Roselea

Author: Shaun

  • New Tool to Split apart the Aquacell Crates

    This afternoon, while we waited for the black metal paint to dry on the wheel
    hub, we made a new tool to help us take apart the plastic holey crates, so
    we can clean them out!! You might ask why we are having to do this task?
    Well, several years ago, we took advantage of the cheaper oil prices and
    hence the prices of these plastic crates called Aquacell. We bought 200 of
    them and stored them around and behind our temporary living quarters. The
    problem has been caused by overgrowing ivy and other trailing plants from
    the neighbour’s garden, plus also we might find lots of slugs and snails
    living inside these dark spacious rectangular boxes (each measures 1000mm
    long by 500mm wide and just about 400mm high) and generally have dust and
    dirt blown into them over the years!!

    So we design this new tool to lever apart the two layers of the crate.

    Aquacell-Disassembly-Bottom-holding-studs

    Aquacell-Disassembly-Bottom-holding-studs

    Fortunately, they are just held together by friction and so we just
    constructed two vertical walls with metal rods sticking out at the bottom
    for the Aquacell to hook onto and then, in tandem, using steel rods, to hook
    into holes at the top of the crate and lever them apart. Quite easy as it
    turned out – thank goodness!

    Aquacell-Disassembly-Insert-Levers-and-lift

    Aquacell-Disassembly-Insert-Levers-and-lift

    Aquacell-Disassembly-Separated

    Aquacell-Disassembly-Separated


    We will get our pressure washer out and blast the interior clean of the dust
    and dirt, as well as the ivy and slugs too!!

  • Wheel on Trolley Fixed and Resprayed!

    This morning, on this lovely Sunday morning, we did some maintenance tasks,
    like for example, repair the puncture we got in one of the tyres of the
    large flatbed trolley.

    Large-Trolley-Old-Tyre

    Large-Trolley-Old-Tyre

    It was a devil to get the tyre off the metal wheel rim, but after surfing
    the net, we wiggled and heaved and levered the tyre off and pulled out the
    inner tube. The little hole in the inner tube was located and patched up.
    The tyre itself was thrown away as the rubber has cracked under the pressure
    of heavy loads we had on the trolley over the years, and this was what
    caused the puncture where the inner tube was “bursting” out!!

    We also gave the whole metal wheel a thorough rub with an angle grinder with
    the wire brush attachment and now is drying in the lovely sunshine with a
    fresh coat of black metal paint!!

    Large-Trolley-New-Tyre

    Large-Trolley-New-Tyre

    One done and three to go! But first, we will order some spare inner tubes,
    just in case we mess one up trying to get the tyre off etc.

  • The End of the Loke is now Clear of rubble and Gravel!

    As part of our commitment, with our neighbours, to keep the Loke neat and
    tidy, we scooped up the remaining hardcore and ballast gravel and sharp sand
    mixture and moved them off the end of the Loke and down into our building
    area. We scraped and levelled the surface and compacted it all over to make
    it nice and neat.

    End-of-loke-cleared

    End-of-loke-cleared

    We can at last get our old car out again!!

  • Air Tunnel Construction Started!

    After we have finished the sewage pipes (the filling in of their trenches),
    we started with the adjustment to the Earth Tube Mixing Chamber and the Air
    Supply Tunnel construction.

    The foundation slab is all set and very nicely done!

    Earth-tube-Concrete-finished

    Earth-tube-Concrete-finished

    We managed to get the end segment off the chamber with only having to
    destroy one of the concrete blocks. Now we are planning the procedure of
    what blocks to go where and what angles to slice certain blocks to form the
    downward slope of the tunnel exiting from the mixing chamber etc. etc.

    On Monday, we will resume and finish this task and then fill in all the soil
    and the remaining hardcore material back in around the chamber and tunnel
    and compact it all to build it up to the required level for the main house’s
    foundation etc.

  • All Trenches Filled!

    Today, again with marvellous weather, we finished filling in the trenches
    that has the sewage pipelines in. The trench cutting across the driveway and
    footpath was carefully layered with regular compacting with our now fully
    working vibrator machine.

    Stephen-Compacting-Trench-1

    Stephen-Compacting-Trench-1

    We used some of the left-over hardcore material on the last 8 inches and
    finally topped with two to three inches of the recycled asphalt material.

    Driveway-restored

    Driveway-restored

    The driveway and footpath now looks as good as new again!

    The rest of the trenches were filled with the dugout sandy soil and
    compacted in layers as before, the only exception to this process, is the
    kitchen pipeline because it runs outside the footprint of the house and it
    can settle down over the year by itself!!

    Pipe-trenches-filled

    Pipe-trenches-filled

    All there is to show for this hidden vital groundwork, is the forest of 5
    sticking up sewage pipes!!

  • Started Filling in Trenches!

    This afternoon, we started putting all the dirt and soil back into all the
    trenches of our three sewage pipe runs. We began at the trench cutting
    across our driveway, so that area can be made safe again for us and
    visitors.

    But we hit a slight problem with the petrol engine driven vibrating machine,
    it wouldn’t run for any length and Stephen took it apart to clean out the
    tubes and pipes etc. It now runs nice and smoothly again!!

    Shaun was clearing the driveway of piles of dirt and also scraping a layer
    of soil off the surface where silt have accumulated over the last few years
    when we had a river of rain water washing down the Loke carrying dirt and
    silt from the area, and depositing it on Our driveway!!

    Tomorrow, we will get on with the filling process in earnest!

  • Air Tunnel Foundation Poured

    This morning, we mixed up 3 bags of cement and 18 buckets of ballast and
    poured the lot into the open area we had all stuttered and ready. This slab
    will form the base for building the tunnel from the Earth Tube Mixing
    Chamber to connect to the house, thus bringing in fresh air from under the
    garage via the collection of large 6inch diameter tubes!

    Earth-Tube-Tunnel-Concrete-laid

    Earth-Tube-Tunnel-Concrete-laid

    After lunch, we will smooth it off and cover with plastic sheeting to keep
    it moist against the hot Sun and dry weather we got at the moment.

  • Adjusting Earth Tubes Chamber

    Today, while we waited for the building control inspector to visit us, we
    got on with making adjustments to the Earth Tube Mixing Chamber. We had
    originally constructed it several years ago and since then we had shifted
    the whole house position 300mm closer to the Loke and also put it 100mm
    deeper too! This meant that the chamber, constructed with solid concrete
    blocks (430mm by 215mm by 100mm wide) was slightly out of position and we
    decided to adjust the design of the chamber. Instead of the connecting
    “Tunnel” coming out the side like a letter T, we have moved the connecting
    tunnel to the end of the chamber, and will have it sweeping around and
    coming into the correct position from the Loke side of the house, underneath
    the main house foundation. We have it sloping down and curving around to
    fully go under the 150mm thick foundation strip and arrive exactly in the
    corner of the utility room.

    All this is for our fresh air supply for the house, the concrete tunnel
    measures 450 high by 250mm wide to allow the maximum flow of air with
    minimal resistance.

    Today’s job was to dig dirt and soil out for the route and insert in shuttering to form the foundation slab to build the tunnel upon.

    Earthtube-tunnel-foundation-shuttering

    Earthtube-tunnel-foundation-shuttering

    Tomorrow, we will make up a quantity of strong concrete and pour it in and
    while that is setting, we can get on with filling the sewage trenches.

  • Approval from Inspector!

    This afternoon, our building control inspector, Ken, came along and look at
    our sewage lines. He went around asking questions about what that line is
    for and what this sewage line is for, but he was quietly pleased with our
    quality of our work and gave us the nod!!

    We can now start filling in the trenches and rebuild the ground back up
    again, like the driveway!

  • Rebuilt the Boundary Fence with Workshop

    And this afternoon, while we were waiting for the building inspector to come
    to look at our sewage pipes, we rebuilt the boundary fence, between us and
    the workshop. We reassembled the 4 fence wooden panels, each being 3metres
    long and 1.65 metres high, on top of the original gravel boards(them being
    150mm tall and 3 metres long). They were blooming heavy, being reinforced
    concrete slabs!

    We used 8feet timber posts to support the panels, instead of trying to man
    handle the original concrete posts back into the ground, after all, the
    posts still had their huge chunks of concrete foundations wrapped around the
    bottom of each of them .. and very, very heavy .. so heavy that we would
    have needed the mini-digger to lift them!! Far too much effort, and we knew
    that this fence was only a temporary fix in the first place. so we used the
    3inch round timber posts and screwed the wooden panels on to them using
    horizontal pieces of CLS timber to keep it all locked together.

    Workshop-fence-repaired

    Workshop-fence-repaired

    We hope that the posts will survive with the next storm of strong winds and
    down pour of rain!!