Do you ever get sick of hearing how young people today don’t like hard work? With the right training and a little encouragement they work as hard as we ever did.

Nice use of personal protective equipment way.

The BAL assessment looks at four significant criteria and measures how vunerable the home will be to bushfire attack. The designer will then include various measures into the fabric of the building which are appropriate to the threat.

Low danger will mean designing the building to resist  ember attack whilst high danger will mean designing the building to resist full exposure to the fire front.

A BAL assessment will look the following criteria;

• Fire danger index
• Classification of nearby vegetation
• Distance to that vegaetation
• Slope of the land

The end result of the BAL assessment is  a BAL rating which will then dictate how the building needs to be protected.

Some local councils are now also declaring certain areas to fall with bushfire management overlays (BMO) Areas included in the BMO are areas that have the highest fire risk and are likely to be particularly exposed to the impact of bushfire. These BMO’s can also dictate the BAL appropriate to the areas. These overlays do not just occur in rural areas but can be found in a lot of built up municipalities. A BMO requires a property owner to show they meet the requirements of defendable space before obtaining a town planning permit.

Rainwater is like a teenager, if you let it stand around it will find a way to get into trouble. The answer is to keep it busy and the best way to keep it busy is with  a decent fall across your roof.

Different roof pitches mean you can use different roof coverings.

Really flat

Really flat like 1 degree ( 18mm fall over every metre)  needs a concealed fastner roof material like the splendid Kliplok . I am fairly sure this product name was started by someone called Jaymz.

Reasonably flat

Reasonably flat like 3 degrees ( 53mm fall over every metre) can use a screw fixed square profile roof like Trimdeck. If you have a few careless tradesmen on your roof you will discover very quickly why this prodiuct  has earned the nickname Dintdeck!

Not at all flat

A  roof of 5 degrees or more (88mm fall over every metre) can use corrugated iron. This wonderful material was invented by an Australian who was anxious to show a new iron product in England. He couldn’t afford the cost of freight in addition to his own fare, so he rolled the iron up and put it in his steamer trunk. When he got to Mother England it sprung forth like a big afro and corrugated iron was born.

What do you reckon this bit of plastic cost? I just spent about $ 1000 on a button for a in wall toilet! The tale is like a Dr Seusss story

We had recently fitted out an architectural bathroom. Above the vanity basins we had a cabinet recessed into the wall with close fitting mirrored doors. The effect is that the mirrors hide the cabinet behind. The mirror operate with the push of a finger and have no visible hinges or catches or handles. Pretty smooth stuff.. Until……

Secure the mirror until the silicone is cured!

One of the great problems with the building industry is that most knowledge is passed from person to person verbally. So in this case the simple instruction was “silicone the mirrors to the cabinet doors.”. It should have been “silicone the mirrors and secure them until the silicone is cured.”

Here’s where we get to the Dr Seuss part. The mirror slips off the cabinet door about twenty minutes after being fitted. It hits the tap below, scratching it beyond salvage and then landing on the basin edge. It narrowly misses the basin before shearing off the toilet buttons and wrecking the toilet.

The button itself was under $ 200 dollars, but it had to be couriered at $ 30. The mirror was replaced by the nufty who fitted it. The tap handle was $ 70 the toilet pan was $ 350 and the plumber took care of the rest.

I need a beer.