A recent view of the house - sills and mouldings are yet to be done, so the brick work has not been cleaned down yet.

Security System

Before we start moving anything into the house in the way of appliances or furniture, we have installed and commissioned a security system (Sierra, now owned by Honeywell). I did the installation, as I have an electrical engineering background. But it has taken me about 5 days all up to complete the job.

before it was finallycommissioned, I was worried that the security system itslef could be stolen, as it was the most valuable item in the house for about a week.

We have dual-detetcion motion sensors in seven rooms, plus magentic reed-switches on external doors and selected windows. The motion detectors have both a micro-wave and passive-infra-red systems for detecting people-movement (thus increasing the reliability, and reducing false-detections). A remote control is the only of interest. Other than that, its probably a standard alarm system.

I'm pretty pleased with the security system installation I did - I had to keep the wiring neat & labelled to stop myslef from going insane with mixed circuits!

The formal lounge has a cornice with more detailed "egg and dart" design.

George finishing the installation of the ceiling rose in the formal lounge.

Here's a sample of the large decorative cornice (a Victorian gutter cornice). It looked huge when it was on the floor, but a perfect size when installed. You can also just see the nosing on the external corners of the fireplace breats, and the box-window to the left.

Our plasterer, Amore, have a discussion with his assistant, George.

Decorative plaster

After "hanging" the plasterboard, the next stage is "stopping-up" the joins and corners. This work started around late November.

Our plasterer, Amore, liked to complete the work in each area as he went, rather than stop-up the whole house first, and then do the decorative.

We chose to put "bull-nosing" on many of the external corners in the house. This is a good idea aethetically, but they were quite tedious for Amore to fit, as they were not made as a perfect right-angle in shape - so it was quite a juggle to fit them.

We liked this Victorian fence, which we saw in one of Melbourne's "heritage" suburbs. We may use a similar design on our new house ....one day!

These ternches have potable stormwater in one pipe, and sub-surface/cut-off drains in another pipe. All this doubling-up of drainage made it more expensive of course, but its best done now.

Three drains in one trench - the potable stormwater drain is on top (in 100mm PVC fro strength, even though 90 mm is permitted). Underneath is the sewer and also the surface/sub-surface drainage. Note :- the grey water from the house (excluding kitchen sullage) is kept separate from other drains in the house until it joins the sewer main line - this allows me to easily re-direct gray-water for recycling at a later date.

Here is Greg installing the sewer and rainwater drains. The laser level allows home to get the correct fall on the system (we had about 1800mm of fall over 40m from the house to the Legal Point of Discharge - which was heaps).

Drains

All our internal plumbing was roughed-in, but we had no drains to connect it to. Fotunately, I had slected a plumber who can do both inmternal and external plumbing (some plmbers specialised in only one).

Onece again, the energy-certiciation system required for new homes in Australia had an impact here. As part of our energy certification, we had to have rain-water recycling (or solar energy assisted heated water supply). I chose to have rain-water recycling. So this means we have three types of external drains:

1) "Potable" rainwater from roof-areas only
2) Surface water collection and sub-surface cut-ff drains
3) Sewer

All-up, this amounted to about 400 metres of drains, circum-naviagating the house. Cost was around A$1000 (US$7000).

The rainwater system doesn't have the collection sump, or sump-pump installed yet, but we allowed a space for it in the layout of the system.

My electrician also installed the power-feed for the rainwater-sump-pump, and sewer-sump-pump at this time (our off-site sewer is not a gravity system, instead it is a pressure sewer get the stuff up the hill near us).

More Excavation Work

I don't currently have a photo to depict this, but also in November, we had some more excavation work down, and the old original timber garage rewmoved (which we hd been using for storage on-site). The excavation work was done on the high-side of the slope, where the house appeared too "dug-in" to the gound. We removed lots of earth, to open this area up, and placed removed earth around on the low-side to give us a larger flat area for entertaining.

Plasterboard Hangers

The plasterboard hangers were scheduled for early November, but I had to delay them by one-week when I realised that I was not going to have the frame ready for them.

So the plasterboard was installed by a team of three "hangers" around November 10. They took three days to do it (they said thyy would have taken two days on a normal house, but our 12-foot ceilings slowed them down).

They did a great job, and put all the off-cuts into a bin that I had arranged for them.

Plastering Tools

The tools of the trade for our plasterboard hangers :- battery-packs on re-charge for wall-board screwdrivers, and an industrial-strength ghetto-blaster.

All the sheet plaster was shipped in one truckload. The total mass of plater was about 8 tonnes as I recall! I was worried about how our suspended timber floor would take the load, so I had it distributed around the floor as much as possible (see above).

On the right is the revised kitchen window - it comes dowm 172mm lower than the original one did, so now the sill is level with the kitchen bench (i.e. there is no splash-back)

Stuff-Ups - We Do Have Them

Stuff ups are different when you make them yourself - and we have made some on this project. You can't get mad, or even, because its your fault when you are owner-builder. In the case of our kitchen window, I didn't listen to Julie properly, and so I had a kitchen window made that had a 175mm splash-back underneath it, where the kitchen sink was to be.

After the window was fitted, Julie looked at it and said it was wrong. I said "no it isn't, its what was in the design drawing". But then Julie showed me a photo of how she thought it would be, and then I realised my mistake.

We lived with the window installed for about 3 weeks, before we both decied we couldn't live with it any longer, and so it went back to the joinery to be modified. The top part (radiusesd head, and hopper-sashes) was retained, new casement sashes and styles were fitted, and the sill was retained. This modification cost over A$1000 (US$700), but it really was worth it.

This internal wall of our lounge room has polyester acoustic insulation, to keep sound from our sound-system to a minimum in the adjacent room.

Wall Insulation & Energy Ratings

All external walls were insulated in R2 polyester (fire rated) batts. These are white in colour. All new homes in Australia must now achieve a 5-Star energy certification, which usually implies full insulation,and careful design of windows, shade-control, and aspect.

We also fitted some acoustic insulation to some internal walls to provide better isolation between rooms (e.g. kitchen/bedroom wall, and bathroom/bedroom wall). This is also polyester, but much denser than the white thermal insulation.

Photos of all internal walls are handy for locating electrical wiring, plumbing and wall studs later on.

Completing the Plumbing and Electrical "Rough-In"

Also as part of the frame preparation process, I had my electrician and plumber finish off the rough-in.

Its a good idea to take photos off all the walls after the rough-in work is complete. This way you can used the photos later if you need to locate plumbing, wires, or wall-studs.

Getting the Frame Ready for Plastering

Before plastering the internal walls, I had a list a mile long of all the things that needed doing. For example:

* Extra noggins to allow for fixing of things like: toilet roll holders, wardrobe frames, light fittings, etc.
* Bell-wires for front door bells, and servants-bells (NOW HANG ON - we DO NOT have servants, but I did buy an old Edwardian room-indicator panel (for about US$20), so that the maid can see which room is requesting service, and I am keen to install it and get it running).
* TV, phone, computer and security system wiring.
* Straighten the frame in corners, and replace a few warped studs.
* Install wall & ceiling insulation
* Install lights in the roof space
* etc, etc, etc.....

The "frame preparation" process went on for about 6 weeks or. It was slow, as I decided to do this work myslef, instead of getting trades to do it. Cost was another issue here, especially with work that I can do myself.

Catch-up Postings

Well, this blog is some 3 months out of date, and I am going to have a go at catching up on the building-work done in that time. So watch for some new postings shortly.