Author Archives: Bill Hutchison

Bathroom Walls

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Bathroom Wall Completely RemovedWhen we had to rebuild our bathroom we actually had to pretty much rebuild all of the internal and external bathroom walls. Two of the walls had the frames rebuilt or reinforced, while the sheeting on one of the sides was left intact. The other two bathroom walls were completely removed and the frame and sheeting completely replaced.

New Exterior Load Bearing Bathroom WallIt was certainly interesting to watch them do this. The photo on the right is of the load bearing external bathroom wall (you can see it completely removed in the photo at the top of this post). You can also see the side external bathroom wall on the left side of the photo. The back wall they completely removed, but the side wall they rebuilt parts of the frame, while keeping the external cladding intact.

Bathroom Wall SheetedThe main internal bathroom wall was one of the walls that they managed to rebuild the frame, while keeping the sheeting intact in the dining room. There is now a bit of a bow to the wall in the dining room, but it is fairly minimum when compared to the the amount of reinforcing that they did to the bathroom wall frame. In this wall they actually installed four cyclone rods, but I will talk more about those in a future post.

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Air Conditioning Season has Begun

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Well, today marks the official start of the air conditioning season.

Despite getting the roof on our house sprayed with a reflective paint, today we fired up the Blueway split inverter air conditioner in the living area of our house. Most of our Northern Hemisphere friends would probably be starting up their boilers or furnaces right about now, but not us.

Blueway Split Inverter Air Conditioner

Today hit 31C and about 60% humidity. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s certainly felt warm today. I remember when I used to live in Canada we would look forward to the days that it would hit 30C, heck, we were excited when it broke 25C if I remember correctly. I guess that things are a bit different living in the tropics.

We still have a few more things to do to the house to help to passively cool it. I prefer to run the air conditioner as little as possible, but it really does get unbearable here during the summer. Here are a few of the things that we are doing to passively cool the house:

  • Roof insulation
  • Louvers at the back to catch the breeze
  • Window hoods (still to be installed)
  • Screening all the windows so we can open them (still have one window in the living room to screen)
  • Trees to shade the side of the house (we had to cut down a bunch that were hitting the power line and one that was rotted out, we need to replace those)

No eve overhangs on our Queenslander minors cottageUnfortunately because our house is a traditional 1870’s minor’s cottage there are no overhangs on the roof on the sides of the house. This means that the sun is always on the side of the house heating up the walls. It would be great to extend the eves, but given everything else that we need to do I don’t think it is very practical to be considering that.

Renovation Planning Progress Update

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I figured that it was about time to update how the various stages of our renovations are going right now:

Enclosing Under our Queenslander

Queenslander Enclosed Under to Lock Up StageThe actual enclosing under of our Queenslander is now complete. It has been finished up to lockup stage, so all the windows, exterior doors and cladding are now up. We can lock up under the house now, have a (mostly) enclosed laundry and can park our car under the house behind an automatic panel lift door.

I still have to paint, hopefully before the wet season, but the cladding is already primed, so it’s at least protected from the elements for now.

Building In Under our Queenslander

Internal Framing Complete and Waiting for SheetingAlthough the house has been complete to the lock up stage, we are now “paused” with completing the building in process. Because of some unexpected work that had to be complete upstairs during the enclosing stage (replacing the bathroom and attaching the roof) we have been put behind schedule and over budget.

The walls under our house have all been framed, the plumbing has been run and the electrical cabling has been mostly completed, but this is where we sit right now. We have been quoted $8000 to sheet the walls under house, including all plasterboard, villaboard and plastering. It’s tempting to do, but unfortunately not at this time.

We also have flooring, bathroom fit outs, the electrical fit out, an internal staircase and painting to do before it becomes livable down there. Continue Reading →