More Bubble insulation, Mother made legal

Monday Oct 31:
Drop off mother at garage for work for warrant of fitness. Fiberglassing job seems to pass muster.
Out at house complete insulation throughout guest bedroom and craft room. Peter came bye with a chainsaw and an evil grin and cut through sarking and studs in dining/lounge wall opening out the two rooms. I get to pull the cut out plate apart and pile up the lumber. He did the same widening out the dining room/hall door way making a entranceway but I got back to insulation laying in the bathroom.
Having the two rooms opened up makes a big difference to the amount of light in all three rooms - looks like it may work after all..
Blair laying phone lines, Darryl out front on digger flattening out the rest of the front lawn and cleaning up the driveway. Dirt, sawdust, chainsaw bar oil, electrical wire and insulation flying in all directions.

Back downtown 5.30 to pickup the mother. Garage replaced both front shocks, 2 CVs, brake hoses and tightened a wheel bearing and passed warrant...
Drives much nicer too (probably the lack of weight in my wallet (:-)).

More wrap and errands

Friday Oct 28:
Complete rest of foil wrap insulation in Dining room and do kitchen. Help Blair with some wire pulling. Knock off about 12.00 to go downtown and visit an auto parts store for some fiberglass car body gloop and a hardware store where I got a cats paw for pulling out nails and drooled aver the power tools. Spend rest of afternoon checking out the rust hole in the front sills of the mother, prep surface and apply fiberglass matt and resin then layers of fiberglass gloop to fill in holes so I can get it to pass its Warrent of fitness (Monday).

Weekend:
Back out the farm Saturday morning. Help my cousin with some docking again (Sat A.M.). Planted spud crop chasing behind plough dropping seed potatoes in furrows. Rake up furrows into nice mound over spud row.
(Sat P.M) Some more docking Sunday , finished last mob so helped Will kill a few beers.,
Back to Brendas in afternoon.

Cleanup and bubble wrap.

Whoops - got a bit behind with my blog updates.
This for a few weeks ago..

Thursday Oct 27: Start with some cleanup: Take lining off laundry under window in wall to be removed. Sweep accumulated floor crap ( dust,etc) out of house. Take to 20 gallon copper tank next to old fireplace with hacksaw. Cut off old piping so I can get it out then cleanup the inlets and outlets so we can reuse the tank for something decorative.
Remove the rest of the piping and cleanup the framed shelf where the tank sat. ( Stash tank under the house - Sho wants to use it for a firewood container after some cleanup).

Switch over to putting up foil lined bubble wrap rather than retroshield as insulation in Lounge area. Not as thick ( 3mm vs 7) as the retroshield but goes on as fast or faster. Its not as rigid either so it wont be pushed down sarking gap, instead I staple a weight to
one end and drop and drop it down. When weight reaches bottom remove it and staple onto wall.
Complete Lounge and roadside wall of Dining room.

The laying on of wall insulation finally begins

Had to take 'the mother' to the garage for its warrent-of-fitness
which it failed (!). Will have to have words with my sister.

Blair was at back doing power points so I spent the morning pulling out the old wire (that he hadnt already removed) from the ceiling and walls and coiling it up. Looks like some of the ceiling plates could do with a bit more bracing as some of the beams are a bit wobbly when I stand on them.
Went round with Blair checking power points and light switch positioning.

There was some car rally on from about 10-12.00 (Targa?) which used the road going past the house. Watched that for a bit but no serious carnage so just listened to the engines unwinding as the raced up the hill and round the corner while continued working inside the house.

Finally got started laying wall insulation and got the back end and half the outer wall of the MBR done. I'm using the air-cell Retroshield for the back of the house and its going on really well. Easy to cut, slides nicely into the wall gaps between the opened sarking and fits nicely either by friction against the studs or with a few staples to hold it in place.
It looks quite impressive with the sun shining on it too...
Went through about a third of a roll today so may have to switch over to doing the bathroom and toilet tomorrow to ensure that I have enough for the back end of the house.

Forgot to mention yesterday that the digger guy (with digger) was out flattening out the heaps of dirt between the house and drive - its come up really level now. Pointed out and staked where we want the Hot tub/spa terrace area to be for him to dig out later.

Holiday and more bloody sarking

Friday (Oct 21) we moved out of the place we'd been house sitting as the owners were due back from their holiday. Moved all our stuff out to my sisters where I'll be staying for the duration and commuting to the House. Managed to fit in a early morning trip to the transfer station to pick up 2 wool sacks ( a trailer load) of plastic bottles and got a handful of recycled tools. Friday was really really windy - had to do some remedial work on Brendas ( my sisters) crappy little chinese plastic greenhouse so it wouldnt head off across the Tasman.

We went out to my Dads place on the weekend. Checked out a neighbours place to see what theyd done to their place. Seeing the walls of old sarking (horizontal planks of old heart rimu) got us thinking of leaving a wall uncovered and sanding the surface down as a sort of feature. Thats what theyd done and it looks marvelous (but its a fair bit of work - Oh well; I'll get sho to do it).

Helped my cousin and his nephews dock some lambs Sunday (270), Monday was Labour day (A public holiday celebrating the NZ workers attainment of a (max) 40 hour week). Visited my sister to pick up 'the mother' - their farm car - for me to use to get to and from the house. Its a bit of a heap but the wheels go round and thats sufficient.

Tuesday(25th Oct) My uncle had dropped off a ladder and some trestles at the house yesterday so set that up and went back around all the rooms of the house taking out a row of sarking up near the tops of the walls. I had borrowed a brace+bit and finger saw from Dad while I was home so used that to cut off planks that were wedged or interlocked into the wall corners..
To be accurate I started to do that but it got very difficult as the day progressed (the saw was blunt) so the later ones I just hammered the ends of the damn things till they broke..
Finally done with sarking removal!

Two of the work gang (Bob and Blair) were by to remove the framing for the funky little alcove above the back hall and all the lining on both sides of it. You can see the light getting into the back of the house now.
Blair (whose also the electrician) started going round laying wire and making holes for the power sockets.

Kill your bathroom

Thursday was more demo on the bathroom. Took the old gib board off the walls and opened up the underlying tongue+groove walls a bit. Found some borer in one stud (it morphed into an impressive pile of dust when I beat on it) and some dry rot in one corner of the room, cleaned that out, opening a bolt hole into the toilet next door.

Removed the ceiling (painted) hardboard and found a nice crop of grey-green mould growing on its back side (so chucked that out in the sun). Opened out the roof lining (tongue + groove again) above the hardboard to let air through and then had to remove about an inch (100 years) of accumulated dirt/dust/dead insects and stuff that was sitting on the top of the ceiling lining.
One of the work gang (Bob) came over to help out for a bit so found out all about him in between hammering walls.

The wet area under the Batts I removed yesterday has dried right out, the gaps in the bathroom ceiling should help with that for any bits I cant see.

I've been hopping in and outside the house periodically to check where the sun is and what roof facings are fully exposed to it. I've got a good idea on where the Solar panels should go now..

Solar heating investigation continuing - there'll be a writeup of that once I
get my thinking straight. I've got my choices down to one of two canned systems (this time round) one active, the other passive. Had two plumbers round to look at the place and give quotes for their systems...

Actually start work

Spent Tues+Wed( 18th-19th Oct) actually doing some work at the house. The work gang is getting another villa ready to shift so the place was been empty apart from me.
(They moved the villa Wednesday night, but had a little bit of drama which included knocking out the power to half of Stratford for a half hour or so. The permit they got from powerco had the lines at 5.3m, they had the house+truck at 5.2m but the roof still hit the overhead wires on the main road bypass which caused them to bang together and fuse, This then blew the nearest pole then three poles back up the line).

Tuesday did cleanup, taking nails out of boards and old framing,stacking up piles of rubbish. Removed lining in the old Laundry and Porch then took out some old Batts insulation over the Porch overhang to let the ceiling area dry out some more.
It was quite damp where the water had got under the batts and hadnt been able to get out.

Spent Wed working round all the rooms opening up the sarking (low down within 1-2 planks of the floor) and cleaning out the rest of the Laundry wall lining (some sort of cardboardy wallpaper) and the lining in the end of the hall (painted hardboard). Cleaned out the bathroom and pulled apart the old bath frame. Various other bits and pieces involving hammers, pry and crowbars.

There was some moisture in the cavity beside the Laundry and behind the lining on the opposite side but it disappeared really fast once the lining was off and the sarking opened up.

Web Page posted

Shonagh got the incantations for access to the website so I've posted the original web pages I made and all the pictures we have.
i.e many more of the exterior and interior.

I'll extend the Web Site as pictures and info come available.

The Aircell bubble wrap arrived this morning so tomorrow I may be actually doing something on the house....

More research, not much else done

Well, didnt get started on actually doing anything Friday due to some delays with materials ordering and therefore delivery (my bad holding out for more info).
Spent Thursday researching and phoning LPG and gas suppliers, appliance vendors and fitters. Much as a result of that Friday became mostly the same exercise but with Solar HotWater systems. I've got a blog entry for both of those which I'll post a bit later.

Late Friday went down to the local Hardware supply store and got some must-have tools, glue and applicator, staple gun and staples, metric tape measure, prybar, etc
Shonagh came too to keep me honest, then in recompense we did a pass past the kitchen/plumbing supply and garden sections and saw lots of shiny stuff and picked up a small library of brochures and catalogs.

Saturday morning my uncle (Eb) and aunt came for lunch and we took them up to see the house. It was a georgeous day here so could see the house and views in (literally) the best possible light. I didnt realise that you can see the sea beyond New Plymouth if the conditions cooperate as well. Two more converts to the cause, both expressed a keen desire to help with painting. We (me and Dad) had already lined Eb up for fencing and maybe some painting but hes motivated and committed himself now... ( Hehehehe)
Peter was up there playing with the digger on the site across the road. They're moving another villa to there sometime next week so we'll get a chance to see what that process looks like (which we missed for our one)

After that back into NP and picked up the bubble wrap and the (cheap) insulated bubble foil - it all just fitted into the back of the Forester. Stopped for 2-3 hours at the New Plymouth 24 hour book sale on the way home. Consequently now have a goodly supply of books again some of which are about building and house things...

Adventures in Wall Insulation

Decided on Sunday (9th) that since the house was open, some of the sarking (internal wall lining) was off and it would remain that way for a week I should make a quick and dirty attempt at insulating the exterior walls.

This intent was driven by memories of how cold these villas can get in winter (I flatted in one for a time while I was at University), how cold the winters get in Taranaki and the realisation that our time in California has removed any tolerence we may have had for the NZ cold.

And insulation happens to be the cheapest and most effective way of making a building heat efficient (about 24% of Heat loss is through walls)- we're gonna mass insulate the ceilings and floors also once the building work is completed.

Being that we weren't taking off all the sarking (interior house lining - basically 25mm thick planks) and the house should have a year or so to stand and dry in its new orientation it wasnt possible to insulate with fiberglass wool (called Pink Batts here), instead should use something that wouldnt hold moisture.

Building standard insulation for walls in this area is R1.8
(R value is a measure of how well something doesnt conduct heat.
R1 is about the conductance of an inch(25mm) of wood,
the same thickness of fiberglass batts is about R3,
styrofoam about R5).
Theres at least 50mm of wood in the walls (weatherboard outer and inner sarking - they made the walls thick in the old days) with a gap between and the interior is going to be gib (sheetrock) lined so any little bit extra should be fine.

I figured if I could get something with an R factor of above 1.0 I'd be doing OK.

I thought closed cell foam would be a good material (R2ish or more in 20mm), failing that styrofoam sheets both of which I thought I could bend enough to get down the sarking gap without breaking it. Fortunately these old villas dont usually have dwangs or noggins between the studs, the boxing of the outer weatherboard and inner sarking evidently provided enough rigidity.

Theres at least a 50mm gap, probably more like 75-100mm. I figured 25-40 mm of material should provide some insulation and be flexible enough to be forced in.

What would be ideal is foil lined bubble wrap but I couldnt find any suppliers of it in NZ - not as a building/insulation supply anyway (plenty in the States according to google).

OK so what about building foil and just bubble wrap?
Hmm whats the R value of bubble wrap?
Back to the web:
While looking for something or someone who'd been perverse enough to actually formally test bubble wrap for its insulating possibilities I came across a very interesting article about using discarded plastic bottles as insulation in Nepal.

PLASTIC WASTE INSULATION FOR HIGH ALTITUDE AREAS

Well that works for me too, We dont get anywhere near as cold as Nepal - Its all just ways of making air sit still. I'll ask my relatives to collect all their plastic bottles for a week or so and if thats not enough I'll go to the transfer station and get some more.

Right back to bubble wrap - where do I get that from ?
packaging places, fire up google again.
Well look at that; as well as bubble wrap some of them have a foil lined bubble
wrap product as well (its a product called air-cell and its australian).

Right I'm set
closed cell foam, styrofoam, foil bubble wrap, bubble wrap and plastic bottles
I'll get costings and maybe try some of each and see if theres any noticeable
difference.

Spent some of Sunday night Oct 9th and all of Monday Oct 10th googling for building suppliers, looking at web sites and ringing around New Plymouth. In the process I discovered that while most of the large NZ building supplies suppliers have websites, none of them have any clue about what to use it for.

I got extremely frustrated with one in particular after being subjected to a barrage of corporate bumf and unbelievable excuses of why they couldnt post their product line online and (when I managed to find their feedback page) sent a nasty little missive aboout what they should be doing with 4 or 5 immediate points they should correct.
To their credit I got a nice reply from some marketing person thanking me for the feedback, apologising for my negative experience and saying they were going to review their web site soon. She also offered to take a list of the materials I was looking for and get some quotes for them directly ... Too late - by then I'd already chosen suppliers and made the orders and it wasnt from them.
Still bless their corporate little dinosaur hearts, they can roar and crash around and all the while the proto-mammals are eating their eggs.

So Monday, ascertain stock levels and pricing and make orders....
At the end of the day:

• Closed cell foam - unbelievably expensive, forget it
  
• Styrofoam - cheap but some suppliers not have in stock, some doubt as to if it would be flexible enough. Decide its too much hassle to transport as we have:
  
• Foil wrap: Found a good cheap supply 100m x1.2 m rolls for about $400 ($4/m), unrated as to R value but believed 'comparable' to similar products.
  
• air-cell expensivish ($10/m) and its in smaller rolls so I'll just use a bit of it.
  
• Bubble wrap - cheap I'll get a 60m roll just for laughs.
  
• Screw the building foil,
  
• The transfer station will sell me a trailer of bagged plastic bottles for $50
  

All sorted, will get the wall insulation for about $500.
Batts would have cost about twice that.
Pick the stuff up on Thursday. With any luck start installing it Friday.

With garage

Sat 8th Oct Peter mentioned they had put the garage on the site so we went over for another look.
The drive had been gravelled and the railing fence along side it completed.
I suspect they needed to metal the driveway so the truck carrying the garage wouldnt get stuck.

Theres also a new (to the site, the garage itself is 'pre-loved') Metal garage alongside the house. Its still internally braced for the move, and will remain so pending the piles being placed under it.

Did a once over the house and the inside has been drying out nicely. It picked up some moisture from rain before the roof was put back.
Talked to Peter and they're going to not do anything on the site for the early part of next week, leave it alone to continue to dry out.

Committed!!

We had to be away for a few days for a funeral.

We were hoping to sign before we left (Sunday or Monday Oct 3rd) but what with reworking the paperwork agreement we'd made from something intelligible (i.e that Shonagh, Peter and I could understand) into legalese (which seemed less rigorous than what we'd written up and included a whole lot more very small boiler plate print) and getting a pass past some lawyerish eyeballs it didn't happen.

We scrambled to find a lawyer but then their office was out on holiday (it was school holidays).
There were a few amendments when it'd finally been vetted but we signed (all the suggested changes and additions on the modified pages and on each page again ...both of us) and handed over the deposit (30%) on Friday 7 Oct at about 5.30pm.

Ten weeks to completion so should be moving in Dec 16th or thereabouts.

New roof and some landscaping

There followed a period of discussion and examination of existing and proposed plans.

On the next visit (Oct 3) all the gables had been put back and there was a new colored roof on the house and it was starting to look rather spiffy.
(Good thing about the roof too since it'd been raining on and off ).

They left off the roof ridgings and facing boards and opened the windows and doors to let the place air out.
Inside all the crap was cleaned out, the (wet) carpet and insulation removed and
all the inside walls cleared back to the sarking surface (removed the wallpaper (thankfully) and scrim).

Pete mentioned that the house must look pretty good since while they were putting the roof on they'd get the traffic slow right down as it came up the hill and people saw the house front and roofline through the gateway.
Also that one fellow was gawking so much that he drove off the road and into the hedge .....

A nice interior shot

The original Kitchen. This view is facing South.
The ceiling is some early form of plasterboard under pinex
with wood (rimu possibly) trim.

This photo was taken late afternoon so you can get an impression of the light
coming in this side of the house.

some more pictures

View to the Sea (Onaero Bay - the bight above the sticky out bit of Taranaki)
This will be approx what can see from the kitchen.

Heres the NorthWest (road) side of the House showing the stepped out bit of the old formal parlor and lounge.Theres some dishevelled homeless reprobate nosing through the lounge window.

Second glance

After a few days we went back for a second look -
We had been interested in another place (up the road some) but it turned out to have too large an unusable area of its section (a steep bank below the house) and the house interior was too small - each room by between a half meter to a meter.

In addition there was the wind; the house was placed on the windy side of the crest of a hill and there was no respite from it on the working side of the house...
(The wind in Taranaki from the mountain has certain undesirable characteristics;
Its wet, its cold, its vicious in its quest to hunt you down and make you hurt and it cuts through you like a particularly sharp knife)

We came back to Ackworth road and immediately noticed that the house was sheltered from the wind (being both in the lee of the hill and having a hedge that cut the wind right back). This was scientifically determined by standing in the gateway gap in the hedge and feeling our noses turn blue... taking two steps behind the hedge and noticing the noses returned to their normal healthy pink color.

It probably didnt hurt that even though it was cold and windy, the sun was out so we could see and feel the inside of the house in the light. Peter (Robinton - the mover/builder/developer) had also been back and started making a driveway in the front and clearing out some space for the garage.

Shonagh wandered down to the paddock and took some photos of the outside of the house while I was wandering around inside.

First Look

We first saw the house on Thurs Nov 22 on a grey rainy day in between looking at two other places. The work gang had only recently finished moving it and getting it put back together (it was sawn in half to move it the 60 odd K from Hawera) and they were in the process of resurrecting the roofing rafters.

They did a good job of joining it back together. I didn't notice the join inside until after looking over the interior and coming out, looking at the front and saw where they'd left a bit of a gap in the wall beside the front door.

It was tired looking, headless, covered inside in crappy paper and scrim and full of garbage (scaffolding, old carpet and insulation from the roof). In addition the roof was off (not that you could tell from inside cos the ceiling was still there).
Unfortunately we didnt take any photos at that point ... It looked a lot rougher than the photos below showed.

Still there was definitely something...

Announcement

As promised for the last 10-15 years, we finally bought a house and some land in NZ. Signed last Friday, paid the deposit
10 weeks till its completed and we move in....

(To be accurate at the moment its a house shell on open piles, a heap of wet dirt and a pasture, theres still a bit of tweaking to be done).

The section is 1.3/4 acres (7000 sq m), subdivided from a farm, parallels the road (Ackworth Rd), the nearest neighbour is about 1 km away though theres quite a few farm buildings close by. We can see the sea and Taranaki (the mountain).

Its well out of Town (about 25km from New Plymouth - 5 mins from the Lepperton CBD (:-)) so its goanna get its own water supply (25k Liter tank), septic (3.5K Liter) ... ( theres some discrepency there- not sure where the difference ends up) and
bottled gas (LPG). The electric line goes along road but we're goanna wean ourself off that eventually...

The house is about 150 sq m and will be 4 bedroom(.. eventually). Its a classic
style New Zealand villa. The building was moved from Hawera (about 60? km south)
in 2 pieces and has just been placed (carefully) on the site.

For mys sins (and a cheaper price) I'm helping out on the house completion work
(this position is affectionately referred to as that of 'builders bitch')

If you're really interested you can see topo map + old aerial photo of the site at
http://www.trc.govt.nz/xplorer/xplorer.htm
click on 'Bell Block' on map
when other map comes up click 'search'
select by Road
fill in 'ackworth rd' in panel
should show aerial phot in New Plymouth district
with road in purple
map scale 1:30772 - our section is rectangular one N/S oriented alongside road right in middle - can zoom in if click on picture
(1:7693 scale) - its right alongside the 'Ackworth' of the Ackworth road legend
- also can switch to topo image..
(turn on 'Land Parcel boundary; - its the rect section across from th 'R' of Road).


You may be able to find it on google earth.. though dont think that area is v.well covered...

Metric units .... dancing

This is for Mike and anyone else who wants a metric cheatsheet.

I'm going to use metric sizing here cos thats what they use in NZ and
I'm training myself to think back in those units and I want you to see how
simple it all is :

1m ~= 3 feet ~= 1 yard
1 sq m ~= 9 sq ft ( say 10 for easy calc)
there are 1000mm to a meter
25mm ~= 1 inch

1L ~= 1 quart ( ~4 liters to 1 american gallon)

1 km is 1000 meters and is about 0.625 of a mile (5/8)
a kilometer is also called a klick

Blog Description

Weblog describing the process of getting, finishing and renovating our (Mike and Shonagh Hopkirk) house for the edification and amusement of our friends and colleagues around the world.