Ayres Rocks

Darren delivered our final draft of the plans today, working in the cut for the slab and the resultant levels around the house it looks to sit very nicely into the spot we selected as the housing site.

It’s big though, overall the development pocket is 13.2 metres deep and 47.5 metres wide with 3 levels across the width to allow for the fall away in the block. The house itself is 30×9.6 metres. In that space we have 5 bedrooms, craft/hobby room, pantry/store room, laundry, 3 way bathroom and an ensuite with a very generous walk in robe.

Each bedroom is a minimum of 4.2×3.6 metres, allowing for the kids to have their own pesonal space as we only have 1 large open plan communal family area. This area is 10.5×9 metres and includes the kitchen, dining and lounge area as one space.

Adjacent to this is a 9×9 metre verandah/outdoor room. We are tossing up whether to deck or pave this area, paving being a better option for a bushfire zone, decking is the nicer option for living with. This outdoor room spans across to the shed, with a 6.6×6 metre car parking space and a 6.6×3.6 metre workshop area for me.

Total roof area is 576 metres give or take a few pieces. With last years drought record low rainfall this will still allow us to catch some 200 000 litres of rain per year, more than enough for household, animal and garden usage.

Well it is and it isn’t. Right now there is lots of mental gymnastics a goin’ on as we grapple with just how we are going to stage our build.

With the block 50 kilometers and a good hours’ drive through windy hills roads with one of our 4WDs (being diesel we refer to them as old and new truck) and trailers loaded with tools and materials, what we don’t want to be doing is coming back and forth any more often than is absolutely necessary. This means that everything is needing to be staged so that maximum work is done for minimum travel time.

One of our neighbours has been exceptionally generous and given us use of a large unused (and lockable) shed on their property so each trip we take now has something of low value but great importance in the back of the old truck or trailer. This also means that each trip back to town will only need tools packed into a trailer and the trailer backed into the shed and locked away before heading back to town.

We’re also running through the budget, inking in costs where once was pencil as things become clearer, confirmed or quoted.  It’s scary to see just how many invoices will need to be paid and how quickly quickly money needs to flow from us to others. I guess this side of the journey isn’t seen when you pay a builder $X dollars for your look alike project house in the ‘burbs.

I had a very large piece of MDF in front of me the other day with a flow chart on it representing each little thing that needs to happen before the next. It is becoming very apparent that the smallest hiccup in timing from an external source is going to create a hell of a disruption to the build schedule.

Still, it’s not all about the destination, the journey is almost as important to us.

$1430 to RCI Engineering who we have contracted for soil and percolation tests as well as the footing designs for the house and shed.

$800 to Weber Frankiw and Associates for the contour survey .

This brings our spend to date to $216 790.10

Had the chaps from Weber Frankiw and Associates do the contour survey of the house site and up to the access road and proposed driveway this morning. The job was quoted as “$800 tops”. Not sure on the exact cost as yet and I’ll certainly post it once I have the account to pay. 

For those thinking this is rather expensive for a survey, they covered an area of 300 metres across the road frontage and then a pocket of around 80 by 80 metres around the house site and over the proposed driveway and septic tanks sites.

Darren from Wise Drafting Pty Ltd has emailed over the first draft of the plans based on our sketches of what it is we want. He has adapted all the dimensions to suit the poured earth blocks we’ll be using and balanced the window and door positioning to give a visually appealing symmetry to the “front” of the house – because of the view and predominant weather patterns, the front of our house is facing East so as you approach from the road you see the “back” of the house.

There is a nifty variation on the 3 way bathroom he has come up with that we think flows well, and with a minor variation to the ensuite we think he’s nailed that as well. It’s nice to see a sketch become a plan that will later become the actual house.

This week I need to organise the contour survey from the road down past the building envelope to assist the council in deciding if we can build in the spot we want and indeed use a septic as we wish.

We’re also looking at a better water storage solution. Pioneer Tanks and Heritage Tanks both provide the style of tank we are looking at. Since these tanks can be made onsite, there is no access issues that the poly tanks are going to cause. Also, with a 20 year warranty there is some peace of mind that they will last a lot longer than the 10 years warranty on the polytanks implies. Price wise they are competitive, with a 30 000 gallon (120 000 litres) proving cheaper than the equivalent in poly tanks for the same storage.

These tanks also have the capability of being able to capture water from their own roof, vital in our instance since we are relying soley on rain water for our household and garden needs.

A big, big milestone was reached today.

Today, we had Daniel from Geo Drill come out to the block and do the soil tests. So the first actual work to be done on the block that has meaning in this whole big adventure has been completed. Daniel drilled core samples for the slab engineering as well as setting percolation test holes for determining what sort of effluent disposal system we will be allowed to use.

Now we just need to wait on the engineers interpretations of the results to see if we need a complicated and expensive slab for the house, or if we’ll be able to get away with something that isn’t going to cause great financial pain.

We’re being billed for this as part of the engineering work so I don’t as yet have the full account. I expect it to be somewhere between $1600 and $1800.

A very big thank you to Colin and Sarah for inviting us to see their formblock poured earth build over the weekend. It was great to actually touch and feel and get some “face” time with the finished product. They had chosen to go with a rough finish, giving their building some great character.

They were also full of advice on some of the pitfalls they had come across during their build. Things like knowing what mixes they had used. Being able to see the results of their blocks cast with both white and portland cement. Seeing the blocks they had experimented with finish and pour method and some of their other experimental blocks and the results of aggregate and so on was very interesting and informative.

Even though we were planning to start with the garage first, this advice and insight will cut down our own trial and error time – hopefully getting us to the result we want within the first couple of pours.

You can see some of their progress in the blog they have at Building Our Home.

After much debate between ourselves about the pros and cons of each of the methods outlined in Part 2 we have decided we are going with poured earth, for the following reasons.

Simplicity.
I can see Darren our draftsperson having a good ‘ole belly laugh at that one word appearing anywhere someone is talking about building. Poured earth is going to mean we can build the external walls and get the roof on without actually making any walling frames. While it won’t go up in 7-10 days like a shed would, here’s hoping to have a shell with a finished roof inside a month. That time frame is tight and is going to need a substantial window of great weather and material suppliers cooperating to deliver the windows, roof trussing and roofing steel on time as agreed.

Once we have the locked up shell, quality of life on site is going to be remarkably improved and everything will fall into place. Am I just dreaming? We’ll see if any of the project execution and planning skills I developed in a previous career can carry over to this, that is for sure.

Speed of Build.
This is so important. Being self employed (in a truly complicated way that does not tie our incomes directly or in its’ entirety to client interaction) the more time spent on the build is less time spent earning money. We’ve set a goal of 8 hours a day “on site” and 4 hours a night catching up with work. As weather and other unpredictables reduce building time we’ll use that to make up hours we should have been working on our businesses. Until we can borrow a caravan or camp under a roof we’ll have the highest tech tent campsite in the world 😀

Aesthetics and Finish.
We’ve seen a couple of these projects both in the flesh and through the good souls in the owner builder world who were happy to share their projects with us. What can be achieved is exceptional, ranging from a real earthy looking appearance to something so close to sandstone you’d need to look twice to make sure it isn’t.

If we’re going to put in all that sweat equity we sure want something to sit back and admire every time we have the opportunity to do so.

Overall
Poured earth is going to give us the look we want and meet other criteria we had set long before poured earth was even an option we were prepared to consider.

Garden City Plastics sold me enough punnets, pots and associated trays to grow a small forest, costing $461.45
Paramount Browns modified a pulley for the cement mixer engine for $39
Sundry bits and pieces for all sorts of things cost us $13.90

Total Spend to date is now at $214 560.10

Soil test for the foundations and footings are being organised. There will also be a percolation test done as we are not in an area serviced by main sewer and will need to install a septic system of some description. This same company will be asked to design the foundations and footings for the house and give me some pointers on footings for the shed as well. Once I’m happy with their service you know I’ll be happy to post their details on this blog.

Darren from Wise Drafting has been a great asset to our project. I’ve been firing off questions as we start to nail down details and he’s been firing back nicely detailed answers to help me make up my mind on aspects of the building.

When he sees the opportunity to involve some ideas I’m not aware of he fires off an email that explains the benefits along with links to the products for me to further look into. You have to appreciate someone with his attitude towards delivering us the best package he can and his willingness to set my thinking back on the right course.

I certainly appreciate his efforts and if you need a draftsperson who is a thinker and will give your project the best outcome, you should talk to Darren as well.