Blog #19

The excitement continues to build at Wilson court as we continue to move in the right direction.

Quicklift doors installed the garage door frame on Tuesday, and we visited the site at lunch time to check it out. I have not seen a tilt door up close in real life so was interesting to see how they work. Quicklift will return once it is clad to commission the door, however we are able to open it manually for now if needed.

Our frame only flush mounted tilt door ready for cladding. it will be a great day when this gets clad.

Once the door was installed Kristian was able to provide the final measurements for the cladding to be ordered. The door install and cladding on and around it is very presise – down to the millimeter. 1000 measurements were provided to Anthony Ryan, who has worked out the cladding setout and will install the cladding on the garage.

There was a late change with the dark colour of our cladding. I came across a pic of a house clad with Graphite Black Vestis aluminium on Instagram on Wednesday night, and this raised some doubt as to whether we had picked the right colour. We had originally picked another colour – Nebula Midnight – based off online research, however we preferred the graphite black once we looked at the samples. Graphite black is a beautiful shade of black however I was concerned maybe it was too dark for us. I studied pics of the cladding on the Metal Cladding Systems website on Wednesday night and concluded that the Nebula Midnight looked better (in our opinion) in the images available, and seemed to show up less imperfections (oil canning).

Oil canning is a moderate buckling of sheet material, particularly common with flat sheet metal surfaces. It is seen as waviness in the flat areas of the metal roof or wall material. This phenomenon will seem very apparent at times and seem to disappear at others due to the angle of the sunlight.

Vestis’ Nebula range has a textured surface that diffuses light. Once installed Nebula panels change and evolve as daylight shifts and light hits the panels at difference angles. The textured surface reduces the visible signs of oil canning, creating smoother, more even looking cladding systems.

Example of a wall clad with Interlocking V25 in Vestis Aluminium Nebula Midnight. Pic courtesy of www.metalcladdingsystems.com.au

We were onsite early Thursday morning, for a site meeting with the electrician, but to also unwrap some more Nebula midnight samples and view them from different distances, angles and in different light. I stuck some on the wall with electrical tape and even asked the passing school kids which ones they liked. They gave the wrong answer, so I quickly dismissed their opinions as I had already made up my mind. I got on the blower to Anthony and discussed oil canning and how he explained how all the metal materials will move and appear differently at different times of the day. He said the graphite black would be fine, but it just comes down to personal taste. It was not too late to change as he only just rang it through, so we switched to Nebula Midnight for all our dark cladding, which is on the garage, internal entry wall, daybed, and alfresco area.

Samples of Nebula Midnight alongside Pure White, our main colour.

I had also spoken to Anthony on Wednesday and he had some questions for me on how I would like to do things, however I was happy to just take his advice and do what he thought would be best. We a grateful to have his expertise on our project.

We had meetings with Matt on Thursday and Friday morning. Thursday was Matt Coates re the electrical, and Friday was Matt Wilkinson re the plumbing. Other Matts involved in the project are Matt Harris (air con) and Matt Webb (plumber). We also have Matt black windows and plumbing fixtures, matt tiles, and I reckon we will have a door Matt. Any other Matt’s are welcome to get involved….

Masterchef judge Matt Preston, another Matt, nothing to do with our project.

Laser electrical have been busy and almost have their rough in complete. We caught up with Matty Coates to review light locations, which they had marked on the slab, and run through a list of various questions. We are very particular about wall and roof penetrations and it has been great to have our tradies onboard to minimize and conceal these. The exhaust for our ensuite for instance could be drawn to the concealed alfresco roof with a large inline fan, or it could be vented out the wall behind, which would be cheaper and easier. We have since decided that a wall vent in the corner would be discreet enough so will save some pennies, which we need to on things that do not really matter.

Locations of downlights marked with tape on slab directly below

Matt is very particular, and we have been impressed with his attention to detail and care he shows to get things just right. Unfortunately for Laser, Matt is finishing up and going out on his own. He aims to have our rough in complete before he goes so, we will not be left in the lurch.

Another productive meeting on Friday morning with plumber Matt. We walked through and discussed our plumbing fixtures and their locations and heights. We have some homework for him, such as vanity heights, handheld shower location, and rainhead style.

A rainhead is a box with an overflow slot located at the end of a box gutter. It acts as an external overflow point to reduce water surges into the stormwater system and aid the flow of water down the downpipe. A box gutter an internal hidden gutter.

Example of a Rainhead

We saved some cash with this meeting when we heeded Matt’s advice and elected for an instant gas hot water unit to service our ensuite, rather than a second solar hot water unit. There is no central location available for our hot water storage tank, so we need 2 systems to avoid a long wait for hot water in our ensuite. Only catch is now we will need a gas bottle which we I’ll hide over at our boundary fence somewhere.

We also decided to omit the skylight over our powder room after discussing the flashing requirements. Decided to save money here and keep the roof clear. We learnt about how sewer vents (stink pipes) work: they provide air to the sewer pipe to allow the liquid to move smoother, similar to how adding straw will allow you to skull a cruiser quicker (so I’m told)….

Whilst onsite Matt measured up the parapet flashings and that will be done ahead of the cladding install. They will also do their rough in this week.

Does not seem like AFL grand final today (Saturday), not sure I’m a fan of the night format. Would be nice to have a BBQ with family and friends this afternoon, but I understand that is an unacceptable risk when there is a rolling average of 0.2 new cases per day in regional Victoria and no active cases in our area for months….

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