Category Archives: Renovation Frustrations

A Canadian Moose Blocked my Wireless

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Our Chrome Canadian MooseI swapped around the space on my desk earlier today and tonight Tamara was unable to connect to wireless from her laptop in our bedroom. I tried the normal stuff to get it working, but didn’t have any luck getting it to reconnect.

I thought that maybe our new cordless phone was interfering with the wireless access point since it was now between the wireless access point and Tamara’s computer, but swapping those two around didn’t fix the wireless connection problem.

The next thing I moved was our Chrome Canadian Moose (pictured above). We got the chrome Canadian Moose as a wedding gift and it has lived in all sorts of places around this house and our previous two homes. It must have some very reflective qualities, or just be a solid hunk of metal, because as soon as I moved our chrome Canadian Moose the wireless started to work for my wife.

We both had a good laugh at this one once we figured it out. After all, who knew that a Canadian Moose could block a wireless signal?

Builder Calls it Quits

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

I had previously written about our builderhaving his previous off-sider quit on him while working on our house. He had picked up a new apprentice and things seemed to be going well, until last week when he had to let his apprentice go.

With this latest apprentice quitting he has come to us and told us that he can’t abide by our contract and get the house enclosed by the end of January (our previous thoughts were that we would actually be moved downstairs by Christmas, woops). So now it looks like we are left without a builder.

This sucks…

Because of the wait that there is for builders in Townsville this looks like our plans could be pushed back a year behind where we thought we would be.

So now we are stuck with a house three metres above the ground and no-one to enclose it. I wish that I could say I can do it myself, or even get some mates to help do it, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that happening.

Now what?

Previous Article: Renovate Australia – Builder Quits

Technorati Tags: , ,

Worker Quits

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

This morning Tamara received a phone call that our trade contractor’s “off sider” has quit. His off sider was his second man in all of his construction work. This basically means that now all of our plans are pretty much on hold until he can find either another “off sider” or an apprentice to work with him on the building work.

From what our main trade contractor told Tamara he is eager to pick up an apprentice as he won’t have to actually teach as much as he has had to in the past. An apprentice should be able to pick up the work and run with it a lot more so then a casual worker will.

My only hope is that he find a new employee soon, otherwise this project will draw on well into the new year and probably mess around with our plans to visit family in Canada next year…

Why our Spa Bath Leaked

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

This weekend I pulled apart the iron around our spa bath to fix it. What I discovered was that whoever installed the pump did a VERY dodgy job on it.

The spa bath pump wasn’t even bolted or screwed down. Most of the weight of the pump was being held by the actual pipes with part of the back resting on a piece of timber.

Not only was the pump pretty much “floating” there, but there was also no o-rings actually installed between the pump and the pipes. This is why the bath leaked so freely.

I had a lot of good help from Twin Cities Pool Supplies, which is only a few blocks from our house. They gave me good advice over the phone and were able to provide everything that I needed to get it fixed. Here is the link to their web-site:

I had some good photos of the pump and the spa bath with all the iron removed from around the spa, but unfortunately all the photos were deleted before I got them onto my computer.

The spa bath no longer leaks when the pump is off and the pump is now screwed down to some timber. It looks like the pump itself has a broken seal on the inside though, so I still can’t run the pump without it leaking. Since we want to redo the bath in the next few years though we decided just to disconnect the power for the pump and won’t be using it as a spa.