that a painted plywood trim might work. It could be planed here and there where necessary and be cut to suit easily.

A measure up and then off to Timber World in Meander to source some 12mm plywwod with a good face. they have a cutting service which was not expensive and saved alot of time. Don’t forget that you may need to allow for sanding if the cutting is a little rough and you see the edges like we do.

Much thought went into colour for the trim. Around the cupboards was easy. White, the same as the cupboards. Around the windows was not as easy to decide but eventually a little trickery was decided upon. As our internal doors had been tricked up with copper paint we thought that it would be fun to have the effect of rusting metal. Paints Plus at Invermay is our local Haymes paint store. Haymes are an Australian family owned paint company who have kept the multinationals at bay and have a good eco credential. They also make a rust effect paint as well as the copper one that we used previously.

You paint on two coats of this dark grey paint and then paint an oxidising patina onto it. With some experimentation we learnt how much to paint on. Nothing seems to happen and then after a few days you can see surface rust starting to appear.

The room looked great after I added the dark grey panels. A 5mm shadow gap was left at each join. I could only add the panels to the top half of the room as the floor had to be laid before finishing off.

When you are Owner Building it seems that time stretches, in the words of Buzz Lightyear “To Infinity and Beyond!!!” then folds in on itself, has a bout of hysterics and then tells you that your Owner Builder permit needs renewing.

Life it seems has a nasty habit of getting in the way of building. Does this mean that professional builders do not have lives I muse. Hmmmmm. Take for now for instance. Put my trusty Hiace van in for a much needed service and get told that it needs a new or reconditioned head. Bye bye $2000 ish or in other words the money for the Laundry and part of the kitchen. Or that other bit of life ….. work. Yep that is a necessity to pay the bills but it gets in the way of lifw/owner builder unbalance.

People do ask “Hows the house going?” as you see a macmansion pop up it seems very other week. Grrrrrrr through clenched teeth politely. I am now rambling.

On the plus side you do get a warm fuzzy feeling when the Building surveyor comes around and passes everything bar two minor things and you get a Certificate of Occupancy. That’s right we can legally occupy the house that we have occupied since we bought the place.

S.O.B.S or Slow Owner Builder Syndrome has  been borne out by at least two articles in Owner Builder Magazine that I can recall and probably more. One “Owner Builder Limbo” in issue no 142 Aug/Sept 2007 and the other more recent “Finding Zen in the process of Owner Building” issue 168, Dec/Jan 2012.

I do wonder how a house gets built at all somedays. On others things start to come together and projects get finished only leaving a million small unfinished things like wardrobe doors to be built, bathrooms not even started, Mosaics for the laundry splashbacks and that is without going near the garden. still there is satisfaction when you look back on what you have achieved. It is easy to forget what the place looked like when you moved in and what it does today. the other realisation with renovation is that you spend an awful long time taking things apart and cleaning them, stripping paint, denailing, storing them, measuring them, knowing that Murphy’s Law will say that a piece of timber will be just too short, narrow, or shallow.

So to allay Murphy and to keep it all in perspective I thought a slide show of now and then with a bit in the middle might help.

Research on the interweb soon found that on the mainland reasonably sized narrow, tall water tanks were easily available from a variety of sources. Here in Tasmania it was a slightly different story. There were 1000 litre tanks available as a slimline from most manufacturers but bigger than this the choices were much narrower.

The choice really only came down to one company Tankworld in Kings Meadows, Launceston. They had a 2500L or a 3000L slimline made by Nylex that would fit perfectly. In fact two 3oooL tanks would fit.

After talking with Tankworld they recommended a flat firm surface, preferably concrete. Our problem was that under the ground runs a sewer pipe and a stormwater pipe  and I really wanted to keep them accessible f possible with out having to dig up concrete.

The answer to purchase a number of large concrete slabs 900mm x 450mm that are normally used for putting hotwater services or gas cylinders. Thirteen of these were laid on top of crusher dust.

Water tank bed prepared

We ordered the tanks, removed a section of fence to get them in and voila water storage.

Water tanks in place

In the meantime research was done on what type of  pump to use. There are a number of devices that have the tank water enter one side and the mains pressure water the other. When it senses the tank water getting low it automatically swithces to mains pressure until the tank fills again.

Some of the companies that provide these are Davey (Rainbank), Grundfos (Pump Genie), Onga (water switch), and Bianco (rain saver).

We decided on the Bianco which comes as a package with a DAB pump which is a 577kpa 120lpm pump with a 2 year warranty on the pump and a 4 year warranty on the Rainsaver. It was purchased from The Pump Shop in Prospect.

DAB pump and Bianco Rainsaver

Now we had all the ingredients the hard part was finding a plumber that was willing to fit it all. Eventually we found Steve who did a fantastic job of laying a new line into the laundry, and to the garden taps, and plumbing all the tanks in and the stormwater in and out the overflows. When we had the plumbing inspected by Meander Valley Council the officer remarked on the thorough job that had been done.

Downpipes

Now when we flush the loo or water the garden we know that it is coming from the tanks and not the mains unless of course we run dry which is unlikely in Tassie.

I built a pump cover from left over Sandbank Colorbond and treated pine from  the old deck.

Pump cover and tanks

There are still first flush diverters and a pressure tank to fit. The pressure tank will help cut down the amount of time that the pump runs and thus wera and tear and electricity.

WHY NOT !!  It just makes sense.

Welcome to our GreenTas Reno, our blog that follows the renovation we are carrying out to our 1950′s weatherboard and tin roofed house in the village of Westbury, Tasmania, Australia. Here you will find information, links and pictures of our renovation as it progresses.

To see the latest updates check out THE BLURB!! in the Index or the archives. To find specific things make use of the search bar.

Use the Index on the left hand side to have a look at posts on each room, the exterior, and the garden as it progresses.

Subjects like hot water systems, roofing, solar , paints and finishes, and many other things that we are including in our renovation.

On the right hand side is the button that will take you to all the links that we have collected.

Below the links button are the  picture galleries of different projects as they progress.

Most important of all make sustainable changes to your house and the world reaps the benefit.

• Use sustainable or recycled products.
• Non toxic coatings on floors and walls
• Sensible insulation
• Solar power
• Alternative hot water systems
• Publications and websites that offer some of this information
• Introduce new technologies that help reduce waste in this wasteful world.
• Half the fun is in the challenge and hunt for these things.
• Spread the word about products that work or not in some cases.

 

To find out the reasons as to why we are doing what we are doing check out the “About Us” page

It is a cathedral ceiling with deep LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) rafters. The first thing to do was to insulate well. We used wool batts and used two layers of R2.5 as we had the depth to do so. This is an Australian product with 20% polyester added to help keep the wool fibres from flattening out. Easily available from Wedds in Launceston it is a wee bit more expensive than fibreglass but then there are no glass fibres floating in the atmosphere getting in your skin pores etc. Next I Volvoxed (hard wax oil that we use on the floors) the diagonal laminated beam.

Insulation being fitted

Insulation in

A couple of months later after helping with a friends ceiling it was time to do ours. Barry, Bart and myself worked on installing the VJ board. This was not the normal pine board as I found out that it was coming in from South America cheaper than Tassie could manufacture it!! What a crazy world. Instead I found that Timber World at Meander still had stocks of EcoAsh VJ boards. This is hardwood from Tasmania that was a product created by Forest Enterprises Australia who also made the EcoAsh studs that I used in the extension. Unfortunately they have gone out of business and you have to use pine or much more expensive hardwood.

Ceiling installed

Anyway the tongue and groove was ordered and arrived. I went through it and sent 80 boards back as they were not up to scratch. This was no problem and the replacements were in much better order.

Work commenced on the weekend and went quite quickly with the use of an air bradder. Mandy and I would then carry on on the Monday as the lengths got shorter and more manageable.

Once installed we looked around for what to treat it with. We wanted the natural look of the timber but wanted a natural product. The one we decided to use was EcoWoodOil’s Danish Oil. This was the only one that I could find that did NOT have polyurethane added.

It was easy to apply and really brought the colour of the timber out.

Danish oiling the ceiling

Finally we called in the electrician and fitted the 6 lampshades and CFL 150W equivalent floodlights. these are made by Philips and are only 23watts instead of their incandescent 150watt equivalent. They take a little time to warm up but they work well. We have two pairs in cold white for working and one pair in warm white for ambience.

Ceiling finished with lights fitted

Finally we added the trim along diagonal laminated hardwood beam

Enter Lee, a neighbour of ours who created our gabion and old paling fence. He gave the view that the steps should have a curve or fan to them and get away from the straight lines that the extension is all about.

After much discussion it was decided that the whole extension needs anchoring with materials that are weighty in look and organic in feel. To meld in with the fence in fact. Sleepers and stone, recycled materials and natural local rock. Fanning out from a cylindrical gabion.

Lee starting the steps

Lee got to work with heavy duty galvanised angle and railway sleepers, creating a three tread step on the eastern side and a four tread step on the northern side.

Galvanised angle framework

These were surrounded with mesh and some old fibreglass roofing, then filled with 20mm blue metal. The completed steps look like they belong and are a great size to have planter pots on them and still have room to walk up and down.

gabion cage and steps unfilled

finished northern end steps

Finished Eastern end steps

Work is now progressing on a gabion deck surround to tie in the steps and the extension.

Back in May I started part one of the journey or our deck and that we had decided to purchase a Wood Plastic Composite decking product called Futurewood.

Finally in September after much angst and mucking about I managed to finish our deck. The supplier on the mainland (Australia) was great but there were much hiccups in getting it across the Bass Strait to here in Tasmania. Not happy, but eventually after much shouting down telephones and hammering keyboards the product was delivered to Westbury.

Futurewood WPC decking

Now I have never laid a deck before in my life so it was with some trepidation that I started. Downloaded the 9 page instruction booklet for futurewood fixing and read it through a few times. The recommendation was that long runs be broken up with what is known as breaker boards which are boards running at 90 degrees to the deck. I had allowed for these in the realignment of all the joists. More steel top hats were added in where these breaker boards were to be situated. Two breaker boards were duly cut to length and glued down. Masonite spacers were used to get an even gap between the breaker boards and the decking planks. The T shaped spacers screwed down to the steel tophats creating an even spaced deck.

First part of deck

The first part went well and looked ok. The next part was the area in front of the back doors. I did this in three stages, lining up the first stage with the ones that I had already laid, then infilling the part in front of the door and finally the small area where the steps are eventually to go.

Back door area

The next stage was the last run on the east side, a long run of approx 4 meters. Originally this was set up for a 45 degree mitre at the corner but it became clear that this would not work as the north end was narrower than the east side and an equal matching of boards would be very difficult. I took apart all the c section and top hats and rebuilt it to take a straight run. During this rebuild I realised that the C section was not exactly square and the top hats needed extending past the C section to create an area that was the same measurement in depth as the other areas I had just decked. Many blue words later I sorted it all out. What it taught me was not to assume that anything is square or where it should be.

Last part of east side of deck

Finishing off east side

The North side was easier to do and the hours spent working out cutting lists etc paid off with two whole boards left over and enough short lengths to create a ramp later on.

What did I discover?

• The product is a little softer than I expected and scratched a little easier.
• I ended up checking the width of each board as I found one I had fitted was slightly wider and this threw out the line of the deck. Only two boards were wider and I used these as breaker boards or at the back of the deck against the house where I had to rip them down anyway.
• There were 750 spacers/fixing units used
• The instructions did say that it would fade and it has
• It cleans very easily
• All in all we are very happy with the product.

Finished deck

And just to remind people of what was there when we moved in!!

Original deck

The original fence

We could have just got a new paling fence or a colorbond monstrosity but as the fence detoriated I asked my mate Lee if he had any ideas about creating a fence using gabions. Lee is a lateral thinker. I was thinking about square gabions (gabions are mesh wire cages filled with rock, mostly used for large retaining walls). In true Lee style he asked me over to his place and showed me a cylindrical gabion column supported by two character filled railway sleepers.

Now this was a while ago. I like the way the column looked, the stone came from a local quarry, and the whole thing looked like it had been there for ever.

The old fence was removed and the best of the palings kept. We removed the galvanised posts that had help up the old fence and replaced them with 3 lots of sleepers in pairs set in concrete.

Sleepers concreted in

Months passed and I finally got around to ordering some more of the local stone. It had to be over 50mm in diameter so it did not fall out of the holes in the mesh. We were using chain link fence as I had some donated to me. Lee worked out that we could reweave the fence to make a complete cylinder with no joins. This was held in place between the railway sleepers with short lengths of star picket screwed in with fencing screws.

The slow task of filling the cylinders with rocks started. We had to sort the rock on the pile so that the too small stuff was left behind for another day and hand fill. Eventually the three cylinders were filled.

Gabions filled with rock

Hardwood studs that had been taken out of the house were used as new rails and then the old fence palings were renailed but upside down so the ragged ends that had been in the ground were uppermost.

Using the old palings

Three old sleepers were laid on the ground between the gabions and the garden behind reinstated. The result a fence that looks like it has been there forever. The rock is quite dirty at the moment but every time it rains it washes a little  more off.

The new old fence ticks all our boxes. it is unique, uses recycled materials, the stone came from very close by, and it looks great!.

The finished old new fence

Sunday SEPTEMBER 11th 10.00am – 4.00pm

Its that time of year again. Sustainable House Day. The third year for us in Northern Tassie and the tenth year of the whole event.

Sustainable House Day is a wonderful chance to see sustainable living in action. Talk to the householders about the way that they have gone about making their homes sustainable. Ask what is working and what doesn’t work.

This year we have thirteen locations open in Northern Tasmania with a wide variety of houses opening their doors to visitors. If you wish to find out where the houses are www.sustainablehouseday.com is the place to go to and see where any of the 200 plus houses are around Australia. If you are in Northern Tasmania then you will be able to pick up a map from The Building Selection Centre, York St, Launceston; Meander Valley Council, Westbury; West Tamar Council, Riverside; Kentish Council, Sheffield; The Wilderness Shop, Launceston; or Deloraine Visitors Centre, Emu Bay Road, Deloraine. Or download a pdf version here map a4

The thirteen locations are spread between Sheffield, Gowrie Park, Jackys Marsh, Meander, Deloraine, Quamby Brook, Westbury, Riverside, and Holwell.

On the day, Sunday 11th September, houses will be open from 10.00am to 4.00pm. They will be clearly signposted in there local areas. Look for the balloons!!

Some of the areas of interest this year are strawbale and cob homes being built, water turbine for power, double glazing, steel framed housing, non toxic finishes, off grid and grid connect solar, led lighting, to name just a few.

Sustainable House Day an initiative of  the Australian Solar Energy Society  and is run by SHMECO at a national level, and by community groups at local level. The Northern Tasmanian event is run by the Friends of Jackeys Marsh Inc who have a fantastic Forest Festival every two years. The next one is in early 2012.Our event is run by volunteers including the householders who open their doors to the visiting public.

Last year we had over 200 people visit 8 different locations in Northern Tasmania. This year we are hoping for more as people are definitely wanting to learn more about sustainable living.

Northern Tasmania SHD would not be able to operate without our sponsors and local council

LOCAL COUNCIL

Meander Valley Council

GOLD SPONSOR

Bio Distributors, Sheffield, Tasmania

SILVER SPONSORS

Lateral Building Design, Invermay, Tasmania

Innovative design solutions.

 Home Efficiency Group

 ”Comfort and Energy Savings”

1300 96 80 60 or see our display at the Home Ideas Centre, 262 York Street, Launceston TAS 7250 

 Insulation, Ducted Air Transfer Systems, Condensation Control Systems and Solar Roof Heat Recovery.

Living Energy Design, Invermay, Tasmania

LED Lighting Specialists

Building Selection Centre, 262 York Street, Launceston TAS 7250 

Bronze Sponsor

Middle Earth Construction, Evandale, Tasmania

Strawbale construction.