Archived Journal – May 2012

As I said to the architect and builder today:

As we luxuriate in the warmth of our cottage this wintery Sunday in May 2012, we’re grateful to you for making this possible.

It was an idea in 2002, the specification brief and design started in in 2009, the cottage was moved in June 2011, building on the new site began in July 2011, and now we’ve moved in.

CottageComplianceCert[6May12].pdf

John Burnard came and completed the electrical connection of the HWC and radiator heating in the cottage. As dusk fell builder Paul and his son Matthew came and fixed the door handles on the cottage garage door.

Daryl of Arrow Alarms (027-275-1660) came to put up the smoke detectors and motion sensors in the cottage.

By late afternoon the alarms were all set up, including the connection to the monitoring company, ArmourGuard. Just as Daryl was about to leave I asked him where the remote buttons were – the fobs that set and unset the alarms remotely – such as from inside the car. Oh, bother. Somewhere along the line we’d mis-communicated and he’d installed a cheaper system without remotes. He had to go back to his office and get the remote-supporting system – he’d actually brought it with him in the morning but gone back mid morning to swap it for the cheaper system he thought I’d requested. It took more than two hours to swap to the right system but it was all done by 6:00pm.

The mis-communication arose when Daryl asked if I wanted a remote system that could be tied in with the garage remote to unset the alarms and open the garage door at the same time. I said no, we already had remotes for the garage. Anyway, no real harm done, just the need to be ever vigilant that what is said is what is heard and what is heard is what is meant.

John Pollack (Elm & Sons) arrived with 4 cu metres of top course gravel as requested and piled it up in the cottage walkway. W’ll spread it a bit to ensure the verandah steps and the side entrance to the garage don’t have too big a step down. I mowed the cottage lawn area and continued my quest to fence the area with Bramble-proof netting.

Paul and Matthew did the bird-proofing of the verandahs and walkway today so only very small birds will be able to nest up under the roof now. John Burnard came and made the change to the homestead mains supply, removing the old junction box.

I’ve ordered some metal from John Pollack of Elms Ltd in Hastings to raise the level of the walkway. Otherwise the inspectors may think the bottom step is too far off the ground for safety. Paul is going to put a silicon seal along the back of the twin basins; another potential obstacle to “code compliance”. John Burnard gave us the self-certified compliance note today and I’ve put a copy with the “red folder” that is the council inspectors checklist and copy of plans.

I continued assembling and testing out the computer network and media stuff for the cottage. Not only is the wireless network going in the cottage but the new FreeView set top box and the 4×4 matrix switch are working too. I have one TV borrowed from Homestead running via the matrix switch and I have tested and succeeded in getting a picture from the FreeView satellite, our Oppo DVD player, and AppleTV. AppleTV streams stuff from the Internet or my computer in the homestead.