House Build Update 5, 25 May – 16 July.

Winter has well and truly settled in but we are now past the shortest day so the days are slowly getting lighter.    We’ve had some rain but in between fine spells but it sure is a lot colder.    I haven’t taken as many photos as there is a lot of finicky work which makes it hard to show progress.  We did put up a couple of Facebook post as below.

5 June – Well the rain stopped as quickly as it started. After a team effort with Chopper and Irish splitting wood and Andre on delivery services for a couple of mornings, we then quickly finished off the wood shed today and stacked the wood delivered so far. As the sun was shinning we took advantage of the warm weather to start staining plywood for the cladding, so much easier to get a first coat on now. As it was such a nice day this afternoon we went for a drive to Blake town and port Elizabeth, so amazing to see the rugged coast with Aoraki Mt Cook in the distance.

10 June – Roof update – cos we know some of you will be wondering. We would like to say that the roof is finished but that would be lying but we are nearly there. Al is the most patient person ever being in the industry but even he has been tested. In the meantime work doesn’t stop Smithy came over last weekend and he and Al built the porch out back which will keep the doggies and washing dry when needed. I stacked some more firewood

In between the last FB post and now and after some chasing our roofer finally got here to put the ridge cap on the roof.  The pitch of the roof is 35deg so it has to be dry before he can go on it and that coincided with some frosty mornings.  Fortunately frosty mornings usually mean sunny afternoons and he nearly got it finished but had an unfortunate accident and dropped the final ridge cap and it folded in half.  So he had to reorder another one which meant further delays.  At least while he was here everything was ready for him to measure up for the tray cladding which will follow the roof down the front and back.   At the same time we have carried on there is still some finishing work on the outside before we can get our pre wrap inspection.  Making sure all battens are in place for the metal cladding and all of the timber battens must be covered with building paper.  That is currently one of my jobs.    Finally a couple of weeks ago the roofer returned with the replacement ridge cap and got that and the last piece of tray roofing on.  So we can finally say that the roof is finished.

Over the last week we got 24 solar panels installed. But before installing Al had to work out how all the pieces that had been delivered all went together – no mean feat. Then we had to prep each panel and put into 2 groups (the bottom & top layers). We had already taken all the panels up onto the 2nd floor and then each panel had to be lifted up onto the scaffolding one at a time and installed. We thought we were only going to be able to do about 5 panels in a day but once we got the system sorted the whole installation would’ve taken 2 days. We got down to the last 6 panels and found we hadn’t been given enough of the special clamps. And as it was Saturday afternoon and the electrical shop had already closed ,and certainly something that Mitre5 doesn’t stock, we would have to wait until Monday to finish which was a bit disappointing. Sunday we used to get the earth wires in place and the wires down through the roof that will eventually go to the inverters in the garage. Monday we had gone in and got the necessary clamps and had the remaining 6 in place by the end of the day. So Monday 16th July was the official roof completion.  The rest of this week has been spent getting ready for the Sam the roofer to come back and install the tray cladding next week. In between poor Al’s head is exploding with so much to think of he is the Architect/Designer, Project manager and head builder and at the same time trying to fit in design work for paying clients (and some not paying clients).

We’ve now been living in Blackball for 14 months and building for 8 months pretty much 7 days a week.    If we aren’t building Al is catching up on his architectural work and I have been a part time student doing some paramedicine papers as well as some casual night shifts at Hokitika or Greymouth Stations.   We also usually put ourselves on call during the day when we can and park the ambulance in our driveway.  The locals are used to seeing it but I think visitors think there has been some sort of building accident lol.  We are very careful onsite though as we can’t afford any injures.  When we aren’t on call the pager is usually not far away and in the last 2 weeks we attended 3 callouts. We had an early morning callout at 1am Tuesday morning and didn’t get back to sleep until about 4.30, but fortunately we didn’t have any contractors turning up so could sleep in a bit. It is a good feeling knowing that we are able to make a difference when someone needs our help. And the good news is we have more ambulance volunteers coming on board which will be great.

We are very grateful not to have to live in a caravan in the middle of winter as we did for 3 months while building in Coalgate. And now that the house and carport are all roofed we can move around under cover and don’t have to store the electrical tools in a box or cover all the other equipment and tools in case it rains.  The carport between the garage/studio and house is now dry so we can leave things out without them floating or getting blown away.    It’s the small things!  We also love the fact that we can just walk down the road to one of the 3 establishments in BB and have a feed or a quiet drink.  And also for a not so quiet drink there are Quiz or Jam nights at the inn or Wed pool nights usually at 1 or more of the 3 pubs.   We missed out on watching the annual pub crawl again this year, as we had an ambulance course on, but it looked a lot of fun. We are looking forward to next year.

Thanks to all those that have popped over to visit and given us a hand, whether it is helping doing a site clean-up, planting trees, a spot of building or just coming over to keep us sane and have a good night at the local establishments. The support and distraction is always appreciated 🙂