15 - The Other Progress

Over the last month or so we have been busy with house related things, well as busy as we can be while trying to entertain a 16 month old daughter.

Asbestosy Nail Removal
When the asbestos sheeting ceiling lining was removed by the slap dash asbestos removers they left behind most of the nails that held the stuff up many of which still sporting little chunks of asbestos. Nails were not included in the quote. We missed that upon perusal. So a few weeks ago we suited up in beanies, gloves, spray bottles and asbestos dust masks and removed every single nail. This was a somewhat satisfying 4 hour job, though regrettable considering its very existence was due to our oversight. Oh well. You learn from such things. The nails would have had to come out anyway for the new ceiling lining.

Composting Toilet
Finally after years and years of longing we bought a waterless composting toilet. We decided to go with Nature-Loo because I had heard good things about them. I loved the idea of not using valuable water to flush a toilet, especially when that water is from a tank or dam. I still love the water saving characteristic of composting toilets, however, with the flush toilet in the shed we use dam water from a permanently overflowing spring fed dam. This fact somewhat removed the potency from my toilet water saving needs. Though, of course, it still feels great saving water – no matter what that water’s perceived quality or quantity. In addition to this reasoning there has emerged another. Our current septic system attached to the shed is an older style tank and trench system. It has worked fine for the three years or so we have been here permanently. When discussing waste treatment systems with the relevant consultant designing our new system for the house, we decided to go with a similar system by the house to deal with grey water. Because we were including a composting toilet, we found out that we can minimise our trench space significantly by not using it for black (poo) water. This was good news, especially after discovering that the suggested trench site had a spring under it and would not have worked as a trench site for very long at all. The solution to this was to pump the grey water from tanks attached to the house over to the existing shed trench some 120 meters away. Considering the water is only grey, this existing trench would not even need to be extended. Less money all round. No need for more trenches just a tank or two, 120 metres worth of 1-2 inch polypipe and a sump pump. Oh and a composting toilet.

We were always going to incorporate a composting toilet into whatever waste treatment system we decided upon for the house. In many ways this early decision strongly dictated what we should do for the rest of the waste water system. Deciding to take responsibility for one’s own poo is very liberating. It means that you do not have to pay ongoing costs for some other process to do the job for you. It is crazy when you think about it. Those other processes are things like the Biolytix system which recycles waste water so it can be used again in certain household applications. Sounds like a great idea and of course it is in the dry times many people face now. The problem for me with these is the ongoing regular maintenance costs involved. I won’t wear this. And don’t have to because we will only have grey water to deal with.

For those without town sewage connection and a strong aversion to the idea of a waterless toilet, I guess you need to ask yourself how much this aversion is going to cost me. Maybe try and get over it. Your pocket would surely appreciate it.

Anyway, we bought the Nature Loo ‘Classic 1000’ with two chambers. I will probably install it myself in the coming weeks. Watch this blog for the fun and games that is bound to bring. I will also discuss the grey water system more when it arrives.

Water Tank
As you are well aware by now dear reader, we rely on tank and dam water here on the property. We currently have a 23700 Litre (5000Gal) tank at the moment attached to the shed. It has been great. We decided we would leave this attached and purchase another bigger tank for the house. This is what we did. It is a 34000 Litre (7500Gal) tank and after being delivered and resting on its side for a couple of weeks was moved into place by my neighbour with the diggers.

Tank, baby and I

We placed this monster of a tank on the south east of the house. It is only a metre away and dug into the slope enough so that its inlet is low enough to have down pipes from the gutters run down the house under the floor and across into the tank. Currently we have underground pipes going from the shed and back up into the tank some 15 metres away. I don’t really like this method as the water sits in the pipes underground in between rain and I can never be bothered ‘bleeding’ these pipes as often as I should.

Tank in final resting place

Electricity
This was pretty straight forward and probably does not require a paragraph but seeing as I am in the business of providing paragraphs, here it is. We first thought we would have to run electrical wires overhead from the shed to the house as there is a wet gully between them. Before getting a quote for this, I talked to my neighbour who assured me that it was easier and cheaper to go under the gully. I didn’t think such a thing would be allowed. It is and so that is what we did. The metre box remained on the shed and 130 metres of conduit covered cable was dug some 60 cm underground. Where it crossed the gully floor we had a small spring fed pond dug and crossing made for a nice leisurely path from house to shed. So the electricity is now hooked up. We will wait until the ceiling is in to have lights. This means we can have a crack at putting the missing half of the front deck and its associated roof together.

14 - The Crookedness

Well it has now been a little over three months since the house arrival. The movers had officially finished with the house about four weeks ago. They managed to stretch 5-6 days worth of work over two months. This is not because they work incredibly slow but rather that they are very busy and got tied up with other jobs after the stumpers had finished off here. At the moment the house looks very worse for wear, no make that worse for move. It looked great for wear. Built in 1926 and still looking wonderful, then we came along and roughed it all up by moving it. Sigh. I do remember someone telling us early on that the appearance of a freshly moved house conjures a little nervous shock in the new owners. This has happened with us. The house looks like it was thrown by a tornado. I half expected to see striped stockinged witch legs sticking out from under it, only the whole thing is off the ground on stumps of varying heights and thus the witch would be safe, you get what I mean though.

After the official “we have finished” cry following the day’s work they returned for after the stumpers pulled stumps as it were, the movers left. We thought “great we can start fixing things up”. To our dismay we noticed that the front of the house looked a bit crooked. The two posts holding up the roof of the front verandah, seen under the title atop of this blog, both went left, rhombus style. Jan, my partner now has a name, took photos of the offending crookedness and sent them to the wife of, and admin arm for, the house mover. About a week and half later he came out to have a look. He wasn’t around when his workers ‘finished off’. To our relief he was agreed that it wasn’t acceptable. We were half expecting an answer similar to “Well these things happen when you move a house, luck of the draw really,… good luck with it and good day sir”.

The crooked front end and baby.

He returned the next day and had discovered that the front of the house was twisted slightly in the opposite direction to that of the back. This needed work. Also there were some significant support pieces missing from the roof trusses. He worked on things for a day and now the house looks finished, as far as our contract with him goes. We are happy with the result though a little peeved at the time it took to achieve it. So all up we have waited quite while for the house to be at the stage it is now, which is not as far as I had envisioned before the process started. Nevertheless we have made some progress in other areas which I shall outline very soon.

13 - Stumped

I think it is high time that this blog revealed its title track. Here it is.

After a week or so of the house arriving we hadn’t heard anything from the stumpers who were due to work on the stumps. We started to question the assertion from the house movers that they would let the stumpers know of the house’s new found need for permanent stumps. We contacted the stumpers. They didn’t know of the house’s arrival and made arrangements to come out.

We used the time alone with the house to tie ourselves in knots over all sorts of things which we lacked the practical know how of. One of these was a timing issue with the tie downs. These securely attach the roof to the walls and the walls to the floor and the floor to the stumps. On an old house like ours the tie downs were not done and need to be retrofitted before we can receive final approval. We heard that the roof needed to be removed to do the tie down work so the ideal time would be between the roof being temporarily attached and permanently attached. We took this information under our wing and flew off trying to organise someone to do the work. We found this hard. Carpenters and other home improvements people gave us a range of differing impressions into the extent they understood what tie downs were or if we needed to remove all the weatherboards to have them done. We started to melt down a little. Hearing of our growing anguish a friend’s son said he would look at it. We gave him the engineers report only to have him return it to us a few days later suggesting that he would need to drill rods the height of the house down through the struts in the walls all the way around the house at about fifty centimetre intervals. This couldn’t be right. The engineers had told us that it wouldn’t be too hard. In the end our friend’s son politely turned down the job stating it would take too long and be too expensive. Back to square one.

The head stumper was quite a character. When referring to the house’s pending fate, he exclaimed that he’d “get this bitch up on legs”. Strangely from this we knew we were in good hands. We asked him about tie downs, as we knew he was also an engineer. He was great about it all and immediately allayed our fears. He explained that only the top and bottom two weatherboards will have to be removed and a few extra screws and maybe a little bracing be used to fix the internal studs to various things. He also said he would show anyone we got to do the work exactly what was required and he would sign off on the work done ready for approval. This was great news. Now all we had to do was find someone.

The actual stumping didn’t take very long. All the holes were drilled into the ground on the first day. On the second day the concrete was poured and the stumps hung from the house while the concrete dried around them. The next day the stumps were detached from the house and stood strong in their concrete shoes about 50 cm below the house which was still floating above on the temporary stumps. The house movers returned a few days later and lowered the house down onto the steel stumps and joined the house back together again. About a week or so later the stumpers returned and attached some bracing and securely attached each stump to the house. The house movers still have to come back and finish attaching the roof, tidy up the guttering and eaves and remove the makeshift form work propping up the internal ceiling supports.

12 - The Move - Day 3

The real day 3 was rained out. On the next day, the mover men returned to put the roof up and temporarily tack the tin sheets on. They put them on properly after the house has been lowered down on to the permanent stumps because there is usually a bit of movement in that process.

Just after the roof was finished it poured rain. Here is a picture of the finished for now product taken the next morning.

The house is very high at the moment as there needs to be room underneath for the stumpers to get their hole digger things in. We would like the house to end up nearly a metre lower than it is in this picture. The stumpers are due to come in the next week or so.

11 - The Move - Day 2

On the start of Day 2 the first half waited patiently for its opposite.

The larger second half arrived about 830 am.





Obviously this second piece's placement is a lock trickier than the first. If they go too far down the slope and past the first piece then lots is lost. The truck is way too heavy to move back up the hill at all while the house is still on the back. Fortunately the trailer is amazing. It moves every which way as it lines the pieces up together. This whole process really impressed me. I watched on both days in awe of the speed, skill and ease with which 5 guys worked on the house. I had never seen a house being delivered before and I couldn't believe they got the thing exactly where we wanted it. Unbelievable. .

10 - The Move - Day 1

The movers started to prepare the house on Thursday the 3^rd of April. By the Friday afternoon it was cut in half, roof collapsed, on trailers and ready to travel. It then stayed put like this for the weekend. We traveled up to visit friends and check it out.

Just before 8am the next Monday the first half of the house arrived.




The truck had some difffculty getting back out again. My neighbour had to help with both his tractor and digger. It only just worked.



We got to know the first half overnight.

9 - The Hold Up

Before too long it dawned upon us that April would be arriving soon ready to move a house and we still had not received the go ahead from the council. We had a call from them enquiring about the waste treatment report accompanying our application. In the report we had stated that we would like a waterless composting toilet and a grey water system similar to a normal septic system. This was fine. They just wanted to see the spot where the septic application area (trenches) was going. Since the report was prepared we have had over 820mm of rain falling in just 2 months. All of sudden we discovered a spring right where the application areas was to be. The council man noticed this swallowing his boots as I pointed out the area in question. He said we would need to choose another area. The report would need an amendment done by the mob who prepared it. Fine. I rang the guy and he came back out to choose another spot.

We decided we would pump the grey water over to the existing application area we use now for the shed. We were happy with this because it will be cheaper and not close to the house. He went back to write the report and send it on both to the council and us at the same time. We politely stressed the need for a little haste with all this. We should have dropped the politely because he didn’t apply the haste. He sat on the report for two weeks despite two reminders. This made it impossible for us to receive a formal approval from the council before our deadline. We were starting to worry. The planning consultant we commissioned to smooth this kind of thing over was no help. Not sure what we paid him for now, perhaps the ink in his pen as he filled out our application.

We were concerned for a few reasons. Firstly the movers were booked in for the second week of April. They are very busy people. If we did not take this booking we would have to wait about another month. They required council approval to start work on the house a few days before the move. Secondly we thought the house had to be moved from the block by early April or, as you may remember dear reader, we would be hit with a further $10 000.

Turns out we didn’t need to worry. We had layers of cushioning step up under pressure. Firstly the house now did not have to be off the block until the end of the year. Developers are slow like that. We rang the council and discovered that they had the required amended report and everything was set to go. It would take a few weeks to be formally approved but they pretty much gave us verbal approval. We passed this on to the movers. That was good enough for them. Full steam ahead, no…full noxious carbon monoxide ahead, no…behind. Either way, let’s go.

8 - The Preparation

Once the development application was done and the major contracts with the removers and the stumpers sewn up, we had about two months to wait and prepare. The house was vacated a lot sooner than we were told it would be. We were under the impression it wouldn’t be until a few weeks before the move in April. It wasn’t. The house had been emptied of people and things just before Christmas, which means we could do things there, like take the photos you see around these words.

Asbestos Removal
The first thing to do was to have the asbestos fibre sheeted ceilings throughout the house removed. The Tweed Shire Council will not allow any asbestos product to enter its boundaries. Fair enough. We got a couple of quotes. They were between $2500 and $3000 - licensed asbestos people charge big money. We went with the cheapest. Because the asbestos sheets were mostly on the inside of the house, their removal would hopefully not leave the impression that the place was being taken apart or something. We were a little concerned about leaving the house unattended for 4-5 months in the city. We feared looters or squatters or arsonists or historians or wood fanciers or claw foot bath fanciers or nice deck fanciers or pretty much everyone else in the world would somehow notice the house was empty and strike.

The ceilings have a lot of decorative wood attached to them in different patterns for each room. We asked for this to be kept if possible as some of it may be able to be used for the same purpose afterwards.

The job was done. However, in our desire to go with the cheapest quote, we failed to notice that ‘nail removal’ was not mentioned. As a result they weren’t. The other company had stated they would remove them, but the one we went with did not. So in many areas there is a ten cent shape worth of asbestos sheeting surrounding the nails. We will have to bear this in mind when working on the house later. The total cost was $2750. Substantial - though not too bad.

All the wood was left in piles in the room it was removed from. There was a lot of it and some of it had split. If we do not use it for the ceilings then I’m sure it will be used for something else one day.

The Removal of Part of the Front Verandah
In New South Wales they have a rule which stipulates that houses traveling on trucks can be no wider than five and half metres. In Queensland it’s eight metres. Damn. The cut for our house will look the best if it is done under the skirting board along the edge of the lounge/dining room. This leaves about one and half metres of left hand side front verandah sticking out over the NSW width limit. Damn. We thought that perhaps the removers could dog leg the cut a bit to incorporate the verandah better. They weren’t prepared to. Damn. In the contract with them it states that the one and half metres would be cut off and left behind. Hoover Dam.

The verandah section in question here is a little tricky. It has its own piece of peeked roofing perpendicular to the main entrance peek.

We first thought we would need to hire someone to take the section apart and then travel two hours down here later on to put it back together. Finding someone to do this in the current busy building climate would turn out to be near impossible. After ringing a few people, we decided the person taking it apart does not have to be the same person who puts it back together again. It is not that complicated. We could take it apart, hire a truck, move it in bits, store it until after the house is all put back together and then get someone to work on it, or maybe I'll give it a crack.

A friend of mine in Brisbane, who does a bit of cabinet making and has a lot of tools and things, agreed to help pull the section apart. He would charge me for his time but at a very cheap rate. So I took a few days off work and went to work.

We had to remove a lot more than just one and half metres because we did not want to cut the nice balustrades, or the great silky oak fixed shade louvres, in half. The dismantling was not too bad. The two 200mm by 200mm hard wood posts were very heavy and tested our sheer strength and endurance. We passed but only just. The process introduced me to a new favourite tool, the single handed demolition hammer (insert growl sound here).

In the end the cost for the verandah removal was about $695. Twelve hours of my friend’s help was $300. It was $250 to hire the truck and the rest was eaten up in extra tools and things.

Placement

One of the largest issues leading up to the move for us was where exactly to move the house to. Our 15 acre block has lots of undulating hills. Together they sort of make up a basic bowl shape with a dam at the bottom resembling the few spoonfuls of milk left after cereal. The shed we live in now sits on top of the hill that mostly faces south. There is a small part of it that travels down the north from the shed to the boundary. This is where we grow food at the moment. The hill we chose for the house mainly faces east. It runs down from the road and west boundary. This hill was chosen because it feels like the middle of the property, it has great views of Wollumbin (Mt Warning) and it has gullies on either side that add both north and south aspects for growing various things. The hill choice was easy. We would face the back deck towards the east to soak up both the thawing morning sun and the great view. This leaves the living areas of the house facing the north, which is ideal.

We want to surround the house with veggie gardens, fruit trees, chooks and some ornamental trees and shrubs. Because of this we decided to place the house more to the south side of the hill as it opens up the north side to grow more things on.

We figure that one day we may want to build a room under the house. Thinking ahead is rather handy for this because houses are heavy. Before the house arrives we thought we would get my neighbour, who owns diggers and things, to cut into the hill a tad. It would just be enough to open up the space under the back deck and maybe one day we could build in a room there. I wasn’t keen on the house looking really high from the ground.

All these considerations proved a little hard to make room for. We got back in the site surveyors so they could peg out ‘solar north’ (about 12 degrees off magnetic) for one side of the house. This gave us a starting point. The pegs suited the sun but not quite the view. We compromised by swinging the house site slightly back towards the south. I read on the home technical manual site (link to the left) that variations in site orientation were alright for passive solar orientation as long these fell within a 15 degree difference. We made sure of this, swinging the house pegs about 10 degrees back.

7 - The Process Begun

Where do I begin in unpacking this mixed bag of fun and adventure? Well the first thing we had to do before paying the rest of the deposit on the house was to get a building inspection done. This involves an ex builder, now inspector, walking around the house and kicking its tyres - so to speak. For this we paid 260 clams. He said the place looks fine now but who knows what it may be like after being cut in half and moved? Cheers for that. Along with this we also had a pest inspection done by the same company, it cost $240 and revealed no unwanted guests or things that eat houses.

The house has to be moved from its current site by early April 2008. If it isn’t we will be slogged with a further $10 000 to have it first moved to a yard and then on to our place. This cost is probably represented in the ticket price of the houses you see for sale in removal house lots around South East Queensland. It may be cheaper to have it moved just once from its original site. This was never confirmed but does make sense. Drake have a policy guaranteeing the cost of the house be returned in the event that one’s council application does not get approved. Such a policy offers some comfort because they demand the money for the house pretty much upfront. This process doesn’t wash with many lenders who demand a house on land before committing any of their money. As I have said early, we had to change financial institutions for this project and nab’s late settlement date forced us to temporarily borrow the money for the house from generous parents. All up it took nearly two months to acquire the loan. If readers considering buying a house for relocation take one thing from my words, take sorting out the finance way before you get excited about available houses oh and maybe to use the greeting “What-Ho” more in social situations.

After paying for the house we started gathering all the necessary reports required to accompany our Council Development Application. Because we had a deadline of April we felt a slight sense of urgency around this back in November. We assumed, perhaps wrongly, that we would need the help of a planning consultant to put the application together and sort out any issues with it throughout the approval process. We were a little nervous about the whole deal, and felt like we had to get it right from the start to minimise delays. So we hooked up with a consultant and started gathering the reports he advised were required to accompany our application. In hindsight we probably could have put the application together ourselves and saved about $1000 in consultancy fees, but as I say, back then we were a little anxious.

The reports we required were a soil test, a structural engineer’s report of the house, a contour survey of the house site, an on site waste treatment design report and a floor plan and elevation drawing of the house. We set about setting these up. They all got done but they took a bit longer than I would have liked, falling over into the new year. The cost of each is listed in the “Money Spent” section. We saved on the floor plan because my partner drew it up herself and the elevation drawings could be substituted for photos of the house.

The application was lodged in early January. Part of the cost was a $1400 bond for moving the house via the council’s roads. This will be returned if no road signs and things are damaged by the trucks on the way.

Apparently, the house will be sawn in half by the house movers, taken down in the middle of the night and placed on temporary stumps exactly on its proposed site. The stumps will be quite a lot higher than the permanent ones will be. The house movers then depart as the stumpers come in and match up the new steel stumps to the house and put them all in place. Then the house movers return and lower the house down to rest on the new stumps. At some point in all this they also join the house back together again.

The House Movers
Following the purchase of the house, Drake referred us to a separate house moving company. The first step in making things happen was to find out if the house could be moved to our block. This simply involved a quick reconnaissance mission to ensure the route was acceptable for moving half a house - twice. It was. We were relieved, remembering we only got the house in the first place because walk in deposit man owned a hard to get to block of land.

We booked the house move in for the end of March or early April 2008. This was really the only time they could fit us in, and it happened to suit our deadline, but only just. All we had to do before then was to sign the contract they sent us. Easier said then done. It contained the odd strange clause, some of which we were not prepared to swallow. We just took to it with a pen and made a few changes, such as completely deleting the clause stating that we were responsible for removing and reinstating overhead wires along the truck’s journey. We nervously sent the contract, laden with scribbles and ruled lines, back to them and were pleasantly surprised that they accepted all of the changes. It was as if the contract was the same standard document that they have been pulling out and dusting off for years. They seemed to recognise this fact and were quite prepared to update things. This was a wonderful relief because since receiving the first contract we grew a bit dubious about the house movers. After the contract changes were made, and many silly questions patiently answered, our faith was completely returned, with interest.

A Picture Break

The site for the house, looking to the east.


Looking at the house site hill from the north


Looking to the north from the house site back over to the shed we live in now