blackduck30

I thought I would post a couple of pics of the extension I am doing as I am quite proud of the work I have done so far as I am owner building.
Here is an early pic and the latest

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40sondacurb

how hard is the ground there? did you realy need the back hoe, or did you igure the cost was worth not having to do it maualy?

and heres a little tip

before you put the drywall up, make sure I repete make sure there are no koala bears in the frame, their hell on the electrical, you'll have to tent the whole house and they got to use the extra strength stuff so that will realy cost ya.

blackduck30

They say a picture says a thousand words ( and there was 90T of excavation and I had a friend with a machine )

P.S , we have spray'd for Koala's, it's the Kangawollafoxes that worry me

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Jason

Great job. I'm impressed. Can I have the house when your done?

blackduck30

only if you take the kids with it

jgvernonco

I'd just like to sit and enjoy the view.

40sondacurb

is the brick part an extension too?

and are you gona do the stuco yourself.

and have you placed land mines for the tasmaniantigerwalabees?

blackduck30

Yeah the bottom is a lounge room and a computer room. I am doing everything on the house except electrical and house plumbing.
Our army surplus store was out of land mines so we will install bear traps

P.S what is stuco

blackduck30

Here is the view from our new bedroom window for ya JG

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40sondacurb

good god you can never be to carful with those things, get some land mines damit!

but why not do the electrical yourself?

my dad and I did the electrical ourselves with no problem

but he did do somethig he didn't have to, he used metal boxes for the outlets and light switches instead of plastic ones, now you only need to use the metal ones if your pumping alot of juice, like if you own a business and are using a server or bunch of lights and air conditioning, so he had to go through the process of grounding all the boxes, and he had to pay a little more for them which was work he realy didn't have to do for a regular bed room, he could have just got the plastic ones and not grounded them or anything. But he had no real problems puting the electrical in, he put in the cirrcut breaker and all that in just fine. If your getting a realy good deal on the electrical go for it, but I think you can pull off doing it yourself.

now the pluming I don't know about, but from what I've seen (watching a show called this old house, a home repair show here) instaling pluming doesn't have to be that hard, draining should be left to a profesional, but incoming water is easy to set up with a little direction.

stuco is that cement like stuff on the outside walls of the house, it helps with insulation, keeps colling and heating cost down.

my dad and me just put wooden planks on the walls, we got em jam packed with fiberglas inulating but stuco would realy help insulate the place alot better.

blackduck30

I will actually be running all the cables and stuff but our laws don't let us do plumbing, electrical or air conditioning. I am lucky that I have a good friend that is a sparkie so I will do most of the work and he will do very little and sign off on my job. I personally don't see why I can not wire the place up and then get it certified by an electrician

40sondacurb

wow that sux, here we just got an inspector that signs off every stage of construction, the guy can get picky about stuff if yuor get a jerk but it sounds a little better than what you would have had to do if you didn't have that friend.

is that just in your province or county or is it for the whole of australia

blackduck30

I think it is australia wide, I think the tradies jacked up because they thought they would loose money, Builders here in OZZ charge ( give or take ) $1000 ( per square meter ) thats why we deceided to go owner builder

40sondacurb

I think that's something to fight for, it should be the insauluble right of any home owner to expand on his home or property any way he or she wishes. As long as the work is inspected by a licenced official and checke doff there should be no law impeeding that.

unless you guys get free health care, that kinda evens things out cost wize.

and don't forget to keep your shot gun loaded to fend off those dam kiwi s

and that's about all the animals only native to your contenent

see, who says we don't have knowledge of other country here in the US?

tell me if I miss one

blackduck30

I fully agree, but the cost to fight the government would be huge. All they really have done is tempt people into doing trade jobs and not get them checked were as if they had a system as you discribed it would make things far safer as people could do the work them selves and then get it checked for a small fee and peace of mind. There would still be plenty of work as most people who do not have a clue ( or too much money ) would still get contractor to do work for them
another reason I am doing the work myself is that the quality of tradies is not always as good as you could do yourself anyway, I was told and read some horror stories that turned me off paying people to rip me off. When you get quotes the price variation is incredible and makes you think

P.S you missed the tassy devil and platapus

40sondacurb

darnit, I knew of the devil but I forgot to google it to make sure. Did you have that cartoon show there about the tasmania devil?

and here the inspector is included with the price of the permit.

your getting me mad at your poloticians now man

in florida (one of the states here) the goverment can't even take your home if you owe billions in back taxes!

can you start grass root ballot measures there in australia, where if you get enough signatures ou can get a measure on the ballot? or do you have to get propositions approved by legislatures and all that?

and one more question, have you considered a sky light? if there ever was a good time, not having a roof yet would be it.