Rainfall this week : 0mm☹️

Stillness and the sound of silence. Miraculously and thank bloody goodness, the extreme weather has finally disappeared. After a hectic week of gale force winds with 50-60km hour gusts we were beginning to think we were living in the Sahara Desert. After setting up our ladders and getting all of our tools out, we were all set to start sheeting the shed last week when the wind decided to call in and say HELLO. Ladders fell over, bits and bobs went flying and the dogs blew off the chain, so we threw our hands up in the air and packed everything back up. With absolutely no chance of shedding this week, we decided it would be advisable to set about marking out the rest of the house and all of the drainage in preparation for laying the drainage. In between the gusts of wind and clouds of dust billowing around us, it was a battle to get anything completed, but with our neck gaiters constantly on and off our faces trying to keep the dust out, we battled through albeit a little exhausted.

As you can clearly see in one of the photographs above, there is a large rock with the fluro orange stripes painted on it. Well that just so happens to be exactly smack bang right in the middle of one of our footings 😳. And here we were so smug about how few rocks we thought were in the slab. After much blood, sweat and tears with his Jack Hammer and Nine inch grinder, Jason has declared defeat and has advised me that we absolutely must purchase a quick cut saw to assist in removing most of the extremely large and difficult boulder. Oh and he also broke the tip clean off the ripper attachment on the excavator whilst trying to shimmy it out☹️. Seems like a trip to Trade Tools is in order.

With the wind now a distant memory we were happily planning on returning to shedding today. Well, that was until we sat down last night and studied the calendar with regard to when our concreters anticipate arriving. 😳 Working out how many actual days we have ( six days will be taken up going to Brisbane next week) until the pour, the decision was made to put the shed on hold so we can start digging and laying the drainage before heading to Brisvegas and book an inspection with Jamie for Monday morning. And of course we will lose another day or two trying to remove that damn boulder once we return with the quick cut🥴. Then we will be able to dig the footings and the piers and be ready for the second week in August. 👏 So maybe the wind was a blessing in disguise after all, considering our under slab insulation was delivered yesterday as well as our anti-con insulation which will sit under the roof sheets and our vapour barrier wrap to cover the frame.

When you construct a new dwelling in this modern world you now must reach a 7 star energy rating for your BASIX report. Which basically means more paperwork and of course more money. This could entail many different instructions depending on where you are situated and what you are building. For example, double glazing, various types of insulation, house orientation, ceiling fans, zero penetrations into the ceiling, reverse cycle, solar hot water and the list just keeps on going. One of our instructions is to install under slab insulation so we don’t lose any heat through the floor and as we are having a burnished finished concrete floor we have to agree that it seems like a very sensible idea. After much research we have chosen Kingspan Kooltherm which has an R rating of R1.10 and is quite a robust product. This will be installed after the piers are poured and obviously before the slab is poured.

Over the windy weekend we also managed to move our house tanks into their permanent position. It was definitely quite the task with the wind whipping around us but we got there in the end. Another job ticked off the list.

The Macropods still dominate and they aren’t even that fazed about us or the dogs. Rackahontus is still doing laps in the creek and unfortunately there are still plenty of dingo attacks. The brisk mornings have returned and we are back to wearing two pairs of socks and several layers to keep the chill at bay. Big blue skies are above today and the sleepy dogs are lapping up the sunshine. Winter at Woodside, we wouldn’t be anywhere else!

Let the digging commence 🪏