Week Twenty-three – there’s almost a roof, air-conditioning and 17 gets its own sewer

With regard to the roof, nothing happened on Monday. We’re getting some new roofers. Tuesday comes and everything is quiet. There is rain forecast but surely it won’t be that much? Try 26.8 mm in a period of about 1 hour which was very localised, 0.5 mm at the airport. So we now have some soggy ceilings, insulation and of course more water in the cellar and a unique water feature in the light of the ceiling fan in one of the bedrooms. Fortunately, power is restricted to the one power point.

The roof can’t be completed until the carport and front veranda go up. The veranda cannot be poured until the sewer goes in. SA Water estimated the sewer would happen mid-April. Guessing we’re lucky it was done a bit earlier. Third time lucky, they marked the correct spot and on Wednesday they close the street off and put in their bit.

At the weekly site meeting, a bulkhead over the shower is planned to fix the problem of access for the air-conditioning of the back of 17.

Meanwhile we have the roofers and the air-conditioning guys competing for space with the carpenters back Thursday adding some bracing and completing the ceiling joists in the stairwell.

The roofing guys complete what they can and will be back to finish off some flashing and downpipes once the Spandek panels and Alucobond work is underway.

Much of the ducting is now in place with the head units where they should be.

Friday sees the arrival of a crane to get the compressors in place onto the back of the roof. The builders toilet is moved out of the way so that work can commence on the carport.

Hopefully for the last time, water is vacuumed out of the cellar, with company from SA Water surprising again by sealing the hole over the new sewer connection on a Saturday.

Week Twenty-two – the roof begins and kitchen selections are made

The week starts with a public holiday so no work on the Monday. Shame about the 7mm of rain on a roof that was half covered with tarps.

Details need to be given to the joiners to get the kitchen started. Long before we started to build, March 2016 in fact, we went cruising kitchen manufacturers. Smartstone was selected for the bench-tops with Astral being the colour. They will be 20mm thick for 17 and 40mm for 19. While current fashion can’t be ignored, the durability of engineered stone outweighs the cost savings of other alternatives.

The bench-top surface of choice

Likewise, shiny white 2 pack is all the rage and while it’s easy to repair damages, they will happen more often. We don’t have to have the same in both but given the longevity of our last kitchen, laminated MDF with ABS edging is the choice with a Laminex Polar White Silk Finish.

Given we need to select colours for the laundry bench, tiles also needed to be selected.

We liked the 300x200 Antique White textured tiles we had last time in 17 so we’ll go with these again. For the floors, the criteria is something that is easy to clean and doesn’t show marks so a 300x300 ceramic tile in Belga Grey is the choice. A good price from Beaumont’s helped as well.

To match this, the laundry benches will be in Laminex Terrasphere Natural Finish.

There are two different roof coverings, Colorbond Klip-lok on the new flat sections which can only be seen looking out of the first floor bedroom window, the original roof and extensions being replaced and upgraded with Heritage Corrugated Galv. With the aim of the house looking as original as possible, silver was the chosen colour. But what finish, silver/grey colorbond, plain Zincalume or galvanized steel?

The first two options will last longer but galv has a far more original look and most likely outlive either of us so shiny galv it is and it will fade pretty quickly to match the heritage of the house.

The only issue is the mixing of two metals with the Colorbond draining onto the Galv so some guttering modifications will be required.

So on Tuesday, the flat Klip-lok starts. By the end of the week 17 has a roof at the back and the curved sections are done on 19.

The carpenters did some finishing up making the framing for the attic ladders.

The glass in the first-floor toilet window has lost its frosting to give to desired “Loo with a view”. Given the location of the carport, unless you’re climbing a tree on Edward Street, privacy isn’t an issue.

With the expectation of little rain the following week, Sunday morning was spent emptying water from the cellar. What could possibly go wrong?

Week Twenty-one – common wall in place, some gutters and ceiling channels

To split the current single title into 2 separate Torrens titles the building needs to fire separation compliance with the Performance Requirements of the Building Code of Australia. Simply put, we need a fire rated party wall. The timber framing for it went up last week with the ceiling joists needing to be cut and separated, propped into place with the insulation, fibre cement panels and finished with the Soudal expanding filler.

The box gutters are an integral part of the new roof and have to be measured in place,  built and installed before the lid goes on. The bracing is done for the gutters to sit on, meanwhile the Rondo supports are started in readiness for the ceilings.

Rain is forecast for Sunday and it’s a long weekend so the tarps go up.

We need to work out what the final product will look like so play with colour splashing a bit on the front of the house, it looks like Solver’s Stone White will be the colour for most surfaces with the doors probably black to match the window’s timber.

Week Twenty – getting things ready for a new roof

While on the new part of the house most of the framing is ready to go, the roof over the original house needs to be lifted and extended to fit in with the additions. With only a 30% chance of 0 - 0.2 mm of rain during the week, it’s a good time to pull the roof off and get the new one happening.