Topic: Building Our house in Christchurch New Zealand

[piersdad]

today 23 7 2009  
the kitchen fittings arrived and a single trades man was able to fit out one kitchen in the one day the builders were there and fited the rest of the locks and other bits.
  Ginny inspected the girls flat kitchen as most of the parts were there  the dish wash drawer still packed and the bench there ready for the finishing  bits
the painter was also there touching up the last bits  so it was a very busy day and a fine warm one as well.

[piersdad]

wet today and mud every where the kitchen tradesman was there doing the second kitchen.
next Monday is appliances and tues day the plumbing and electrical work
the council has asked us to have 2 separate supplies for power and water so  even though the single power water supply was more than adequate we have to comply or not get a compliance cert.
so Wednesday telpower contractors will dig another ditch the length of the drive and lay another  cable and water pipe to the two flats.
this i hope will coincide with the electricians finishing the electrical work and wednesday or soon after the power could be connected.

[piersdad]

today is fine and 17 degrees c and hot winds off the mountains.(nor wests here)

all week has been great and or new house will be ready in 2 weeks time.
spent all day yesterday on helping the sparkys dig a new trench across the very many cables pipes and other obstructions from the front of the drive to the nearest power pole.
i had pictures of the last time  the front was dug up so today we put in a second cable the council insisted on (one was more than enough  but you know what the text books say [throw away common sense])

 so we used the open ditch to run 2 more plastic pipes  so that if they bounce us with more stupid things
  we can just use the $20  worth of pipes  in stead of the $600  worth of digging /labour

so today we finish the rest of the digging up the drive and lay the rest of the $700  worth of cable and another water pipe as well   

so next week we get the plumbing /heat pump/mirors and auto garage doors
wednesday  is for the carpets

[piersdad]

saturday and the driveway services came and with his small digger completely finished the services to the house he not only did the power and water but also connected the water mains where it had to be cut previously and cleaned up the drive and installed an extra telecom pipe and finished running the telsta wires and broad band connections  so all praise to mr  Willie Kahu  he went the extra and we are gratefull for this so hope fully monday the plumbers and heat pump guys and the garage door ppl will have good acess to the house

[piersdad]

today whoopee 5th august and the power is on the water connected and the plumbers are finishing the installation of the no 2 unit so  only the gass fitters to come and the carpets and a few other things such as curtains and the finishing bits
the heat pumps were switched on and the sitting room was cosy and warm in just 10 minutes and so quiet that i had to get 30 mm away to find out if it was working

[piersdad]

10 th august
telstra here to connect broad band and found that there was no wire to the internal connections of the house.
So as i am an electrician i set to and had to drill some holes in the bricks and run a tv cable down the wall between the bricks and the wooden wall.
As i was on my own, and ginny was not able to help due to her stroke, I had to be both the pusher and shover.
Eventually got a line down the cavity and tried to draw it up, the line broke.
so tried a stronger one.
 Each time it meant a slow crawl,  through a maze of triangle shaped roof strusses a journey of approx 5 minutes of devilish contortions in near dark and making sure each step was on a solid beam.
the end part was so confined i had to remove my glasses in the near tropical heat of the roof space.

in all i probably had to go up and down this torture 10 times
eventually i got a strong garden plastic covered wire and was able to get one wire down the wall and eventually when a friend arrived she was able to push the wire into the wall while i sweated in the squishy roof pulling one the wire up the wall.
in all about 4 hours work.
if a next time will make sure the @@#$ wire goes in  before the lining goes on the interior.

mid morning and the garage door opening man arrived and installed the two door opening devices.
then the building inspector arrived and  i found out yet another expense as we had to have concrete edging and gutters for the drive way.
the drapes man arrived and i found out the cost was also an extra so a surprise combined expenses of at least 5 thousand
the rubbish skip man arrived and took the huge bin away and the temperary toilet  was also removed

3 30 pm and i had with a bit of manipulating on accounts secured The last payment for today homes for the house and the supervisor met me there at 3 30 pm and after a final inspection and noticing a very few minor things he handed me the keys to the front door.

the final hand over will be Friday noon but in reality the houses are MINE

drove home with the two sets of keys   for the wife and the daughter and grand daughter
after the tension of the last 21 weeks i burst into tears some thing i had not done in 30 years.

arrived at the rental and said to the wife i have a little  present worth $145000 and handed her the key to front door.
 the same to the daughter and grand daughter.
the neighbours must have wondered what the noise was as we are usually a quiet lot.
 after tea daughter and i went to the house and looked through the 2 flats and tried every thing.
the heat pumps are so quiet that they cant be heard from 2 feet away.
the double insulation meant the house was warm despite the 5 degree outside
so ended a great day.
tomorrow is the driveway  and  the few things that need attention and friday the official hand over and signing
 

[piersdad]

thursday 20 august
at last the driveway company has stopped driving us mad with diggers,trucks,very noisy compactors and lots of activity.
the driveway is now with the main base coat of 150 mm of compacted AP60 stones.
theses stones have lime and sand with them and when compacted with a bit of water they form an almost concrete like surface,
today ginny had to go out and the only way to get to the car  out on the road was for her to ride her scooter over the unfinished very rough loose gravel.
what a hairy drive for 50 meters her comment was
"bloody hell that was exciting|"
any way i had to drive the scooter back and yes it was exciting almost the mini outback 4 wheel drive experience.
any way the drive is now dry (after a weeks rain) and i can at last drive the car up to the house and start the sorting out of our gear.

when the vinle layer did the shower floor he did not prevent the excess floor leveling cement going down the water outlet and the result was the drain was blocked with some 4 inches of solid cement.
all attempts to remove it failed and the plumber had to  drill out the concrete  and dig up the plumbing and replace the shower drain.
so today the new shower drain was cemented in and we made sure the drain was pristine clean.

so the next thing is for the guilty vinle layer has to return and relay the wonderfull job he did to the floor .
this time with out pouring concrete down the drain

so a week with out a shower 

the flat is so cosy and warm and the power  bill anticipated will be half we were used to have.

this week end peter (my son) will do some finishing to the drive as he has th eexpertise to do this and save us a heap of money
we are already $20,000 over budget and gratefull for his help.
once the drive is finished we can re apply for loan and settle down for a 6.9% loan
we anticipate the repayments will be around $300 to $350 a week between the 4 of us so thats not a bad 'rent' when $295 is the rental for a 3 bedroom flat and we have now two new 2 bedroom flats
worth about $450,000 between them.

[piersdad]

my son and his two oldest boys came on the week end and they searched and dug up the end of the storm water pipe  so as to put a drain sump in.
the shingle had to be carefully scraped away and a hole dug till the end of the pipe was found.
the two boys then were shown and participated in the construction of the complex art of placing bends in the right place to make a 'Y' shaped  pipe connected to the storm water system to make a 'bubbleup'
sump.
they each participated in the gluing and placing of the different parts to the pipes and they would both have learned a very valuable skill.
they could not finish the job as the 300 mm plastic casing had to be purchased and so their efforts were buried for the while.

[piersdad]

3rd week i and the garden is ready to plant.
there were huge amount of river stones in the soil so a rotary  sieve i made and lots of hard work and all the stones are in one place and the soil in the garden.
next job is to paint the fence and repair where a tree stump was poking through before

[piersdad]

garden is growing and son has helped us get the concrete curb in for the drive.
the drain for this area has been put in and all that remained then was to put another sump at the end of the drive near the road.
well Wednesday and the plumber said the will come later this week so i went to help a friend shift a meter of shingle and arrived  exhausted at 10 30 am to be told the plumber was coming soon.
so i had to get the digging gear out and start to excavate some very hard compacted shingle mixed with clay.
my efforts  after looking at a picture of the storm water junction soon found the old trench and it started to fill with water .
o dear the bubble up sump connected was full of water .
this meant that 60 meters of storm water pipe was full of water also so a 2 liter can and 100 liters bailed out for every 25 mm of lowering water levels.
so i just managed to dig up the storm water junction before the plumber arrived

the rest of the day i felt at least 100 years old

so now i have all the council requirements for the final inspection 

[piersdad]

finally we have a certificate of completion for the house and we can down load th elast of theloan and complete the drive sealing and pay the last bills

[piersdad]

well it is now finished  this week we finally got the drive sealed and the luxury of being able to walk out side in bare feet and watch the rain disappear down the drains cleanly.
even wash the cars.
the insulation is so good that if the room is 21 c at evening abd the over night temperature is 5 c the inside drops to 19 or 2 c drop with out heating  and just a 10 minute blast from the heat pump in the morning gets a lovely 24 c



my tin man robot greet people as they come up the drive and ginny has a new scooter so that she can go shopping any time.
   The blue car  we have has automatic drive, a left hand accelerator, and a steering knob on the steering wheel so that  with her stroke disabilities she is completely mobile going to her club meets, swimming,  and visiting friends

i have taken over the garage to use as work shop and build more robots

walking robot experiment

this one can walk using a zimmer frame and looks so real it is uncanny

so at present i am about to rebuild it with all the mistakes  improved and parts that ether broke or look weird redesigned and soon will be able to radio control it

[piersdad]

February 22 we had a 6.3 earthquake and no damage to the house i did eventually find a small flake of brick and pasted it t a piece of paper and sent it to 'today homes ' the builder with the note
pleas find enclosed the damage to our house  at least we are not out of fashion thanks for the wonderful job

the acceleration of the quake was 2.1 gravities a world record--  japan quake was .9
most structures are designed for 1.1 acceleration

[Spaced out]

Glad it was no more than that! 

You must be fed up by now with all the "rock & roll" of the last few months!

[piersdad]

i spoke too soon as we had another big 5.6 followed bu a 6.3 an hour later
it caused another 100 buildings that might be repairable to collapse this made 3 distinct earth quake faults and now the 3 are playing tit for tat all day with as many as 20 small quakes and at least a 4.2 every other day.
last count  was 7500 after shocks and still going
most major quakes get approx 1000 after shocks before they settle down to one a month  and not felt.
so we hold a few world records here
 just released is a map of the city where 10,000 houses will be deemed to be demolished as the ground under them has ether sunk a meter or is not firm enough to build on.
we are now classed as an earthquake  prone area and  the total disaster was recently described as the same cost as 10 katrinas
we are looking at $20 billion to recover from it.
the last 6.3 was from a different direction and at last a small seam between the kitchen bench and the wall opened up so water could get down there so a $10 tube of sealant will fix it.
 so now i am in fashion and tell my house builder(today homes)i have this really minor damage.

Im sure they will appreciate the report

just found this video of a house that was lifted and the foundations replaced  and dropped again on the new foundations and while the house was up in the air all the underneath was updated with insulation etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWntQIlE_LI&feature=player_embedded