Month: January 2008

Renovate in Townsville in 2008

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From everything that I have read and heard renovating in Townsville in 2008 will continue to be a challenge for home owners.

Most quality builders in Townsville are booked well in advance, and the costs involved with renovating in Townsville continues to escalate. In October 2007 our builder was already booked until July of 2008.

A standard carpenter’s rates right now in Townsville is up over $55.00 per hour. Our builder tells us that if a half decent carpenter isn’t paid that much, then they will move on to another job that will pay $55.00 per hour or more.

The rising cost of materials will also continue to drive up the costs of renovating.

Many of the larger building projects in Townsville are being either cancelled or postpones primarily due to a lack of tradesmen. The lack of trained tradesmen is no longer just affecting the small home renovators, but it has reached a point now where it is affecting everyone, including the large developers.

In the lead up to the national election last year here in Australia there was a lot of talk about the lack of affordable housing. There was a lot of discussion about releasing new lands, but I didn’t hear much talk about training up new tradesmen, or importing the needed skills. In North Queensland I reckon that bringing in those skills is what is needed to help alleviate the housing shortage.

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Our Timber Deck Has Been Sold

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It was a sad day a few weekends ago when we finally sold our deck.

Townsville Deck SoldIt took us almost two-weeks to sell the deck after we first advertised the deck for sale in the Townsville Bulletin. We had a lot of people call and say they were going to come, and not show up. We had one couple call, measure it all up, and then go home to check and never call back.

After the two weeks it took us to sell the deck, it then took almost two more weeks for the deck to finally be picked up. The heavy rains we had in Townsville managed to put a damper on that…

Hauling Off our DeckIn the end we sold it to a fellow Canadian who is working in the building industry in Townsville. We got about a third of our asking price for the deck, which was disappointing to say the least. I don’t know if we got ripped off or not though, as I have yet to see another used deck advertised here in Townsville, and I didn’t have anyone around to ask for advise on the purchase price.

Our builder didn’t comment much on the price that we got for the deck. I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

All I can say is that I will miss the idea of having a nice large deck off the back of our Queenslander. The money that we should save on putting it up the deck and building the roof will be put to good use as we continue to get the house finished off on the ground floor.

I Think My Backyard is Water Logged

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Written by a guest author, my wife…

Knee Deep in our Backyard MudBill ventured into our backyard yesterday after Townsville had received close to 180mm of torrential rain in a day. Bill simply wanted to put the ladder away, but sunk into a muddy pit instead. One would think that his wife would have rushed to his aide, but no, she preferred to stay upstairs taking photos of the event as it unfolded.

His legs sank to his knees. As he attempted to get out of the hole he lost his shoes….just the typical Aussie thongs (flip-flops that is to our North Americans). He couldn’t manage to drag his feet up while still holding onto his shoes, so had to leave them behind.

Trying to Dig the Flip Flop out of the MudDetermined to get his shoes back (seriously, they only cost about $10) he spent the next 15 minutes up to his elbows in mud trying to dig them out….AND yes, his wife continued to take more photos…

To accompany Bill’s lost shoes and muddy experience, he has also been busy with a leaking house. With still being in construction / renovation stage, our house has had it’s fair share of leaks. Our builder has responded quickly which we are so grateful for. However, Bill has had to do lots of temporary fixing in between our builder getting to us. Obviously we aren’t the only house here in Townsvile that has been hit with all this rain.Tarps have gone up on, mopping is a regular occurrence as well as wiping and soaking up with loads of towels. Yes, we are tired of it, but also thankful that we have not been hit as the homes further down South have.

Puddle in the Front Room Under our HouseThe photo on the left is where our major leaks are causing delays in us getting our house finished. The downstairs area that was to be sheeted, painted and floor coverings laid several weeks before Christmas. It really was a blessing (in disguise) that the rains came when they did otherwise we would have been fixing up leaks to already finished walls.

The rains come in heavy across our front veranda area, pool on the tiles and run back to the house, leaking down to what is to become our bedrooms.

Will keep you posted as always…..send Bill some new shoes if you think of it. He would think that was hilarious!!

This article was originally written on our web-site linked to the ministry that we work with. You can check it out in the news section at www.billandtamara.com.

Here are some other titles I considered for the article:

  • Our Backyard ate Bill’s Thong
  • My Backyard Ate My Shoe
  • My Backyard Tried to Eat Me

Tamara’s original title was “When it Rains in Townsville“.

180mm of Rain in 24-Hours = Rain Under the House

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We have had two extremely heavy days of rain  the last month or so. They have highlighted to us our leaking front veranda and leaking upstairs windows. The first day was the heaviest recorded in over a decade, and the second day was 18cm, or 7 inches of rain.

Caleb Running Through the Puddles

As you can see, not everyone thought that the rain was a bad thing… Ah, to be young and care free again.

Puddle in the Front Room Under our HouseWe had some trouble with our front veranda leaking and also with the old upstairs window frames leaking through the wall, down the studs and into the ground floor.

The problem was not in the waterproofing of our front veranda that our builder here in Townsville did, but rather with the old wall soaking up the water and it running down through that.

The other problem was that the original veranda had a negative slope on the veranda. The negative slope caused the water to pool next to the wall, instead of running off the front of the veranda. This gave the water the chance to soak into the wall and then run down to under the house.

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