Letter Box - RD 2

When building a house there are many things that you don't initially think of, until it comes to the time when you need it, and then it takes time to organise it. For example, what is our postal address and how do we get mail... so we can redirect our bills to our new home.

To start with we purchased "Lot 7 Wattle Lane", but we had to pay a small fee of $25 to the Kaipara Council to apply for our "Road Number" I think they call it a RAPID Number.  Which is kind of interesting... the number allocated is calculated from the distance from the main road down to our plot. So we are 560 metres from the main road, so we are 56 Wattle Lane.

There are a couple of options for mail delivery, organising a PO Box rental in Kaiwaka or installing a letter box.  I did pop into the Kaiwaka Post Office to ask about a PO Box rental, but they didn't have any available, and they don't seem to ever become available as people hold onto them (which is surely a good sign as to what a great place Kaiwaka is to live),  but learning that the cost was around $150 a year for the rental... installing a letter box seemed the better value option long term.

We then filled out a form at the NZ post office so we can receive the Rural Delivery Mail, and it was just a matter of installing a letter box down on the main road at the entrance to Wattle Lane. Obviously installing a letter box to the NZ Post specifications (height/size etc), although I think we stretched those rules a little... hopefully they are more guidelines rather than strict rules.

The mailman does not actually come down Wattle Lane, he only delivers mail to mail boxes located at the entrance of the lane. My neighbour mentioned something to me once, that when all the sections have houses built, the mailman might service the lane, but that might take some time, but that's no issue as it's a nice walk down the lane to the letter box, to which I'm yet to complete.

I found this nice letter box on Trademe... an American import for about $60, but what I liked mostly was the lack of the envelope hole in the front. The main road is a dirt road and I can only imagine the mess the mail would end up in with all the dust blown up into the letter box with the traffic travelling past.

I purchased a pole for it to sit on from Bunnings, although perhaps it was a little too short... but hopefully it is still an easy reach for the mail man.

The letter box was level and forward facing when I installed it... but when compared to the other letter boxes, the photos below would suggest otherwise... but I'm happy with the overall result. I hope the mail man is happy too.

Ours is the "All Black" letter box.. so kiwi :) I can't wait to get our first bill! :)

Pond Update

I had mentioned previously we have had to put in a pond for fire fighting water and it was installed in the wrong location.  Well to get the final sign off

the council wants us to fence the pond.  We'll I've been working hard to get this finished... below are some pic's showing the progress of the pond.

 

There is still a lot more to do, we have more of the fence to finish, more planting, and we have a water feature to install, so the water is circulating.

The idea of the plants is for it to get big and bushy, so it kinda looks more natural... so we've planted a variety of flax's and grasses.

At the end of the jetty, I've suspended from chain in a basket two water lilies. But we will likely need more water plants... the pond is so large.

Then we need to look at fish or something... to eat the mosquito larvae.

Update 05 February 2015: 
Just an updated picture, some of the plants are coming along really well, in the background you can see the passion fruit vines starting to climb the fence. We will have passion fruit on one side of the pond and grapes on the other.

New Toy...

The build has come to an end, bills have been paid and with the very little money remaining, I've splurged on a new toy.  Well, it's not technically new, but more of an antique, but this 20 year old ride on lawn mower goes really well. 

I've had it serviced, replaced the battery and belts and it works brilliantly! Best of all I can get round the paddock in less than half the time it was taking me to do it with the push mower. I still use the push mower for the tight spots and around the edges, but the ride on takes care of the big opens spaces. Such Fun!

I think it is only appropriate to show our mower a little respect given the years of service it has provided it's previous owners, and we should name our mower... it has "White" written on the side of the mower, so perhaps Mr White, Senior White... Grand White, I'm not sure... looking for ideas, Gary and I have not come to an agreement on this yet.

Such Fun!

Old Post.... New Post

Just a quick update, this weekend was all about fixing the fences.... we can't plant any more plants until the fences are fixed, otherwise the sheep eat everything that we plant... so we only end up with very expensive sheep poo everywhere. 

The difficult part was untangling the fence, wire netting had been used in the past with the standard post and wire fence, so it was a mess, parts fallen over, and over grown with grass etc.

To be honest I didn't really know what I was doing, and trying to put a knot in the fence wire is really difficult... but the end result was OK... the posts are standing and the wire is tight so hopefully that works. I quiet like the inline wire strainers, made the job rather easy.

It's Raining Outside...

We've been waiting for a little rain to fill the pond to ease the liner comfortably into place before we fix it into place for good. Well we didn't get a little rain, we got all the rain we needed and some more!  

Yesterday there was 23mm of rain, and then today 72mm rain, and tomorrow another 60-80mm of rain is predicted! It looks like we going to get a months rain in 3-4 days!

Yesterday I received a phone call from my neighbour to say the wind had been blowing the pond liner into the pond and that it had been bucketing down. He kindly put some timber around the pond to hold the pond liner in place. 

I began to worry a little, as I hadn't yet put an overflow in place, so I took the afternoon off work to go up to the block to check it all out and to make sure the water overflowing wasn't eroding away the pond wall. 

The weather was awful, I think worse than cyclone Lusi that came through earlier in the year. The drive up to the block was a little challenging with a lot of surface flooding... and every time a big rig went past I had to nearly come to a stop due a wall of water being sprayed across to my side of the road, I couldn't see a thing! Also another interesting sight was water going horizontally across the windscreen with the rain!  Even driving at open road speeds normally the rain would travel up the windscreen over the car roof, but as I came up and over some ridges, the wind gusts would blow the car and the rain horizontally across the car windscreen!

On my arrival at the block I was greeted with water everywhere! Which was good in that I have a better idea of where the water runs and flows, so I can make plans to divert it away from the house, but I got soaked running from the car to the house, which is a mere 10 meters!  I didn't think to take a raincoat with me!

I put on my gumboots... and quickly ran around putting more timber on the side of the pond to hold the pond liner in place, protecting it from the howling wind.  I then checked the overflow point, and luckily there was enough pond liner that was covering the outer pond wall, so that was keep the pond wall dry from the water flowing over the top of the pond wall and down the other side of the pond.  

However, another job to add to our "to do" list, when the weather clears up, we will need to make a little creek or stone bed or something to carry the water away from the pond & garden shed, out into the paddock, to try to keep the area dry.  

Fencing... A New Feather In My Hat!

As a boy I remember spending time with Dad, fencing on the sheep & cattle farm that we lived on in the mid 80's in Taranaki. I remember at the time I found it was rather boring and I used to just hang out in the Holden Rodeo ute while Dad was working.  But from that experience I do remember some small details about how Dad built the farm fence. I remember watching Dad using a post hole borer to dig the holes, putting the fence post in and ramming in the dirt to make the post stand tall and strong. I remember helping Dad with that, and dad said all the dirt has to go back into the hole so ram it in good and hard, then running the wires down the fence line.

It's these little things that I remember from my childhood on the farm, and then with the help of Google, I guess this is what gives me the confidence and drives the DIY in me. Dad wasn't educated, and I guess he learned what he knew from his Dad, and working on farms at a young age himself... and he always had that good ole "can do attitude". So if Dad could do it, then I surely can do it, especially with all the information that can be found online today.

But in saying that I wish Dad was still with us today to help and give me some guidance and advice on how to build a fence and other things. 

The previous weekend we had all the timber delivered for the building the fence around the Septic runoff area.  It was quiet a lot of timber, and I was expecting a truck with a crane type setup to deliver the timber, but no, it came in two loads on the back of a trailer, so we had to unload it all by hand. We lost half a day with that.

So this weekend, we've got stuck in and started building our fence. 

So my fence design is based on a post and 2 rail, and then an outrigger type hot wire near the top, and a standard wire along the bottom.   

The hot wire is more to stop the cattle & sheep rubbing on the fence, so they don't damage it.

The posts are 1500mm tall and 100x100mm. We dug the hole about 55cm deep so 1/3rd of the post was in the ground. The posts are set at about 2 meters apart and we used a post hole auger/borer to dig the holes and a post rammer to ram in the dirt.

The two horizontal rails are timber that is 150mm x 50mm and are spaced 30cm apart, and then the hot wire will run between the two of them.  I'm going to invest in solar powered battery pack for the electric fence... I just need to do a little more research on that though.

Then half way from the ground to the bottom of the first rail, we will just run a normal fence wire along the bottom of the fence and use the wire strainers to tighten that wire.

 

Slow progress....

 

By the end of the day, the fence was completed. We just need to run the two wires along the fence, but that should be a quick job for next weekend, then we can start planting and mulching the area inside the fence, the final bit for council compliance.

 

Compliance & The Crater!

Part of the Kaipara Council requirements for the final code of compliance sign off is to have 45,000 litres of water reserve for fire fighting purposes.

This was something that was introduced last year by the Kaipara Council. Previously it was just 10,000 litres, so you could have got away with 2 water tanks. But the increased water reserve would require us to have 3 water tanks... two of which I wouldn't be allowed to use, so they would just be sitting there, which would be an eye sore.  Part of the new requirements does allow for an alternative water source, swimming pools and ponds. So we decided to go with a pond, due to the cost mainly, and it will look cool once it is all planted out.

So I brought a heavy duty pond liner on trade me, and arranged for the guy who did the driveway to come in to dig a rather large hole for us. I had marked out where the pond was to go, and pointed out to the location, and I thought all was made very well clear, but the digger guy got it wrong. Instead of the pond being about 30m away from the house, it is now 6m away from the house! The hole... crater is a bit bigger than what we were expecting.

I had planned for 6m x 6m x 1.5m deep, but we are more like 10m x 10m x 2m deep. I did expect it to be a little larger with the slopping sides... but when you actually see the crater for the first time it was a bit of a shock.

 

Initially we were very disappointed with the location... but it has come to grow on us a little. It would be a big job to fill it in, and start again.  If we landscape/plant it out really well, it could become a very nice feature from the deck. We will put in water lilies and a water feature of some sort. It could become really nice once done. I'm trying to stay positive... it is a bloody big hole!

To fill the pond, the excess water from the water tank will be piped into the pond, along with the water that run's off the driveway.

 

The Crater!

I think I pulled every muscle in my body pulling the pond liner into place. I've been sore for days! Especially by left elbow and lower back! The pond liner was 16m x 16m so plenty big enough, but we will also use it as weed mat around the sides of the pond. But we will wait until the pond is nearly full of water and the liner is set in before we start planting around the sides.

 

I will post some updated photos as we progress with the pond but next weekend, we have to start putting up the fence around the septic field. Just waiting for the timber to arrive then we can get stuck into it.

UPDATE:

We've made a overflow for the pond...so the water is now being deverted away from the garden shed, and out into the paddock. I guess we will have to do something about that to... water in the paddock.

Quick Update - Finishing Touches

Just a quick update, the build is pretty much over, just some finishing touches to be completed. Homeworld has finished their part, I've been very impressed with their work. Slow to start, but once building, it's been a very quick and well organised process.  

Now I just need to get my jobs completed.

There are two big projects to be done before the council comes around to do the final inspection, we need to build the pond for the fire fighting water, and fence off, mulch, and plant out the septic field. That's a big job. I might need to ask for some more time off work to get that done.

The kitchen requires some grouting to be done, and more top coats on the wooden bench top. Sand, stain, sand, stain, so far above is 3 coats, I think I should do about 5?

We're waiting for the above to be finished. The installer said something about ordering some flashing, oh, and we need to sort out the firewood... it's still sitting at the bottom of the hill, and it needs to carted up.

 

Above, the carpet is in, and below the bathroom is finished. We can now shower, there is water in the tank, the pump is connected, the hot water cylinder is on... the shower has plenty of pressure! I can't wait to soak in the bath.

  

As cute as they are... fencing is required to keep the sheep out of the garden.

One idea I'm am thinking about, is to fence up to the side of the house, and leave the deck open leading out into the paddock, kinda nice to have the sheep come up to the deck... what do you think? Or fence to keep the entire house out of the paddock.

Update: The log burner is now completed:

And Our First Fire! AWESOME!

Updated Pics:

 

WE HAVE THE POWER! LET THERE BE LIGHT & ELECTRICITY BILLS!

A quick update, from the block.

The build is just about over, the power is now connected to the house... the painting is pretty much all done apart a few finishing touch ups and I think it is looking really good.

I've put the kitchen in and laid the vinyl, and I must say that was very challenging task, laying the vinyl. There were some colourful words used that day. It is a rather average job, but once everything is in place, furniture etc, it will look fine.

We're just waiting on the bench top that we have ordered, so I can fit that, and as soon as we have that, then the plumber will come around for the final time to do the final fittings and then that is it. 

Well we still have to lay the carpet, install the log burner and there is a little tiling to be done, but we should get that done in the next two weeks, then we can move in! Oh and there is a lot of landscaping and fencing to be done over the next couple  months. We are just about there.

 

 

Water & Septic Tanks Are Installed

It's been a while since we purchased the water tank, but the drain layers have been busy this week, and now moved the water tank into place and connected that to the roof. So let it rain!

A Magical Morning Moment Above

 Installation

As well as connecting the water tank, the drain layers also installed the Natural Flow septic tank.  www.naturalflow.co.nz  A natural sewage treatment system. One of the features is grey/black water is separated and the worms are taking care of the black water business. I think they eat 95% of what goes in? Something along those lines.

 

Now I just need to get the interior painting finished so the vinyl in the toilet can be put down, and then the toilet installed... then we can start feedimg the worms!