Thread: starting from scratch on my rural block

Hi things have stalled this week due to rain on saturday night, the footings for the shed have been open too long. they have started to cave in, as you can see the water dose not help! they are a real mess, hope the concreter can work some magic! some of these footing are 1mtr deep, clay dose not come of the shovel to easy! on the plus side I got to spend money at the tool shop on a new fire fighting pump! it gets a run tomorrow if i can find all the fittings. the tank was finished they'll be back next week to remove the boards from inside and give it a clean then its ready for water. timber nut i can only encourage you to take the plunge,wakefield is a nice area. any questions about council, power etc, I can only share my experience so far. these are my two helpers jackson and roxy.

Looks great im green with envy. Id love to do this and build a mudbrick house, or at least a mixture of mudbrick and bluestone. Just a thought for the natural lighting in the shed, a mate of mine put one laserlight sheet not in the roof but one sheet in the wall, its on the side that takes in the morning sun and not the hot afternoon sun. Makes a MASSIVE diffrence. To combat the summer heat, he planted a deciduous tree just out side where the sheet is so it has leaves on it during the summer, shading the laserlight and no leaves during the winter letting the heat in. I dont know if this will work for you but it works a treat here.

Just a thought!

Hi quick up date from the last four weeks, the footings for the shed have been done! whoo hoo! not with out dramas as usual, after express clear instruction to our excavator drivers about the set out on the shed, painted lines on the ground,dig here and not there. it got screwed up! resulting in extra man hours to board up the now super wide trenches, the concrete blew out. these footings have now cost us $12000.00. not including the cost of excavation. yes i have committed a few swear words to the gods!

Jason will you be putting a concrete slab down and if so I take it you will first lay black plastic sheeting down before the pour?

Artme, the step down section you see in the photo is to accommodate a timber floor. We needed a have at least 400 to the bottom of the joist, I didn't want 3 or 4 steps to get in to the workshop section of the shed, now its all on the same level through out. The rest will be gravel / pavers. The front of the shed we'll build a deck / awning plus a little bit if earth works to minimise the height difference. We have H class soil out here, me thinks it may have been a little over engineered, a concrete floor for that section, would have been a lot more concrete, we had plan for this but I chose the timber floor.

you need a drain in the excavated section where the timber floor is located, otherwise water will pond there & cause all sorts of problems. If the block is level then the drain wont help either.
regards inter

Thanks Jason.

I agree with InterD. Drainage is often overlooked or done badly and the consequent problems are much more expensive, and annoying, to fix than doing the right thing properly in the first instance.

I am soon to put a house on a block that I subdivided from an existing block.It will be a highset which alleviates some problems but I will be setting up a very substantial drainage system before everything is completed.

Hi All quick up date, the shed has been put on hold, until the house is built, as you can see the roof is on, the brickie started today
We are working on cleaning up all the tree we dropped, left over stumps and branches left over, having a split bucket back ho on site
Has helped, not much fun when you get them bogged though! We have had bit of wet weather lately making things very boggy. The
Builders managed to crush one of the down pipes all the clay/dirty ground water around the place, has managed to find its way in!
The 17000 litres of nice clean water in the tank, is now dirty water! Bugger!

any chance of larger pictures?

Hi better pictures as requested this time with the digital camera, the power was connected on Thursday woo hoo! Light on , light off, light on, light off…. The water pump was installed over the weekend, went with a Davey, it had good pulling and pushing power, with the filter and fittings + blue line pipe cost under a grand, ( on budget woo hoo again! ). With the wet weather over the last 3 weeks the gumboots have got a good work out. Cheers Jason

Nice... cant wait to be at that stage myself

Hi as the house gets closer to finishing, my thoughts are turning to the deck that needs to be built along the back of the house, about 28 mtrs long x 3 mtrs deep.
I happen to be in the right place at the right time, and bought 5 packs of feature grade spotted gum 5"and 3 1/2" flooring as a job lot. More than enough for the whole deck.
both sizes are Tong and groove boards. Parts of the new deck will be exposed to the weather for 6-12 month, while the awnings' are built. With little no gaps between the boards
For the water to dissipate, how will this affect the timber? Should I wait until the awning is built? Start again with proper decking boards? I'd like to use the boards I
Have, but don’t want to have to remove the tong and the groove( what a waste). Any one with suggestions?

Hi all photo update cheers jason

I like the outdoor setting!

Not sure about the pink benchtops in the kitchen though.....

and i think the grass needs a bit of work

but really - it's coming along nicely (says Mr Jealous As Hell in Sydney)