Author Archives: Bill Hutchison

Construction of External Frames – Day 2

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These guys are flying through the construction of the external framining. It really makes me wonder what was wrong the our second builder, who look almost a year just to do the front stairs…

Here are the photos from day 2 of the building to lockup. If you want to see bigger versions of the photos you can click on the images and see them on flicker.

Back Left External Framing with Bracing PlyFront Left External Framing with Bracing Ply

External Framing Left SideThe images above are of the left side of the house with the plywood bracing already attached to most of it, and the three room air-conditioners installed. As you can see they have already made a lot of progress from the first day of constructing the external walls.

The image on the left is the framing for the master bedroom external walls.

Caleb Bedroom External Framing

Caleb really enjoyed showing us around where his new bedroom will be. He told us “this is my new window, and this is my new window, and this is my air-conditioner, and this is my new window…”. He called every opening and gap in the external framing a window, so I hope that he isn’t too disappointed when most of the “windows” get filled in…

During all the planning I have been showing him the plans that we had drawn up and he has gotten pretty good at showing people around under the house. He seems be have really good spacial awareness from what I can tell.

Jessica Bedroom External Framing Here is a photo of Jessica sitting in the window opening for her room. There are actually going to be two large windows in each of the kid’s rooms, which will hopefully allow them to be nice and bright and airy.

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Construction Has Begun!

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Given our previous experience with builders here in Townsville (the first people we were talking too apparently might be going to jail for fraud and the second guy took almost a year to finish our front stairs) we were pleasantly surprised when our new builder was here with his crew at 7:00 this morning to go over the job with them.

External Wall Framing - BackThere were a few very minor changes that I talked to him about, moving some side windows 15cm over, air conditioner installation, door types and hallway width, but it has already begun well.

The builders crew has started to really fly through the external framing. They have already completed eight of the panels needed for the front, back and left side External Wall Framing - Front(because of the steel posts the walls are built in panels, and then inserted between the steel posts).

The builder has told us that he should only take two and a half weeks to do the entire thing to lockup. The only think that might delay that time frame is if the windows come in late.

You can see how the external timber framing needs to fit between the steel stumps pretty well in the photo below. The panel on the right is already up, and the other two are sitting on the ground waiting to go up tomorrow.

External Wall Framing - Left

I’ve also set myself up with a Flickr account tonight, so I will start to load my photos on there for this blog. We will see how that goes…

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There is Chalk Marks on our Concrete Slab!

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And I am excited!

Construction should finally start tomorrow on the framing under our house. The chalk marks are for the frames that should be completed by the end of this week, not from my extremely creative son this time.

Over the following two weeks they will be adding the exterior cladding and basic plumbing and electrical. We are going to try to get all the electrical wires run, and all the pipes run for the plumbing, but because we are not sheeting inside at the moment we won’t be able to finish anything off at this point.

I took a photo of some of the chalk marks to include in this post, but I can’t find my card reader or the cable for my camera right now. So the photos will have to wait…

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Builder Finally Found – He starts next Monday!

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Talk about being in the right place at the right time…

There is a house behind my work that has been lifted and is the process of being built in under, like what we want to do with our place. At the same time a friend from work, who is also my boss, is having a house built next to that house. My friend started talking with the builder about all the trouble that we have been having and arranged for me to have a chat with the builder about our house.

Well, to cut a long story short, he is going to start enclosing our house on Monday next week! It’s amazing!

Because of the delays caused by our previous builder (almost a year to finally complete the front set of stairs) based on our initial budget we can no longer enclose under the house and fully complete it. The building market in Townsville is booming and costs have increased about 30% in the 15 months since we first tendered bids on our construction.

We will be getting under the house completed to lockup stage, so it will have the windows, doors, security screens, roller door and external walls finished. The internal framing will also be complete, but none of the internal sheeting will be done, most of the plumbing won’t be done, the electrical will not be complete and there will be no flooring or internal staircase. We will need to do the rest of the building room by room when the time and finances permit.

The whole thing is not exactly what we had planned (it was supposed to be completed by Christmas last year!), but we finally feel like we are making headway.

An advantage with the builder doing work on the house behind ours is that we have been able to watch him work. He seems to do a great job, and the owner of the house is very happy, even wants him to do more work for him in the future! That is always the sign of a good builder.

The construction should only take about three weeks, which will be amazing, and I will be taking photos along the way for posting.

We are excited about this and we feel a far way from how we were feeling in December when our son declared “The house is killing us“.

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