Ayres Rocks

We have the engineering back finally. I had to send it back and insist that some of the terminology used throughout the paperwork was inconsistent with what we were actually doing. A big thankyou to RCI for understanding my concerns and getting all the words in order.

Now we have all this, it’s time to send Darren at Wise Drafting Pty Ltd the engineering so he can complete the technical side of our drawings.

Once we have these back it is then off to a certifier. The certifier is the third party who checks all the drawings and engineering and signs off on them as complying with all relevant codes. We could have Council do this as part of the application, but by going the private route we remove any potential objections the council may have. Simply put – if the certifier says it’s all proper Council must send us an approval notice within 5 days of us lodging for this part of the application.

Once we have all this paperwork and it’s stamped and approved it’s again to Council for the third-last application we need to make on this journey. We still need to apply to Council to have them approve the waste water installation and issue a certificate of occupancy.

This phase has been long and drawn out with a lot of “traps for new players” we have come across despite researching as thoroughly as we did.

Would we do it again?– Yeah, I think we would. This process has cost us a around $4000 from the first chat we had with Darren and including the (yet to be done) certifier’s work. This is around $1500 more than if we had left it all to Council to make the decisions on. I feel we got more of “our way” with the end result since we have paid the professionals we used to deliver what we wanted. Council on the other hand are only obliged to approve what they feel is fitting with the development plan for the area, and I feel we would have been forced to heavily compromise the end result to satisfy that plan.

If you’re thinking of going the owner builder route and want to discuss with us just what we had ready at each stage of this process (and what we missed), or just want some general advice I’m always happy to offer what I can. Contact me via the information contained in the About section of this site.

To be honest it’s more like half a tree of copies of the plans we submitted sent back, signed by the council’s chief planner as being approved. We have been granted planning approval for the development!!!

All said and done it was 50 days between lodgement with a single round of clarifications and amendments, before we got the approval.

As we were all wide eyed and slack jawed with what needed to be done, I need to send out a big “thanks” to Aaron at the council who took on our case and was truly easy to deal with.

Now, we just need to get all the engineering paperwork back so we can get started on the building consent approval which covers the various building codes and so on we are required to adhere to.

Paramount Browns sold me a twin impeller 6.5HP fire fighting pump which we will use to (quickly at 250L per minute) fill the cartage tank from the neighbour’s rain water tanks. After the build it’ll be used as a firefighting pump and also to move water around from tank to tank on the property – $399

Garden City Plastics provided us with 2000 tags for the plant tubes so we don’t have to guess which is which – $78.26

Total spend is now at $221 128.40

We are now the proud parents of so many seedlings I honestly cannot even begin to count how many we have in the seedling trays at the moment. I’ve uploaded some pics of the little blighters to the flickr account and they are under the “Spring 09” set. We had been experimenting with the best was to get the most seedlings germinate from the same amount of seed, and it appears one method stands way out in front when we look at the trays now.

When we were looking for advice on how to start the seedlings, I can tell you everyone had a different way and suggestions of doing things. Here are some of the failures we experienced:
Planting into a tray prepared with half sand half potting mix – FAIL
Covering seed with a very fine layer of sand after sprinkling onto surface – FAIL
Planting individual seed into punnets – FAIL
Planting into straight native potting mix – FAIL

Other than the seed per punnet method, all of the failures were all planted at the same time from the same batch of seed using the same seed application method. We still had some seed shoot from all of these, however on the basis of results for cost and time involved they were miserable failures. A dozen seedlings in a tray is no comparison to 200-300 using what I will now call our best practise method.

The best practise method tray was planted by using an old spice mix jar with a shaker lid (like the McCormicks pre mixed spice rub jars). After filling the tray with pure propagating sand and wetting it to saturation, we mixed a quarter teaspoon of seeds with a half full jar of dried, sieved sand rolling it around rather than shaking it to evenly disperse the seed. By upending the jar and quickly moving it across the surface of the tray we got a fairly even dispersal of seeds, lightly covering them as well as spreading them evenly.

The tray was then watered using a spray pack until we were once again satisfied it was saturated, before moving it to the seedling greenhouses we have built. Daily watering to maintain that saturated state saw seed sprouting in under a week. Once it was clear which method was working best, we replicated this into another 20 trays. Most interesting is these trays had all sprouted before one of the FAIL methods even had a shoot showing.

Lodging paperwork with the council cost us $561.00

Plantmark supplied us with enough tree guards and stakes to support 1000 trees for $434.87

Total spend is now at $220 729.40

I hate being on a timescale controlled by other people. Again we find ourselves in limbo as we are waiting for approvals from council, awaiting engineering, awaiting quotes, awaiting final drawings and so on.

Meanwhile the weather in this part of the world is nothing short of magnificent as spring finally shows it is here to stay. With that in mind we have this week planted some 10 000 seeds of red gum and yellow gum, with 2 trays of red gum seedlings now finally beginning to grow well after we planted them in the cold of winter. With some luck and a lot of TLC these will be ready to go in the ground around the start of autumn, giving them a chance to establish before the bitter frosts of winter descend to that part of the world.

I’ve read a few forestry papers that indicate a plant a forget survival rate for these trees is around 80% to 85%. I’m figuring with some watering to establish them and some TLC with clearing pasture growth, fertilising and so on we should get that survival rate will into the 90% range.

It would be nice to think we could have enough saplings ready to plant out 5 hectares of land by autumn.

Ordered a few thousand more seeds from Austrahort Seed Merchants – $54.45

Saw the lovely girls at the local Officeworks and had them run off the required paper copies of the plans plus 2 tubes to safely transport them in – $27.40

Total spend now stands at $220 168.40

Holy cow. I think we’ve just killed and printed out a tree. 15 sheets of A2 paper is what was needed to satisfy the councils requirements for copies of our plans.

All forms are now filled, duplicates made and sorted awaiting an appointment with the council planning officer so we may get our planning application made and approved.

Fingers crossed 😀

It’s been rather quiet since our Ebay flurry 🙂 Doesn’t mean we haven’t been spending wads of cash though.

Professional fees this week came to a healthy – $1260

Total spend to date is now $220141.00

I was contacted by the seller less than 30 minutes after sending the nasty email I had crafted for them. The replacement parts for the concrete vibrator arrived via overnight courier this morning and I finally had a chance to assemble and run the unit. It is cheap, it feels cheap but I think it will last the 8 weeks we’re going to need it to survive.

It had an horrendous fuel leak, did not want to idle and needed so many adjustments to get it running properly it really is a joke it is advertised as a quality machine. What I’m really ticked off about though is I had to threaten the retailer to get them to act on the problem.

It goes to show though if you know your rights and are prepared to stand up for them things will work themselves out far more quickly than if you pussy foot around the issue.