External cladding

My outer skin installed, made of Harditex blue board material. It is a strong base sheets that are designed to be acrylic render coated with colour and texture, giving a beautiful rendered look without the need for masonry.



Here's a detail of the cladding, showing how it meets the upper deck beams and the aluminum door frame.



The aluminum door and window frames are white, to allow for more flexible internal and external wall colour choices.



The upper floor was the latest to clad. The blue sheet with Bunnings warehouse marking on it is a reflective sarking (insulation material), which got mounted just before and underneath the external cladding. Reflective foil laminate insulation provide effective thermal insulation when used in conjunction with an airspace (in my case, between the external cladding and the internal gyprock wall). Effective thermal insulation is achieved by the high reflectivity and low emissivity of its aluminium foil surface.

Pipes, cables and Internet

My nervous system is being laid out. First came the electrical cables, followed closely by data cables (yup, I'll be an Internet-ready house!). Each room will have a data port connecting computers in the room to the local area network hub in the living room, which in turn will be connected to the broadband internet. There will be wireless base stations to connect roaming laptops. People can even enjoy internet on the garden, although I'm not sure why anyone would do that, but at least it would be available.



Then came the pipes. Smaller pipes for clean water (hot and cold), bigger pipes for grey water. There will be a water tank to store rainwater too. Not much to talk about here other than they look nicely laid out in-between the steel structure.



Coaxial TV cables are installed in master bedroom, living room upstairs and in the corridor downstairs. My owners subscribe to cable TV. Not that they watch it much, but their children seem to like it, to watch while eating lunch or dinner. They usually record the shows they like in advance, and watch them whenever they feel like it.

Roofing, no solar water heater, and pathway

The roof is looking good. It was quite a tidy job, with insulation underneath and wire nets on the sides to prevent rodents or birds to get into the attic and nested there. The roof's main shape is simple, but the way it covers the car port, front porch and decks makes interesting light and shade around the building.

The original intention was to install a solar water heater on the roof, but when the consultant came they concluded that there's not enough light on the roof due to the dense greenery above. Well, I'd rather have the trees around me get the sun they need and grow healthy, than trimming the foliage just to get solar heated water. My owners can surely figure out a different way to get hot water for their showers. They're humans after all, and are supposedly smart enough to solve simple problems like that.




My owners noticed there's a steep and slippery path between the driveway and where I stand. Some of the workers have commented about the risk of falling if you're not careful. One weekend my owners decided to make a stepped pathway that would make it safer for people to walk up and down into the construction site. Not a bad job for amateurs!