First time home owners

Published by SteveStanley on

It’s amazing what can get done in two weeks. Our build team has turned piles of wood and cardboard boxes into a house in less than two weeks!

Our new house

I got to spend the afternoon helping with the building for once. Our chainsaws are inoperable again due to all our guide bars being worn out and so with great relief we could say the milling was done for this trip.

Today’s task was wiring, putting on interior plywood (it helps brace the house, it looks nice and most importantly for Gerdine it helps keep bugs out!) and putting on gutters.

Plywood being nailed on
Gutters going up

Putting on gutters meant clambering all over my roof which is great fun. Problem is gutters are at the edge of the roof so there was all kinds of hanging on ropes, leaning over edges and various other non safe practises going on. 😃 The brackets we have to hang the gutter aren’t great quality, but it’s on and we even tested it with a bottle of water. Rather helpfully the roof isn’t actually level and slopes towards the back of the house where the water tank will be – very nifty that.

Our electrics whiz Josh has been unpacking and installing all of the expensive solar equipment we bought. I can’t tell what I’m looking at, various boxes with wires sticking out, but Josh has turned it into a working system. We have power! Our house runs 12V and 240V line, we have normal outlets and DC car type outlets dotted around, the 12V being on 24/7 and 240V whenever we turn the inverter on.

Our battery bank and charge controller

There’s no running water yet, we still have to do all the plumbing connecting the rain water tank (which we haven’t brought in yet) to the sinks, shower and toilet. Perhaps tomorrow we’ll dig a big hole for the toilet to run into.

Oscar’s bedroom

Outside we have sturdy blue plastic as walling. It’s weather proof and sun resistant. That’s going to stay on to keep rain and bugs out and we’ll ask the Kovol guys if they can weave a bamboo wall to go over the top and our walls will be finished.

The team working on our ‘walls’

Lots of work left to do, but wow, it’s amazing to have a house. Me and Gerdine are first time home owners! A lick of paint and some furniture and we’ll make a house a home. It’s a massive relief to take a break from milling (though we have to get back to it for the Hansen’s house in a week and a half) and it’s a lot of fun to be working on our house.

And lots of curious neighbours 😄

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