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Street Libraries & Creating Community

March 27, 2020

the_barefoot_pear

Following on from our septic, the sub slab wastewa

Following on from our septic, the sub slab wastewater pipes have been installed. This is more complicated than most since we wanted to separate our black water (toilet/kitchen) and grey water (laundry, shower, bathroom basin). We think it’s important not to just send away all the water used in our house to a trench to grow grass, instead it will be diverted to our orchard.

A step by step on how to dig a poop tube (septic).

A step by step on how to dig a poop tube (septic). Hats off to our plumber Ritchard, he’s great. Being off grid from sewerage requires us to have a septic system and absorption trenches. 60 metres of trenches are dug with plastic arches covered in gravel, geo textile and top soil, all hooked into a septic tank. Thanks to the slope of our land we can have this gravity fed.

Things have been moving forward bit by bit, prepar

Things have been moving forward bit by bit, preparing for the concrete slab. Next stage is building the boxing which requires pretty well much millimeter precision with levels and lengths. These LVL (laminated veneer lumber) timbers are the same ones we’ll be using to frame the house. Up next will be the sub slab plumbing.

And here’s the finished product. The blade piles

And here’s the finished product. The blade piles are cut to height & capped to suit the concrete slab which is incorporated into the trench mesh.

Such a great solution to minimising concrete use and labour hours. The guys were on site for only 14 hours, what a team.

The blade piles are torqued into the ground to 150

The blade piles are torqued into the ground to 150 Bar of pressure and start to deform a little over this. Our house ain’t going no where!

We had 58 blade piles installed today for our foun

We had 58 blade piles installed today for our foundations. Our engineers said they didn’t really know how far down our concrete piles would go…this could have been the moment that we blew our budget in our Grand Designs episode.

So we decided to go with blade piles instead. This saved concrete, the need for waste to be removed from site, and the butt clenching period between the pier holes being dug, inspected and poured hoping for no rain. In the end blade piles are cheaper past a certain depth compared to concrete. Overall the experience was seamless and stress free!

An aerial of the set out. Blue marks are building

An aerial of the set out. Blue marks are building corners and white crosses are verandah posts.

The professionals made set out look easy. That’s

The professionals made set out look easy. That’s why we hired them! 🤣 A days work for the boys, at least a week for us…and it would be wonky.

After a rainy night it’s a beaut of a day to lev

After a rainy night it’s a beaut of a day to level a pad for our new water tanks arriving later this month.

Our friends are all on their way to a burn this we

Our friends are all on their way to a burn this weekend and we can’t make it due to the build, which we’re pretty sad about.

We had a bunch of heat-treated pallets to get rid of, which couldn’t be reused as they had been in soil. The wind unexpectedly dropped one evening so we decided to have our own private burn while we watched the sun go down 🔥

‘Twas a wet a drizzly day for our water tank del

‘Twas a wet a drizzly day for our water tank delivery 😍 things are moving!

Our energy ratings are in, so I decided to write a

Our energy ratings are in, so I decided to write a post about thermal performance and how we approached it. I won’t be offended if you don’t make it to the end, it gets pretty nerdy 🤓

Pipes for gravity fed water tanks & electrical con

Pipes for gravity fed water tanks & electrical conduit going in. Thanks once again to @walters_contracting & Digger Dave 😎 they’re the bees knees in northern Tasmania.

Most of our friends and family know that we’re p

Most of our friends and family know that we’re planning to build a strawbale house, but probably don’t really understand the how or why. Our latest blog post gives an overview of what we’re actually planning to build, and why we’ve chosen this approach.

Instagram post 17967503723729585

Instagram post 17967503723729585

Beautiful winters day for a walkabout

Beautiful winters day for a walkabout

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