Tanks For the Memories

Our progress on our shed site seems to be 2 steps forward and 1 step back. But we are slowly getting things done, lately lots of tanks. Water tanks and Septic tanks.

At the start of the month we had our first semi into the property, we needed them to deliver some sand. After multiple phone calls about coming out to have a look to see if they’d fit down our driveway they decided mid morning to just send a truck and see what happens.

I scrambled the kids in the car so i could meet them out there and see how they went. He got in with only a few close shaves and delivered us some sand in time for the weekend so we could do our water tank pad. He was however mean to bring back 2 more semis worth of sand. after he got back to the depot I received a call that they didn’t want to come back and they gave me a number of a guy that could help get the rest of the sand for our leach drains but he would be bringing out a 6 wheeler which meant twice as many loads and thus more delivery charges.

We at least had enough sand to start our water tank pad, Sylvia and Kelvin worked on getting the sand onto the tank site until we could get out there on the weekend. By the time we got out there there was the right depth of sand, we just had to compact and level it.

Of course that just so happened to fall on the day that hit 37 degrees. Kev and sylvia worked with the spirit levels to level it out but it just wasn’t working out right and we soon turned to an old weed sprayer to wet the sand so it could be compacted and leveled easier. Kev very much carried the team on this one with everyone else losing motivation to do anything in the heat. After the afternoon shade came over the site i was little more motivated to help and we got it done in the end. To Kevs credit the tank guys said they hadn’t seen such a good job in a long time, even from professionals.

Last Wednesday was our water tank install day, they needed me there early to show where we wanted the outlet pipes to go. On the way out I received a message from the installer to say due to the wind they may not be able to install. Lucky our shed site (and a lot of the property) is pretty protected from the wind and once on site they where happy to go ahead.

I had booked the water tanker to deliver 13kl of water at 10am, the driver rocked up in a Ute (I assume to check the installers where on schedule) said he’d be go grab the truck which is located maybe 10 minutes from our block. About 25 minutes later he comes back with the Ute again and says he’s not comfortable bringing the truck in (this seems to be a growing trend), he said the owner of the company would be back at 1:30 so he’d bring the water over then. The kids and I headed into Donnybrook as I had planned on being home for lunch. We waited for delivery of the water and we waited some more. I called multiple times, left messages. Nothing! Eventually at 3 I headed home as the kids where getting grumpy and so was I.

In between all the water delivery drama i decided to ring Stratco as our shed was also meant to be delivered on Wednesday and hadn’t arrived. After a brief conversation the guy said he’d chase it up. About half an hour later i received a call back, i could tell by his tone that something was wrong. Our shed hadn’t been ordered! we had paid our money 4 weeks prior so that it could manufactured and due to someones stuff up it hadn’t been made. What more was there to say.

The next day I spent the morning on the phone trying to get someone to deliver some water, thanks to a fairly dry winter it seems everyone is need of water deliveries in our area. One company was nice enough to squeeze us in. They where more expensive but got the job done. When the driver got out there he rang me to say he was delivering and said he believed the original company had already been delivered that morning as well. I still hadn’t received a phone call from them with an explanation as to why they hadn’t come the day before (I finally received one at 5pm that night).

On the plus side we now have about 25kl of water sitting ready for us in the water tank.

On the Friday Nic had a pupil free day at school and our septic installer needed me there early again to talk him through the positioning of the septic. I headed out early with kids and buddy.

It turns out that leach drains aren’t allowed within 6m of drainage features, the nice big swale sits about 4m downhill of where we planned the leach fields, After a lengthy conversation between the septic guy, Kevin and myself we ended up changing the position of our septic from where we originally had planned to put it. It is in a very convenient spot for our shed but while require a lot of extra pipe when we build our house.

The septic guy had bought his dog with him and buddy was being a pain so I took him in to my parents.

This actually worked in our favor as even though we’d been told there was no timber available 2 days before, it had rocked up. So I went and paid for it and my dad towed it out on a large trailer that afternoon.

The septic guy was still working when Kev got out to the block, Kev hadn’t even seem the remainder of the sand deliveries let along the water tank or half installed septic so he got to relax with a beer and enjoy the instant progress.

On Saturday morning I spent the morning stacking the wood into our shipping container, 130 90×45 6m lengths of wood. My arms got a good workout and are still dead. Everything is stacked in nicely ready for construction.

To save a bit of money on the leach drain install we said we would do the backilling of the drains. While I worked on that Kev worked on moving the sand to our leach drains. This took all day, until the afternoon and the tractor bucket hydraulic hose split. With no bucket progress has been slowed. I’ll track down a new hose some time this week so Kev can get it running again on the weekend.

Sunday morning we started leveling out our shed pad. My parents came out to collect the trailer and dad bought his dumpy level with us, seems our level eye is out by up to 100mm in some spots, not terrible over 15m, but not good enough either. We are only allowed to be out by 10mm. We put in a couple of hours of leveling before I needed to head off.

The whole weekend Nic had been struggling with a cough temp and had a nap each day which is unusual for him so I took him to the doctor Sunday and turns out he has a chest infection and is now on antibiotics for a while to get him back fighting fit. Harry on the other hand is still running around like a madman getting filthy and causing mischief

We have had a call from Stratco saying that the shed they told us originally would take 6 weeks to be manufactured will now be arriving next Wednesday. This is a day after our builder was meant to start erecting our shed. We are hopeful it will arrive on that day as promised, luckily our builder has been so flexible and can just move around jobs so we can hopefully stay on schedule, if not we will have to really rethink our plans of moving out at the end of January.