|
| |
| don't want to read the stuff
below and would rather see some photos of the house. |
the house doesn't interest me
either. i'm more interested in photos of NZ, as this will be my next holiday
destination. |
 |
 |
28th September 2003
|
and there was somebody who thought that it will not be too much
work with the house. wasn't it sabine?
actually i had some very lazy days, weeks, months? ok, there was the vacation,
the preparation of the building consent, the tidying up of the garden and just
the need to rest.
preparing the application for the building consent took me quite some time.
there was the exact measurement of the place and preparing the drawings. if
somebody is interested in the plans, let me know.
after that i went again into the garden and got rid of the last shed. heaps of
old timber and metal sheets were the result, which were piled up on the lawn for
several weeks, until i decided to order my second skip. also the fence on the
border to mrs. kent had to be finished. not because we feared that the elderly
lady will loose her way and wander in our garden. she actually has visitors
every day. a duck couple is flying in around lunchtime and are fed with bread.
not to mention that johnson found out pretty soon. i had to pull him away from
his "afterlunchsnack" on a daily basis. one day he even sneaked into her house
and declared the cat food his property. this is now past.
being sick about the unorganised compost corner, i decided to build a proper
compost bin. clever as i was, i dumped in the last months all green waste into
the location of the new designer compost bin. 2 days later i cleared the area by
sieving all waste. So i also gained some good earth for the garden and reduced
the amount of waste by half.
finally the day came to start in the house again. one of the bed rooms will be
transformed into a living area. i decided to pull down all plaster and exchange
it with gypsum boards. why? i really can't tell. on one hand the surface will be
smoother, no cracks in the wall and i can insulate the outer walls. furthermore
new electrical cables have to be installed. it was a dusty operation. even by
sealing most of the doors and changing the clothes in the war zone, the dust was
everywhere.
to book in for a plumber was one of the most difficult tasks so far. building
boom in new zealand is everywhere. low interest rates and a high demand of
property (these immigrants!) created a situation were everybody, who can just
afford, starts to built a house. two effects are imminent. first prices
for properties are skyrocketing throughout the whole country and secondly trades
people are hard to find. whether plumbers, electricians, carpenters, everybody
is booked out for weeks and months. i found somebody. opening the quote gave me
one of these little heart attacks, but i had to swallow. Now i had to go
shopping for the white ware and taps. second time that i should have taken in
advance some drugs. used to shop at obi (german supermarket for building
materials) i was shocked by the prices for bath mixers and toilet pans. i
insisted on a steel bath, which complicated the situation by several marks.
"sorry, but this bath is out of stock. we will get it in in 2-3 weeks". did
anybody say something about building boom and the effects on the poor diy
(do-it-yourself) german.
now it was time to plan the renovation of the bath very carefully. how to reduce
the time having only the kitchen sink as a cleaning place? to make it short. it
could only be reduced to 10 days. smelly days. kylie was lucky, as she had a
pit/shower stop at the gym before she went to work. i had to use the sink and a
lot of perfume.the bath - a smelly journey
first thing to do was to get rid of the inbuilt wardrobe
adjacent to the bath. i had to gain some space for the toilet. reinforcing
the walls with new timber studs, plane the surface with boards (i wonder whether
they had spirit levels when they built the place) and closing 2 meter of wall
with new gypsum boards were just the beginning.
same procedure as in the bed room followed. again dusty plaster removal. but not
completely. around the bath and the vanity unit the plaster had to remain.
otherwise we would have taken the bath in public. the day the plumber showed up,
most of the timber frame was exposed and it was time to say goodbye to the bath
and the washing basin. the old bath was a hard job. no plastic or steel tub.
cast iron was fashionable during these days. we (3 people) moved the heavyweight
into the next room, where it became for several days the trash can.
while one plumber kept himself busy with disconnecting the overhead water tank
in the roof and fixing a pressure reducing valve, the other tackled the bathroom
installation. water pipes are running in kiwi timber houses normally under the
floor, where the electrical cables are distributed in the roof. at least in the
older houses. having not so much space between floor and ground, working
underneath is not recommended if you suffer from claustrophobia or want to
avoid getting dirty and smelly. in order to make the life for the plumbers as
easy as possible, i began to cut holes into the floor. i anyhow planned to get
decking boards in the bath and the floor close to the hot water cylinder is
rotten and has to be exchanged too. the whole installation took one day. now i
had a room with half of the floor, 20% of the walls, a complete new water system
and still no shower or a bath. luckily the old toilet was still in
operation. the connection for the new toilet had been done by the drainlayer,
but the new toilet could not be installed, as there was the floor and the wall
missing. so i had to get my self-made "holdthegypsumboardundertheceiling" timber
out of the garage. i have to admit, that fixing the gypsunboards worked much
better than before in the guestroom.
the next step was getting rid of the old floor. my wish to get at least some
boards out with out ripping them into pieces remained a wish. with the years the
nails are cemented into the joists and the tongue and groove boards could only
be separated by pure force. What a surprise after I had all boards out.
remainder of the pipes and a lot of plaster had been accumulated in the last
days. at least 7 rubbish bags. cleaning places no man will ever go again seems
not very clever, but this must be german thoroughness. i installed
underfloor insulation because the bath will have no heating and covered the
joists with foil to prevent draft through the floor boards.
the garage, still my masterpiece, is since 3 weeks work- and paintshop. i had
all floorboards already painted and sealed with polyurethane. so they had only
to be cut in length and nailed to the joists. 35 boards with 5 joist and two
nails per joist equals? yes, 350 nails. and not only they have to be flush with
the board, no they have to be sunken, that you don't rip your feet after you
stepped out of the bath. i still feel the pain in my wrist and in the left
thumb, which was between hammer and nail 3 times.
the bath arrived the next day. no day to rest, i had to build the frame to sit
the bath in. i reckon that you can fill the bath with lead and the frame would
not fail. the designer vanity unit i built in advance and it was time to move
the contester for the masterpiece prize into the house.
i nearly forgot the feature, which gave me most of the headaches. the wall area
of the shower. i tiled already some bathrooms in the past and wanted to have
something special, which had to be watertight. who can remember the garage story
and what happened to the roof sheets, which were too short? yes, they were still
in homeowners possession. fixing the sheets to the wall was not the
concern, but how to get the hole for the mixers and the shower hose into the
sheet? jigsaw was the answer. the result is not of which i am very proud
of, but there is hardly anything what grey silicon can't hide.
the next day the plumber showed up again. basin and mixer connected. toilet
connected and bath tub installed. the sewer of the washing basin was leaking,
which was my fault, behind the toilet was a new hole in the new gypsum, which
was the plumbers fault and i had to cut again a hole into the floor. not into
the new floor, but in the new laundry, to get the wastewater for the bath
connected.
i took me 10 minutes to clean after the plumber left, 15 minutes to fill the
bath and an hour to get rid of the dust from 10 days without bathroom.
|
29th May 2003
|
The garage - a long journey
To begin with my first approach. I thought I could renovate the old garage. I
dropped that, after having a closer look at the disaster area. Searching the
local market was quick. There are just a few suppliers of garages and finally
the price prevailed.
I got the "installation manual" on the day of order. It took me 15 minutes to
read through and frankly speaking, the stuff described I could have figured out
without the papers.
On the day of delivery, excitement was great. Everything was nicely packed and
without any transport damages. But there was something missing. A packing list.
And obviously, the manual didn't show, which profile with what kind of length
is going into which place. And then I made a mistake, which I regret later down
the road. I didn't measure the length of the profiles.
Eager to start I screwed together the wall panels as described in the handbook.
That someone is not starting with the roof should have been obvious. After a
short days work, all the panels were lying on the lawn, which gave me an excuse
not to mow. Now came the serious procedure. The manual said something like
"stand up the side wall panel with an assistant. The assistant hold the
panel in place where you stand the end wall panel and screw them
together". Where was the assistant? Definitely not delivered together with the
material. In a suicidal attempt I decided to stand the walls up by myself. I
think it took me one hour per panel, balancing the walls with one hand and
shoulder and grabbing the timber supports with the other hand. Only once a panel
slipped through my fingers and went back into it's statically more balanced
position. Onto the ground.
Next step were the roof trusses. Thanks to the supplier they were already
pre-constructed. This was an easy job. The rafters were somehow more
tricky. One has to understand that the profiles and sheets are delivered without
any holes to receive screws and bolts. A pack of self-cutting screws is
provided. As long as you don't have the sophisticated professional tools, but
just an ordinary drilling machine and an electric screwdriver, one screw can
screw you up. In recollection I have to allocate at least 5 hours to the fixing
of 6 profiles with 8 screws each.
And now was the moment to discover that something went absolutely wrong.
No, not that bad. The garage at this stage was fine. Even in square.
But I checked the left over parts. The roof sheets were definitely by
500mm too short. Also some of the flashings were not delivered in the
length required. So I granted the supplier a visit and explained what was
wrong. A hold up in the construction of 5 days was the result, as the profiles
has to be re-ordered. Good effect of the re-ordering... not telling very loud...
the supplier didn't claim the shorter sheets and profiles back, so I have some
material to work with at other locations.
At this stage the garage door was measured. And what a surprise. Even the door
opening was plumb and square. Upon the question of how long it will take to
deliver the door, the bloke said, that this depends on the supplier of the
material, which was the same as the supplier of the entire garage. I saw in
front of my eyes summer coming and the door still not in. But what a surprise.
After 1 week the door was in.
The rest of the job was the installation of the flashings, installing the
door and the spouting. This took overall 3 days. Mainly due to the fact, that I
haven't had a riveter in my hands before. Funny little tool.
In the last two days I connected the spouting to the storm water pipes. Planned
was half a day work. But I should have tested the pipes beforehand. On a length
of 6 meter the pipe was blocked with roots from the blimmen cabbage tree. I even
had to dig out the pipe and cut a hole in to get rid of all the unwanted stuff.
So it took finally 2 days.
But now we have a safe place for the car. More important is, that the birds are
not dumping their congested berries onto the windscreen and that the tools,
screws, nails, paint etc. have a better place to stay and not blocking the way
to the bathroom or the view to the TV. |
28th April 2003
|
The concrete story.
As the building consent for the new garage took 3 weeks and the guys from
STRATCO needed 15 working days to deliver the kitset, I was not in such a hurry
to concrete the garage floor.
I could prepare everything in a relaxed manner. The building inspector was happy,
requested only the reinforcement, indicated in the garage drawings, to be in
place. I took the measurement for the concrete order very seriously as I didn't
want to order half a cubic meter in addition. I came up to 6.7 cubic meter.
Stupid to say that I ordered 6 cubic meter.
The delivery was arranged for 10am and I expected 2 small trucks to show up. At
8am I checked my cash and discovered that in case of a miscalculation in the
volume, I would be short of money. so I went with the bike to the next cash
machine and withdrew some security.
I had just stored my bike away, when the first and only truck arrived. And this truck
was not small. Unfortunately the truck could not back
up into the driveway and
discharge straight through the chute. I was confronted with transporting
the whole stuff in the wheelbarrow to the final destination. 6 cubic meter are
around 120 loads. Not what I expected from that day. All other tools were
prepared, like shovel, rakes and my homemade concrete smoothener. Its just a
wide board fixed to a stick, allowing to push, pull and level the concrete.
After discharging the first 10 loads into the forms it was time for the
smoothener. One pull, one push and the stick broke into 3 pieces. The truck
driver was not very impressed and smiled from one ear to the next.
I managed to get the truck emptied into the forms with quite some help of the
driver. Even one visitor of the old lady from number 7 could not be kept away
from the site. Suddenly the guy showed up behind me with a concrete load,
claiming that his wife is in the house and he feels more comfortable doing
something useful.
The truck was empty and......................... there was still a blank spot in
the garage floor. I was short of concrete by half a cubic meter. Meanwhile the
batching plant called as the truck was expected back since several hours.
They
charged a small standing fee, which I thought was reasonable. Emptying the
second truck was a matter of minutes. The cleaning of the truck took double the
time.
The day ended after 8 hours hard work with some beers.
Not the end of the story.
Next day we parked the car on the hardened concrete. According to my limited
engineering knowledge this was ok. Not that the car
sunk into the new slab, but a very professional neighbour thought that it would
be a good idea to share his opinion. He passed by with his car and left a note,
not to drive for 7 days on the concrete. A wonder how we should have finished
the Athens Airport with such caution.
Anyhow, I guess the bloke had only the best in his mind. By the way, nothing
happened to the concrete. |
11th March 2003
|
|
5 months have passed and things changed dramatically.
Forget about the section at the waterfront and the kitset house. We went
there in January and the only section, which we liked, was sold on the same day.
Furthermore the location was realy remote. And windy. That the mobilephone
reception will not be the best I expected from the beginning, but that a decent
television reception would be in doubt was a little bit too much. Shopping
oportunities were rare and the cinema was not only 30 minutes away (by car), but
more than 1 hour.
So, the situation is as follows.
I decided to buy the house in which we are living at present . A photo you
have seen at the start of the page. The house is an original
kiwitimberconstruction and some 70 years old. I liked it from the first moment I
saw it in January. Renovation will keep me busy and I can tell that there
is a lot to do. To give this part of the homepage a new start, here a few short
stories.
Action 1
Really not knowing what to do at the beginning, or better to say, helpless where
to start I decided to rip out the cabinets in the laundry/toilet. This house has
a speciality. The toilet is not in the bathroom, but in a remote corner of the
house. Has this done by purpose, i.e. noise and gas distortion?
Action 2
Decision has been made that the garden has at the moment priority. First of all
the weather is still fine, second we are planning to get a dog, which would
require a fenced area, and third I need space for all the tools and building
material. Major task was the removal of an old bush. this took me nearly 2
days with the help of the car. The garden is quite old and so the plants. I
forget how long and widespread roots can be. During my slaying trip through the
front garden several plants were tranfromed into compost.
Action 3
The new fence. Calculating how much timber in which dimension has to be ordered
was peanuts. To order the material wasn't a big deal either. Sad to say that the
guys at Placemakers (the Kiwi OBI) made a small mistake and delivered the wrong
stuff. So the post are placed, the railing fixed and everything painted
white. Now we are waiting for the paling, which will hopefully arive at the end
of the week.
I made my apologies already to the mailman, who cannot at present just drop the
mail into our box while passing with his bike. The box is resting on the lawn
and the poor guy has to stop and get of his bike.
Action 4
The interior colours for the house had to be decided. So we moved for a couple
of days into the guestroom. Kylie ripped of the wallpaper and I stripped the
paint from the windows.
The first attempt was quite shocking. The red looked actually very nice on the
colour sheet. This changed significantly after application to the walls. So we
had to visit the paintshop again and get some new colours. The second try was
successfull and a big relief for both of us.
Action 5
I know that I'm very impulsive and see in most of the times the positive side,
but it took me two weeks to realise that I cannot repair the garage to a
standard which would give us a secure feeling while driving with the car into
it. The timber was rotten and generations of borers (little
animals making this tiny holes into timber) decided to live in their
capital garage.
The application for a new garage is with the council since yesterday and after
positive reply I'm going to order a kitset metal garage. The time until I will
get the ok from the council will be filled with removal of the trash and
constructing a new concrete slab.
To keep me informed I do not miss any of the DIY (Do It Yourself) magazines
in the NZ Television. And they have heaps of them. I dont hope that we will once
be on telly in one particular magazine. A big building supply store has a rescue
team for the hopeless cases. They come for 4 days into your place and do as much
as possible to make living in the house possible.
|
7th November 2002
|
|
The last delivery of information has been received and excessively screened.
Colour samples of the bench tops and kitchen furniture. Seems that we will go
for the yellow-green combination. Rayween from McRaeway sent also the offered
white and tapware and the door handles. Luckily the whiteware came with some
alternatives., as the toiletpan is really ugly. We made up our minds but have to
wait until we're in NZ. The whole thing has to be discussed with the supplier. I started meanwhile some correspondence with the OIC (Overseas Investment
Commission). This body has to be approached if you want to buy property in NZ,
without having the residency. Their website is quite informative, but I still
had to send them a request for clarification via email. Must be again my
English.
Up to now I have to say, that Kiwi authorities and companies reply really fast
after a query. I try always to be very friendly and formal in my approaches.
Nevertheless I’m always astonished that the replies are even friendlier.
Any different comments from the native kiwi community?
Every other day I have a look at 'Realenz', a real estate agent in NZ. The two
sections in Wanui are still available. Since 3 months already. Hope that this
will not change in the next weeks. The view on the photos is great and the
sections are already connected to utilities. As most probably no kindergarten,
waste dump or nuclear power plant (in the order of importance) will be the
neighbourhood, this could be an ideal place. We will have a look when we’re in
NZ in January.
Will be a busy week. Section search, show room McRaeway, family reunion and
horseracing in Nelson. The most time-consuming action will most probably be
Kylie’s visit at the hairdresser. Time for me to visit banks, drinking coffee,
reading the last 200 pages of ‘war and peace’, punting on the Avon and have a
look at the museums of Christchurch.
|
15th October 2002
|
|
Something on paper We received the first drawings and brochures. To
make life a bit more difficult, the layout of the house can be changed. Subject
to the price, of course. The people at McRaeway are very helpful by sending the
information even to Taiwan. Water and stone should be the colour. Means blue and
grey. But we will leave the final decision until we have seen the materials in
real life. The big issue is at present the bathroom. Strange that people spend
so much time in arranging tubs, pans, vanities and sinks. Especially as the
average person does not spend more than 45 minutes per day there. Must be the
fact that the fixtures are difficult to move, once installed. To get the space
we want first one door and part of the normal wall has to disappear. The results
at present look like this
|
 |
layout of original
WESTY
(partcopy © McRaeway) |
| the
bathroom designer's result |
 |
The Idea
(this previous page has been moved.
Just follow the link)
|
