A New House For Terry

After three years of frosty winter mornings and living outside, we decided it was time for a new house for Terry and Suby.  Whilst we chose a simple 6m x 9m carport design, we decided that we didn't want the standard colourbond K Panel cladding.  We were fortunate to know of an old hayshed that had long fallen over, and with kind agreement of the owners, we removed the old iron.

The old hayshed iron is loaded into the trailer

After my efforts building the cubby house, and knowing the limitations of my building experience, I decided that the main construction of the carport was to be outsourced to local contractors.   We thought that this would be a straightforward operation, but no it was not to be.



The suppliers of the steel don't build sheds, but recommended a local builder.  The local builder was busy, so subcontracted another builder from a nearby town. The new builder then contracted the first builder to construct the footings... Confused?  Yes, us too.

With footings duly inspected by council and poured we waited a couple of weeks for the carport to be constructed.  We were lucky to find the uprights only just fitted on the footings... it was as if only one of the holes had been drilled in the right place!  Frustrated, by now yes we were!  At least both the cars fitted in the new carport!

The frame and roof is up

Now it was time for the cladding to go on.  Now this is where the cuby house practice came in handy.  With a bit of patience and time, we put the cladding on to the frame.  The drill and angle grinder were busy with the cutting of the sheets and attaching them to the battens.  The cladding provided a great deal of structural stablity to the carport

Now it's my turn to add the cladding

And then the final flashing, down pipes and tank were installed.  The tank feeds into the house main supply and acts as a surge tank when it rains heavily.  The extra 54sq metres of roof area is much appreciated adding another 50 litres or so for each 1mm of rain fall to our domestic supply.

Council's final inspection wasn't without its dramas.  The young woman inspector wasn't happy with the uprights not being in the centre of the pads, or that the down pipes weren't installed by a licenced plumber.  She was unable to offer any advice other than she would have to take some photos and refer to someone else.  Thankfully that someone else was happy with the standard of construction and we received our final approval the following day!

Terry and Suby's new home.

So now Terry and Suby have a new home, that keeps the frost of the windscreen, the leaves out of the grill and bird poo off the paint. We are really happy with the final rustic result and have learnt that even when using professionals, it pays to double check some of the big things yourself!