How do you move a 60 year old, 6 tonne concrete tank?

Recently, Gary and his 14 tonne excavator and bobcat turned up. We decided we'd have a try at moving the 6 tonne, 60 year old concrete tank - and after breaking several chains plus a lot of huffing, puffing and praying we managed to shove it 3 metres to the south by basically lifting one side at a time and walking it along. That means that only a third of it will now sit inside the future walled garden.

When Gary left, the place looked the Somme in WW1. So Nette and spent the next week raking, levelling and landscaping. Lots still to do, but the groundwork (!) is mostly done.

We also waterproofed a second old concrete tank (the twin of the one we moved) ready to be connected to the new shed. Our plumber, Phil, reckons we should stop collecting tanks now as we have enough in his humble opinion. He may be right - we have one 110,000 litre (full), and three 22,000 litre tanks (one is full and 2 have only just been connected).



And what a big difference it made getting the front doors on  the shed! Many thanks to local company John Atterbury Doors.   From the outside the shed almost looks finished now. Just gutters and some odd bits of flashing to go.  Inside is a different story.  The ceiling battens are up - which was a job and a half - ready for the ceiling, but that's about it.  Good thing we're not in a hurry eh?

Almost art - ceiling battens

You have to love a scaffold

Perhaps I'm exaggerating.  But one of the best things we have purchased is our own scaffold.  I don't have the scientific proof - but I reckon it's 500% safer than a ladder and 900% more fun!

Ours is a budget number from Synergy Scaffolding and it is absolutely brilliant.  Imagine being able to stand on a flat, level, stable surface 3.5 metres up.  Can't picture it?  Buy a scaffold :)

Mind you, sometimes you need to be a bit creative and resourceful when you're setting it up.

Framed

It was with great excitement that we took delivery of our shed frame the other week.   Manufactured by The Steel Framing Company (TSFC), owned by Will and Sarah.  It is a work of art. 

TSFC had thought of everything; Kevlar gloves, brilliantly labelled plans, drill bits and even the exact number of bolts (100 in case you were wondering) to tie it all to the slab.  On top of that we were invited to call Will on his mobile anytime if we needed a hand. Which we did - in fact the day we didn't call, Will called us to see how things were going.  Will and Sarah even helped us stand some of the frames up when they dropped by a couple of days later to check on progress.  Now that's customer service.

As Will pointed out, it's not really a shed, but a class 1A dwelling (ie a house) with no internal walls. Hence the unshed-like diagonal braces and verandas. 

The completed frame

With all the extra steel the heaviest panel was 88 kilos and 4.5m high - which was a challenge for Nette and I. But we pulled it off by gradually lifting it onto progressively higher rungs of the scaffold.  We met our match though when it came to the trusses.  Spanning over 8m they were too long and the walls too high for us to safely manage. 

It took us over a week to get all the framing done, including a day with a local builder and roof plumber to get the trusses up.  But it looks brilliant.  So much so it will be a shame to hide all that precision steel engineering behind colourbond.

BTW - My comments about TSFC are totally unsolicited, my enthusiasm is simply related to their incredibly great product and brilliant service.

It's like starting over

Shed Slab

While it's been quiet on the blog front things have been happening at the Croft. In particular, work has started on the workshop.  Roy from Any Type excavations dug a wonderful hole in June only to have Dieter from Spaghetti Concreting fill it in a few days later.  The dimensions are about 10m x 10m plus a 1.5m veranda on the front (right side in the photo) a mud room on the eastern side (left side in the photo).   The steel frame is scheduled to arrive in August.

 

But wait there's more....



Stairs completed

Having completed the upstairs cupboards and plastering we decided it was finally time to oil the stairs.  The change is just amazing.  The photo of the half completed Harry Potter door below shows the transformation in progress.  Actually, that door was a great find.  We purchased it for $20 from a second hand dealer in Grenfell.  He had taken it from a building in George Street and dated it circa 1900.  It's cedar and was quite beaten up having been kicked in at some point.  



Harry Potter door

We've also completed the bathroom cupboard (below).  The mirror was a Grenfell recycling centre purchase and the carcass of the cupboard was originally a chest of drawers which we found sans drawers.  It now sports drawers that we made from some old cedar skirting board while the doors are resized cedar window frames.   


Bathroom

So in July we're planning and preparing for the shed build.  The 5,000 gallon tank pad is prepared and I've been reading up on steel frame construction... what could possibly go wrong?










 

A concrete solution

It's not pretty - but it's finished!

Nette and I have finally discovered our dizzy limit – it’s one cubic meter of concrete.  The good news though is that we finally have a solid floor in the shed. 

 

It occurred to us early in the shed construction phase that with an area of 5m x 8m to lay the two of us were going to struggle to do it in one pour. So, with our second hand electric cement mixer, a couple of shovels, over 50 bags of cement, blue metal, sand and Rolex the watchdog to supervise we split the area into four and tackled it over several weekends.  We now know that with both us working virtually non-stop for 7 to 8 hours we can mix, pour and finish one cubic meter of concrete – and dare I say it - not a centimeter more.  

 

Step 1-build shed. Step 2-lay floor?

The result isn’t beautiful, but it’s finished.  

You may well be thinking that building the shed and then laying the concrete is the wrong way about – but it does have some advantages. Firstly, the shed walls help secure the formwork. Secondly, you are working under cover when mixing the concrete.  But most importantly, even we couldn’t get the size and position of the slab wrong. 

 

Next – the bathroom ceiling

Shedding



The shed - almost open for business

It's taken a few weekends but the shed is done.  Well, almost - I still need to get the roll-a-door to go up and down before we can cut the ribbon. 

The shed was originally in Canberra and was given to us by friends from church who were upgrading their car accommodation.  So we pulled it down, labelled everything and trailered it to Pemberley.  Putting it up two years later has been a bit of a test of our memories (why did we write that on this piece?) and a real team effort with our son-in-law lending his tall genes at just the right moment.

Unfortunately the local wombat has discovered the shed and started digging up one of the footings already.  I'm not sure what God was thinking when He made wombats so annoying - I hope I remember to ask Him.