Quite a lot of progress has been made
over the summer months. Firstly, we completed the drainage system
for the pool paving surround. Essentially, we dug a french drain
soakaway under what was to become a lawn. It is basically a gravel
filled trench with the perforated drainage pipe wrapped in a water
permeable membrane. This system allows us to replenish groundwater
stocks using water collected from our hard surfaces. We provided an
overflow to this system to wash excess stormwater into the
neighbouring park, which has a water course. We have since also
begun landscaping by planting a few plants and had 130sq.m of roll-on
lawn laid to reduce the windblown sand.
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| Pool paving drainage pipe, with lowered french drain junctions either side |
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| Overflow drainage pipe continues through boundary wall to discharge near neighbouring park's watercourse; perforated french drain pipe visible |
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| French drain branch pipe covered with gravel and rubble |
We have just had our builder back to
erect the fibre cement cladding. It consists of 7.5mm thick fibre
cement planks which are 230mm wide and 3.6m long. They are attached
with clout nails every 600mm to the timber battens which were fixed
to the exterior walls earlier. Each fibre cement planks overlaps the
one below, so the end result resembles 200mm wide shiplapped cladding
panels. He also put up the gutters [we just used an off-the-shelf
PVC guttering system as the gutters are limited in extent and
confined to one side of the house]. And we had our builder make some
progress with painting some of the hard to reach parts of the house
too, so the exterior of the house is now nearing completion....
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| Pool side cladding; unclad sections between windows are still to receive natural timber cladding |
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| South side cladding |
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| South side cladding; one of the top floor windows has its trim surround |
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| Pool side; the lower-left interruption in the cladding is where the verandah roof will tie into the building |
