Queensland Owner Builder Course

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In trying to get our renovation project off the ground more, and open up more options for getting the work down I did a Queensland Owner Builder Course.

The idea behind the owner builder course is to allow people who are not licensed building Trade Contractors to build their own homes and perform renovations, extensions, etc. on land that they own. A Owner Builder Permit is required for work where the total value would exceed $11,000 (including GST and labour) if performed by a licensed building Trade Contractor. With the Permit the owner builder is allowed to do all the building work, except for plumbing and electrical tasks.

The course can be delivered in many different ways, including classroom delivery or by correspondence. Because of my workload and family commitments, and the fact that I couldn’t find it being offered in Townsville, I took the course by correspondence with The Peach Institute. I probably could have completed the entire course in a weekend If I had sat down for an entire weekend to do it, but instead I spread it out over a few evenings in the span of a month and completed it.
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6 Advantages and 6 Disadvantages of Composite Decking

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The use of composite decking really seems to be taking off here. While at the Calgary Home and Garden Show I had a bit of a chat at a decking booth. He told me that composite decking material is becoming more and more common. They are still building more timber/wood decks than composite decks, but composite decks are becoming more popular and common.

Below are a few advantages that they talked about with composite decking materials:

  1. No evidence of nails / nice flat finish
  2. Environmentally friendly, made from recycled material (plastics bags, milk bottles, etc.)
  3. Pre-coloured and never has to be painted, oiled or stained
  4. Easy to clean with a hose
  5. Smooth, splinter free finish
  6. Flexible material with many unique possibilites over wood / timber

All of those sounded too good to be true so I did a bit of research into composite decking material after coming home. There is a lot of good things about it, but there are also a few concerns that I found on the Internet about composite building materials. Here are a few of them: Continue Reading →

New Townsville Contractors Page

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I’ve added a “Townsville Contractors” Page to the web-site.

Slowly I will be adding more information to the page about different contractors that we work with during our renovation process. Each contractor will have their own page, with specific information about our experience with them. It will probably take me a while to fill out all the information, but it will come.

For now you can check out some brief descriptions of the contractors, and find my personal rating (out of five) of our experience with them at the new Townsville Contrators page.

A Canadian Beaver Ate My Door!

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Did a Beaver Chew on my Timber Door?

Here in Australia we need to protect our houses from numerous pests, especially termites. But one thing that we didn’t expect to have to protect our house against was a Canadian Beaver!!!

Our Canadian Beaver - Look at those TeethIn this case the Canadian Beaver was in fact our four year old son. For reasons that we simply can not fathom our son decided to eat the door on this particular morning! He has had some pretty strange things for breakfast before, but this is certainly a first for him…