di di di di NEWS FLASH

I'm pleasantly surprised.

I have received my quote this afternoon for the demolition from one of the guys over at Virginia, a few suburbs away. I had been expecting a lot more since it, the old brick garage (shed), has the internal ceiling done in .......  A s b e s t o s.

But it looks like I will get away with it for under $4K. So add some temporary landscaping to flatten out the block for a little while, looks like $5,000 will see the old thing gone.

So once I get to work in the morning I'll be getting on the end of the Edison device and cranking the handle and placing a call and seeing if they can get it done yesterday!

Then I can arrange the relevant day off to film it all :o)

Another Tradie Arrives

So today I had yet some more Tradies come round to do some work.

First I had Marshall Batteries come round. Geez - they just don't make batteries like they used to. That last one of mine they replaced this morning (was from Marshall as well) only lasted me eight years - shocking, absolutely shocking!

But this arvo was the visit from a Tradie that will progress the train shed - the Sparky.

So this bloke pops round and we have a discussion about the new shed and what I want to do with it for wiring and air-con. You know, how many lights, how many power points, the air-con, the separate power board in the shed from the house etc. So after that important information session, I got him to disconnect the 240 volts from the old shed so I can proceed with demolition.

Easy enough job for him - it's his job after all. The old cabling came across the yard and in through the besser brick wall at the back of the house into the rear stairwell. It actually went up in the wall for about a metre before coming out near the power box. The red arrow is the cable in question.

First switch he flipped got the power off, a pair of side cutters cut the old cable, a pair of flat nose pliers untwisted the cable joins and re-twisted the remaining wires. Back into the protective plastic junction box and screwed back into position. Power on and he proves the power is no longer going to shed - ie that the correct lines have been severed.

Old cables get ripped out of the wall and we are done!

All I have to do is get some Spak Filler and fix the inside and outside holes and it's done. 

No bill in the mail here either. The nice chap said leave it a month or so until we do the wiring in the shed - combine it all into one bill - I like this fella.

Friday the 17th Part II

or another heading would be - "Dang, I forgot the photos".

OK, they might not mean much, but it is of the old bits on the shed. So photo one is of the water out from the shed. It was only to carry out the old washtub water, and went out to this concrete junction (blue arrow points our way) with a small steel grate on top. From there it went down into the ground to meet up with the clay pipes that went off to where ever they go...

The red marking shows the area dug up to find and do the capping off.

Once this was done, they turned off the water at the street and capped off the inwards flow of water to the shed. When I came out to inspect it, it had me bamboozled as to why they cut the copper pipe above ground (red arrow).

Makes perfect sense when you think about it. They were about to dig a hole in the ground to then cut the pipe and cap it off. They cut the above pipe so there was very little water left in the pipe to run into the pit.

So they dug their pit, cut the pipe and then soldered a cap on the end of it. Water was then turned back on and all checked for leaks. Since all was good, they then back-filled the hole. Did a tidy job too.

 Then it was time for me to say goodbye and the famous words came back "the bill will be in the mail".

So that was Friday's Tradie's work.

Yup, It's Friday

Being that it is Friday, the plumbers turned up as arranged - on the dot of 07:30 this morning.

They have of course left by now, but the copper pipe has been welded off at below ground level and the old clay waste water pipe has this weird and wonderful plastic and rubber gadget clamped into it as below ground level.

So the shed is now isolated from the water systems - tick.

Next step is to get the shed disconnected from the electrical power systems. I have looked and it definitely not a job for me, so arrangements have been made and a Sparky will show up on Monday to do the disconnections.

I'll also have a chat to him about connecting up the new shed when it comes time and wiring in all the fluorescent lights I have for the new shed, plus air-conditioner of course.

Short and Sweet

OK, after a hiatus of 12 months of basically sitting on my fat ar$e and doing nothing about my own layout (but still working on the club one of course), I have started preparations for getting rid of the old shed so I can get final signoff on the new one and therefore be able to start using it!

Step one was the fixing of the locks on my roller doors on the garage so I could put valuables in there. Well, the Locksmith has now come, worked and gone today. Garage is lockable again and I have moved some more gear in there.

Step two is to get the services to the old shed removed. Well, I've just made the appointment with the Plumber and he'll send his bloke around this Friday morning to cap the water in and the water out of the old shed.

Then there is the sparky to arrange and the demolition crew - all in due course. But at least I've started progress again.

Make use of the Day Off

So I had today off since I had a quack appointment around noon - not worth going into work. So after the visit to my GP, it was time to attack the paving some more.

 

First I lifted and moved a pile of them to near the old chook shed for use later in putting down a decent floor in the little shed. It will do as a nice mower house I reckon since the chooks are now gone.

Then it was time to start lifting all the remaining ones and let them dry off a bit so as to make the removal of the dirt, sand and such before stacking them.

By the time I got back to the first one I'd lifted, it was dry and warm.

Then it was time to go move the remaining pavers. I added another layer or two near the chook shed and the rest went to down the side of the house.

So this left the old paved area nice and ready for demolition man to remove the concrete when I am eventually ready to arrange it - much more work to do emptying out the shed.

I suppose my next bit of work will be to move the stack of un-used tiles to the garage.

Don't Talk, Do It.

I've now been back at work for a week - a fella REALLY should have an easier way of getting money.

Anyway, while I was on my latest two weeks of holidays, I actually got two full days of work done, out in the old shed - amazing I know. I tell you, as soon as people hear you are on holidays, it's wanta a cuppa time all the time! But two days heading towards my empire is better than nothing.

Another reason that slowed me down was this thing called old age. We all travel towards it and hope it stays well ahead of us. But sometimes that blasted fella called Murphy, pokes his bloody head out and take a shot at ya. The other day I was getting ready to go out back and do some work and was sitting on the side of the bed and bent over to pull on my work boots, and that was it for the day and the next - I threw me blasted back out!  How at my age does that happen?  I mentioned it to both my siblings and they too get that sort of thing from time to time they tell me - geez this getting older sucks and does sneak up on one. All that is beside the point. 

First job was to get all the nuts, bolts, nails and all sorts of bits and pieces off the shelves directly in front of me on this photo.

They were all moved into the garage and onto my existing set of shelves for just that sort of thing. Next was to move all the timber and metal stock I had stored on the wall on the right hand side in the above photo and the left side on the photo below. I moved it to the garage and put it all on the floor first.

So I managed to get all the wall brackets that support the steel and timber stock one keeps around the place, off of the walls and into the garage. All the timber, steel and such followed as well. I tell you, putting Dyna-bolts into brick is easy compared to the Besser brick in the garage. The motor was so thin and not all the way on each brick, so I had all sorts of trouble requiring drilling more holes and then more holes in the steel brackets. But it got done. So here is a shot of the garage with its new brackets and timber stores and pipes and such back in place.

And here is the empty wall space in the old shed.

I was also able to destock the old steel shelves my dad had built me that were in the back room of the old shed and move them into the garage and stock them up again. Bloody hell - the old man sure made them solid. I think he welded them up in my old shed, as they were HEAVY. I had to get a second set of muscles from the bloke living upstairs to move the damn thing - 10 feet at a time - many rests required. But move it we did.

Here are the shelves before moving.

And here are the shelves moved and restocked with what I wanted to keep. I also moved and restocked my two other shelves in the garage so they are now all in their permanent locations. Here are the shelves in place before all the stock goes back on. The shelves at left are the good solid, last forever, steel ones.

With all the moving and sorting, I managed to get two more 200 kg trailer loads of junk down to my local tip as well. Besides the shelving moving, I have every now and then in the arvo, gone and moved some pavers - there are oodles of the blighters to move. So all the ones I have lifted to allow the new shed to be build have finally been moved today after the club visit.

Now I have to lift the remaining pavers and move them as well. None will be wasted as they can all be used on my new pergola once I have completed the commissioning of the new shed.

So progress slow as it is, is happening.