When you do bathrooms you need to create fall to the floor wastes. This video from DTA shows how to mix and lay a screed. It doesn't show how to create fall or how deep the tile screed bed should be. I use tiling products from Jacoba tiles. You can go to Ceramic Tile...
Renovations
Gyprock Taping Techniques
Taping Top Coating
How do I do a Driveway – Maitland City Council
Maitland publishes some standard drawings which may be very handy for people such as myself who are trying to get a handle on the requirements for improvements and additions to a house. To get them: Go to Maitland Councils Website Hover over Planning & Development...
Flatpack is Mecanno for Adults
My wife and I are so sick of not having any storage space we have decided to put new wardrobes in both the front bedrooms. Now all I have to do is assemble the mecanno set. Shouldn't be too difficult.
How many bags of cement do I need to make 1 cubic metre of concrete?
Currently (Dec 2011) doing fence posts and some small concrete pads around the house so I need to self mix the concrete Here is a good example of what is required from the "General Purpose Cement Product Data Sheet" on Boral's Site General Purpose Cement Product Data...
Renovations
A blog post from the Android Phone. We are nearing completion. Just have to install Stainless Steel Wire Balustrading from All Things Stainless (incidentally they use Joomla and VirtueMart so nice to see a bit of open source being used in a nuts and bolts style of...
Brick Piers, Antcaps and Termite Proof Silicone
My Wife and I are putting an extension on our Weatherboard House. The extension is supported by 350x350mm brick piers with Gal Threaded rod running up through the centre of the piers to hold down the bearers. This setup requires a penetration through the Ant-cap (see...
New Guttering Installed
After 3 days of struggling with scaffold my Wife and I have finished the guttering. We sourced the Guttering from a sheetmetal product company in Newcastle Hancock Speedway When ordering the guttering I used my trusty QCAD, an Opensource 2D CAD Program to provide a...
Insulation – DIY
Cold Floors We own an old timber cottage. It's sitting on concrete peers on a sloping block, so wind can get under the house and chill the floor boards down. Insulating under the floors To try and take the chill off the boards, we have put insulation under the floor...
Owner Builders License
After completing an ozob.com.au online owner builders course. Today I traveled to Newcastle to get my Owner Builders License. After getting the license I let the council know that I'm about to start using a "Notice of Commencement". Another small step/s in the reno...
Woo Hoo Plans Approved – On to the Manual Labour
After submitting my plans and less than a month later they have been approved. Excellent! Now a trip to the office of Fair trading to get my Owner Builders permit and we are good to go...
Finally – Plans submitted to Council
After many months of fretting I have mustered up the courage to submit my plans to council.... Hopefully in 4 to 6 weeks I will get approval and be able to proceed. 4/09/2009
Owner Builder Exam Passed!
Just passed my Owner-builder exam online at http://www.ozob.com.au. Now I have to go to the office of fair trading and get an Owner-builders certificate. I am so not good at digesting regulations and understanding what needs doing. Funny how some things you do, other...
Organic Feast Cafe
Went to Organic Feast for a Coffee on the weekend. As you do at Cafe's you grab a magazine. My wife found me a magazine named "The Owner Builder". I loved it. So many real life experiences of people building low cost but very interesting structures. By the end of the...
Maitland Waterproofing
I have just finished coding a website for a friend. He's running a Waterproofing business. I got him to do the waterproofing in my bathroom renovation, which he did a great job of. I was amazed at how neat the end result was (he used these cute little plastic dishes...
The Rear Deck Renovation – We have a plan
When you start to think of what you want for a certain portion of the house. There is a period of time where ideas surface and command attention for while but ultimately don't reach the final design. I suppose planning is important so you don't just go for the first...
The week in sport – If you could call house renovation sport that is.
Dishwasher - Finally Despite my motivation being negatively geared. I did manage to install a Dishwasher which is such a watershed moment. We never had a dishwasher while I was growing up and all through my flatting years we never had one either. So here I am trying...
Roof Quote – Talkin’ about my Renovation
Got a roof quote today. So the eventual plan will be a new Colorbond roof with Colorbond Facia covers. A Fiberglass Wool blanket is also planned to add a little more insulation.