Week Five

The rendering is finished at our Barwite job, and the internal fit-out is almost done. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets are done, all the architraves and skirting boards are finished, as well as the plumbing and electrical fit-off.

The owner is very proud of this house, and justifiably so – she’s gone along the path of eco-friendly sustainability as much as she could with a high-tech solar hot water service, hydronic (hot water) heating in the slab run from a solid – fuel stove in the kitchen, and, of course strawbale external walls.

It really is a lovely little house over-looking the Broken River, it has a great ‘feel’ to it, and will serve the owner and her family well for years to come. Congratulations Nicky, you’ve done a fantastic job.

And so to our next project, which is just 10 km or so away on the other side of Mansfield, in Ogilvies road, and we’ll be starting that one immediately after the Easter break.

This is another very exciting job as Stephen  and Fiona have been planning this for quite a while, and have gone to an enormous effort to make sure it fulfils all their ‘green’ requirements.

Local gossip has it that the builder Matt Kirley is ‘pumped’ about this house, and judging by the speed that the frame has gone up, I’d say he is!!

The owners are jumping out of their skin with excitement too, and who can blame them? With half an ounce of luck, we’ll be able to up-load some photographs to the blog when we start, and you’ll hear from us then,

Bye for now,

Mark

Week Four

It’s summer again!! The days have been up around the low 30’s, but the mornings are cool and clear.

The rendering on our project is finished internally and the fit-out is proceeding perfectly – all the face-plates for the electrical switches and plugs fit flat and neat on the render, and the skirting boards look great.

Speaking of electrical, Stephen Bolitho is the electrician on the Barwite job, and he’s also our next client. Stephen and Fiona’s slab has just been poured, and a gang of chippies are starting the frame this coming week – exciting stuff! Matt Kirley, the builder on the Stephen and Fiona’s job, says the frame should be up and the roof on by the end of the month, weather permitting. Even though it’s a 30 square house, it’s amazing what can be achieved by a gang of switched-on chippies and a few weeks of good weather.

While we are on the subject of good tradies, Stephen Bolitho and Matt Kirley are going to among the first people on our list of strawbale friendly tradespeople – provided it can be done fairly easily, we’re planning to list the names, contact details and web links (if any) of all the tradies we meet on each job who are enthusiastic, honest, hardworking and ‘green’ technology friendly. This will be a list that we can email to anyone who requests it. Eventually this will build up into a pretty comprehensive list of people, covering all the trades required for domestic and commercial building all over the state of Victoria, and further afield if possible!!

Anyway, back to Barwite – the render on the outside is going full steam-ahead this week, starting on the tallest wall (about 4 1/2 metres x 3 metres) facing north, and heading clockwise (from above) to the west-facing wall. We’ve got a fair gang of volunteer labour this week, and so we’re hoping to have the external render pretty close to finished by the end of this coming week.

As usual, I’m seriously pressed for time this weekend and so will have to leave it there.

Hooroo, Mark.

Week 3

Summer is over, and Autumn’s beginning, which is a beautiful time of year in the high country. We had just a dusting of snow on top of Mount Buller (3kms or so from Mansfield), and a distinct chill in the air in Barwite.

As I mentioned last week, the rendering is in full swing, with the top coat almost finished internally. The plaster sheeters have been and gone, and the plumbing and electrical fit-offs start next week.

So far we’ve had a few prospective clients come and look through the house, and they’ve all been quite impressed with the neatness of the finish. The render meets the plaster-board on the internal walls very neatly, the curves around the windows are fairly tight and uniform, and the skirting boards sit tightly against the bottom 100mm or so of render, meaning a minimum of gapfilling before painting.

As the builder hasn’t provided a timber render-stop at the tops of the walls, it remains to be seen how the ceilings will meet the render, but I’m fairly confident we’ve done a good enough job to ensure a decent finish.

The ceilings are corrugated iron in-fill between exposed oregon rafters, and the builder reckons plaster cornice will be used to finish off between the render and the corrugated iron. I’m not entirely sure how this will look, but at the very least, should make up for any unevenness in the tops of the walls.

I’m running late this week juggling working away, family and life commitments so I will be off until next week,

Hooroo