Quads And A New Lifestyle

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xman
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Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by xman »

First week of the kid's holidays and had a bit of time to try the Trail Cam. Starting to see what goes on at night and what lives on the farm full time. No luck on the extensions as my builder wasn't available so that will have to wait. Thing about the country life is you quickly learn much patience something I know little of but am quickly learning the hard way. Temperature is going down to -8c at night and solar panels are producing 1/2 the power as that of summer and only give usable power for about 6 hours as opposed to 10 in summer so I bought 2 x 400 watt wind generators to supplement the solar panels. Some of the pics from the trail cam at a location we call Grassy Flat, about 250 meters from the house down by one of the creeks-
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1st pic has created a bit of conjecture, is it a fox or a feral cat?. I'm going with a fox but others are positive it's a feral cat. 2nd picture is definitely a roo and the next shot taken by the cam has the roo looking straight into the camera. Certainly not scared by it. And the 3rd photo proves I do have pigs. He is just a small male, not the giant my son has seen but none the less proof I do have pigs. Looking at going back down the farm next week and hopefully get the frame of the extensions knocked up and a bit of the sheet metal attached. Would like to get the pump hooked up for the water so we don't need to "bucket flush" the toilet anymore, that suks. Grabbing a bucket of water from the water tank and using it to flush the toilet can all be avoided with the pressure pump with a pipe to the toilet. Anyway, until next week aye.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by professor_jonny »

may be one of those illusive tasmanian tigers ?
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by Kozz »

Excellent !!!
I've been looking forward to seeing more pics from your trail cam, I'd say that these and your other pics that were up on the old site make it well worth the price for the cam, I love it !! wish I had one back in Ontario durring moose hunting season
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by xman »

@ PJ- I'm not in the Tassie Tiger's location but well within the Black panther's location. I wouldn't be surprised to snap deer as there also in the farm's location. Goats are rarely seen too but I think those chances are much higher now seeing as one of my neighbor just "lost" 20 of his herd.
@ Kozz- One of these Trail Cams would be great for your moose. I'd love to see those pics. A couple more pics for you Kozz from the highest hill on the farm, "Blackboy Mountain". It's about 3Kms from the farm house-
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Yes, I agree, the Trail Cam has paid for itself. Seems my locals have been impressed as well. I have orders for 3 cams for them. ;) One for wildlife, one to catch his neighbor trespassing and one so he and his wife can see what eating there vegie patch occasionally. Might be time to on sell a couple of modded Xboxes so they can view the pictures their cams capture as well. :D I FTPed my pics and videos from the cam onto the Xbox and it plays them fine. Funny how the Xbox plays the video perfect, straight away and the P.C. will only play them with VCL Player. Window Media Player isn't capable. :shock: Why does this not surprise me. :lol:
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by Nextelhalo »

Those are badass pics X. What other wildlife would you expect to see out there?
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by xman »

Well it's been under 12 months since we bought the farm and I found some before and after photos I thought I would share with you guys. You guys have been pretty much with me on the old forum watching this place come together but even I was shocked by the changes between these photos. lets hope the body holds out and the next 12 months can be as productive aye. ;)
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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I got down for a day this week with a mate to get up the extensions frame, something I wasn't able to do myself and even with two of us it was a still a bit dodgy getting it up, squaring it all up and attaching to the existing house but we did get it and now I can get this half of the house under way. Near sub zero temps made the experience interesting handling steel and bolts but saying that it is perfectly square, all leveled up and it isn't coming down short of an earthquake as it is now till the next time I get down and start attaching the rest of the channel and sheet metal.
This was the real dodgy part of the operation. At first after raising the center arch, the diagonal beam attached to the post in the ground in front was all that was holding one side of it. While my mate was holding the other side, I was then able to attach the horizontals back to the house and then it was safe to start the rest of the frame-
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The nae complete frame-
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Took me a day and and half to cut all the steel to size, drill and bolt it all together on the ground and keeping it all square last visit so it was able to be erected and "just bolted together when we raised it this visit but it did literally bolt together dead square and pretty much to the mm. This really surprised me because things just don't go together like that especially when your a couple of meters off the ground on a ladder. Should be a pretty big place when it all becomes one house, aye?. Three quarters of this extension is for the lounge room that features the bar and projector room. The projector screen is a 150" that goes on one of the side walls and is the screen for the wall mounted Xbox and I look forward to the day I'm watching it at night on that sized screen. :D Ow well, this is what I'm up to until next time.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Got a bit more done this week on the extensions. Not much as I was crock as a dog with the flu while doing this and didn't feel real good on a ladder. Could have had this done real quick had the wall not been there but I have to keep the place watertight so all the top hats had to be attached to the existing house by cutting the wall sheet around the where they join the house and then sealed back up. Didn't put the top hats on the walls because we're still deciding exactly where the windows and door into the garage area are definitely going.
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Should be right to get the lower roof on next visit and the lower walls, windows and doorway. Might then get the mezzanine level beams and balcony in place so I can use these beams to put timber across and then a ladder on top if it to access the top roof. I really don't want to get up on that roof on the outside. I would prefer to access it from the upper level so if I fall, I fall onto the upper mezzanine level floor and not right off the top of the building to the concrete below.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by eXo »

nice work going on there xman!!

now to turn the caravan into a meth lab... breaking bad styles lol

then the whole project pays itself off in one batch lol
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by xman »

10 hours of work and 2 guys and this is what I'm up to.-
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Pretty happy with what we got done. Only had one solid day really but we did get a big chunk of work done. There's a few "fiddly" jobs in there that aren't real obvious. ;)
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by Geeba »

Looking good! Is that a new style roof blanket? I remember the type we used to use was lined with fiber glass... helped keep the heat out in summer, keep it in during winter and stop the rain noise on the colorbond ;)
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by xman »

Yer it is actually. The other part of the house was done in "Builder's Blanket" which is thick and fiber lined and has a rating of about R1- R1.2.. This thin stuff has a rating of R4 and works solely on the material it's made from rather than how thick it is. It must be silver side in with a very thin layer of black shit, (looks like bitumen), with an outside blue waterproof plastic coating so condensation formed under the metal sheet in winter can't soak into the insulation, ( if fitted like it is in the walls), and cause the insulation to smell over time. Pricy shit at over $1 a meter but a lot easier to install than the old builder's blanket. The walls have R4.5 batts over this insulation as well but the roof, no. This is the exact same process there using out here on factory units at the moment. Apparently the old builder's blanket gave inconsistent thermal ratings like when it went over a roof beam etc.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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School holidays here now so we got 4 days in down the farm. I organized to have the shipping containers moved up the hill from where they where placed and brought up beside the house to form the walls of the future garage / workshop.
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Cool work the boys did. Took about an hour and a half and they are now exactly as I wanted them on the workshop concrete slab.
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This will be the door you need to get in to the workshop to unlock the main workshop door from inside the workshop itself. The door is a solid core door with a dead lock fitted and the main workshop door will be padlocked to the concrete slab. I really can't do much more than that.
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I also managed to do a bit more on the extension roof and a far bit of the mezzanine level floor supports. I need the mezzanine level floor to support a ladder so I can attach the upper roof sheets in place.
Also got to position the trail cam but I had the settings wrong and only managed to get one video of a rabbit. The camera was set for only videos and was constantly being triggered by the wind blowing the grass in the camera site and of the 3.86Gb of video it took over one day, this was the only video :twisted: showing wildlife..
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Better luck next time I guess. We will be going back down in a couple of days to have a good go at the upper roof and walls I hope but we'll see. Now that the containers are in place, I can run the plumbing across to the house from the water tank using a workshop roof beam to support the pipes, owe I long for running water not to mention the wife. The containers in place also now allows me to attach my 2 400watt wind generates to them. They will bolt to the roof of the containers and power the battery bank to supplement the solar panels. Actually I think the solar panels will supplement the wind generators because the wind generators produce more power but again will soon see I guess.
A bit of the mezzanine and upper roof beams in place.
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Well that's it till next week.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by BuZz »

Nice progress! :)
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Well we made a bit more progress this week but as always, never as much as I would have liked. Still better than nothing and I just need to keep chipping away at it. My son and I removed the upper arch from the end of the house and raised it to the new height of the extensions, it is 500mm higher by the way with the extra height coming from an 850mm piece of C channel that goes 350mm inside the old C channel that formed the old uprights and is bolted. Welding it would be ideal but whether my welder would run on the generator is what I'm not sure of. Might have to test that because welding would be so much faster rather than drilling a 3mm pilot hole through 1st followed by an 8mm and the finally the 12mm hole that suits the bolts and this is going on on every bolt. There are 6 bolts per upright around the C channel extension piece and a further 6 bolts to attach the upper arch. Anyway, the result is now I have 3 of the 5 arches at the new height and I can now start laying the new upper roof, on my next visit. I really would like to do the whole upper roof across the whole building in one go but that would take at least 2 days and no roof on the existing house and pray it doesn't rain doesn't appeal to me so it all needs to be done in stages. Didn't have this problem on the lower roof because it just blending into the existing roof that was the same height of the new extension. On the inside, I built a new bench and cupboards to support the sink so it won't be long before we have a sink, yiirharr. :D . No more walking outside and throwing the old water over the edge of the hill or using a bucket to wash up in. Sink is sunk into the new bench top and just requires me to attach the waste piping to it and she will be good to go. This believe it or not is a major milestone. I tackle this whole farm house job as a collection of milestones. :? That way I don't get overwhelmed or discouraged by looking at house job as one just one big job. :roll: Sorta fools the brain into thinking your making progress rather than looking at it as well now I'm 30% finished, only got 70% to go. :shock: I successfully ran the fan on the fan forced wood heater off a 150watt car laptop power supply which was cool and now I now these $16 DealsXtreme inverters can do small jobs like this. Next test will be the 85watt bar fridge. By laptop power supply I mean a 12volt DC to 240volt AC inverter. I do have big inverters but I believe it best to have separate small inverters to each appliance rather than firing up a 600, 1000 or a 1800watt inverter just to run something that only requires less that 100watts to run. Also if something blows up, you don't loose everything in one go. ;) On the leisure side of things, I took out the trail cam for a night to see if I could get some wildlife shots. This is what the camera caught on film.
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Don't know when I'll be back down as it's now the end of the school holidays so the kids go back to school. Could be any time I guess but until then.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Only went down overnight to check the house out after 30mm of snow, a lot of rain and finish the sink and drain install but it turned out exciting. I decided to ring the pub owner to see if the river was flooded and it was so I went down via the coastal road, no biggy. Thought we'd check out the river crossing and how high the river was and well, there's always an idiot isn't there.
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This idiot attempted to cross the flooding river at 700mm and that really wasn't very wise, was it?. :shock:
Scratch one Toyota Troop Carrier I guess. :lol: Personally, I wouldn't take a tank across at that height. This water has so much power and speed when it's flooding like this but this guy knew best in Dad's truck I guess. :?
Anyway, I got my sink in and thanks to Whufchee's fine advice on sealing the wood where the sink went in, I'm very happy. Clear silicon I used by the way Whuf. ;)
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The trip to the river gave me the chance to see a neighbors property that took up the pulp mill's offer to log the pine trees I was offered and declined. Real glad I declined the offer after seeing what it looks like afterwards.
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I ask, what is this land going to be good for now?.
Went in the pub for a drink after doing the bench and sink work in the night and after seeing 1/2 dozen wombats on the road, I was going slow, about 60Km/H and I was in the commodore and not the 4 x 4 and it was raining anyway but I still managed to hit the biggest roo I've seen in this area. Two jumps and bang, straight on the front drive's side at the headlight. Oww no, this is going to cost big I thought. Got to the pub and had a look and no damage. WHAT. I smacked this thing knocking it over and down the road about 10 meters with 3 summasults and although it got up and ran off, this kangaroo was the size of a advantage bloke. It was actually like hitting a man. Guess I was extremely lucky or these cars are designed not to smash at low speeds. Not even a cracked headlight. I went back in the daytime to see where it come form and noticed this fence that it had jumped over just before I hit it just to give you some idea how big this roo was.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by whufclee »

Nice job on the worktop mate, and great pic of the car in the river - what was the bloke thinking?!
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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My youngest son and I went down on Thursday night to see how much of the roof we could get done after I delivered the last of the steel I needed for the roof during the week. This is what we got up to the last visit.
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We spent a couple of hours Friday morning and we had a platform to work on, the future mezzanine level, and a couple of boards to sit a ladder on to reach the outside of the upper roof. A few more hours and a lot of death defying work and we had the upper roof "tophats" in place.
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Woke up nice and early Saturday morning ready to start but no, it rained lightly overnight and everything was wet so not suitable for walking on a wet steel roof so we lost 3 hours waiting for that to dry off but then we hit it laying the full roof insulation as we went along and after the rest of the day attaching roofing sheet and knocked over about half the job.
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Got up Sunday morning and it was a bright sunny day unlike the previous cloudy, cool day. Needless to say I got a bit sunburnt but a couple of hours in the baking sun and it now looks like this.
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That last picture gives you some idea what the rest will look like with it's raised roof which I figure will be so much easier on account it already has a full mezzanine floor in place but the whole existing lower roof needs to be removed, the uprights extended by 500mm and then all put back in place. Next job will be the front face though I think because then we can access the whole area and clear out a lot of the building materials that clutter the living area at the moment. The trick has be trying to keep the place water proof and warm to stay in and able to lockup when we weren't there and that's why the place has to been done in stages. The future workshop area got a bit of use to repair the old original water tank after a wind took it down the hill while it was empty some time ago. My son and I managed to roll it back up the hill into the workshop area that will one day have a roof over it.
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One of the locals living about 10 meters from the house.
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That's about it till next visit. Hope you guys are enjoying my struggle with the Aussie bush as I build my place in what I regard as my paradise. As tied as I feel after returning back to the city, I always feel refreshed. I know it's not for all but it really does me wonders not having masses of people around me and just some free time to clear my head. I'm certainly no "greeny tree huger" being the owner of quite a few guns and enjoy shooting but I really do like seeing nature, including the poisonous ones this place has around me.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

Post by whufclee »

Looking good xman, do you have a rough target in your head of when you want it finished by? It's quite amazing how much you've got done there just in your free time, keep up the good work fella.
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Re: Quads And A New Lifestyle

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Man, six months ago would have been nice to have had it finished if you know what I mean but that hasn't happened and all I can do is keep chipping away till I'm done. You know I go down and work on it for a couple of days and it takes me two days to get over it. I do look forward to having the outside steel work done especially since we are just coming into summer here and it's going to be a scorcher this year. That upper roof section I've just done is what I regard as the hardest part of the whole project because there was really no way to do it real safely but it's done now so that's cool. I have another extension coming out onto the slab the car is backed up to in the picture but it is all low level and I would expect to do that fairly quickly. It is to double the size of the kitchen area with like a pantry with shelves and a guest room in that extension. About a 2 meter verandah goes around the outside of the rooms and blends into the back verandah and will probably have "bullnosed" corrugated iron sheeting over it. The garage area is after that I guess. Both it and the guest/ kitchen roof are arched like the house, not flat but no where near the angle used on the main part of the house. Door is a roller shutter. That's it I hope and then it's the inside walls etc. I'm saying 8 months to finish Whuf with me going down about once every 2 weeks for 2 days as I have been doing. My tractor arrives on the 19th November and I have a lot of work to do with it so I'm busting to get the steel work done because I do the inside work at night anyway. I can't do the outside work at night for obvious reasons. Hope that gives you some idea. Just hope the wife doesn't come up with anything else. Gotta remember, I'm just the laborer, she's the boss. :lol: :lol: :lol:
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