Daily Archives: Wednesday 7th September 2011 @ 9:44pm NZST

Went to Best Forsyth the electricians to take them through phase 1 of the cottage electrical plan and encourage them to show a bit more enthusiasm, then a little more shopping and back home. More discussions with builder Paul. Julian from Airnet dropped by to check the line of sight for our anticipated new Airnet wireless transceiver for Broadband and Telephony. Lunch then, later, Jeff from ProDoors arrived and we discussed the internal doors and door frames needed for the cottage. Later I called Tony Page of Cedarville Joinery and arranged for us to visit his joinery on Friday to discuss his potential engagement to make the cottage stairs.

 Airnet – Internet ISP and Voice Telephony Provider

Julian sighted the transceiver which is on a water tank at the top of Lawson’s hill opposite Te Awa winery on Route 50. With his help I marked the fence post where the beam crossed the 5-6 metre high Casurina hedge on the south boundary. At the current hedge height the angle is just sufficient to allow line-of-sight to Lawson’s hill but with spring growth expected imminently it’ll  have to be trimmed or the signals will not get through.

The digital signal enters a splitter and ethernet router/switch(one little metal box) just inside the garage, below the transceiver dish.

The digital signal for the telephone is converted to analogue in that box and so the wiring from the garage to the cottage and down to the homestead garage (and from there connecting back into the existing telephony wiring) has no specific length restriction, just a restriction as to how many phones you can attach, like ordinary telephone wiring. The cable, when underground, should be “black two-core grease-packed cable for best protection against moisture.

A “dual number service” is offered which permits the use of two telephone numbers over a single analogue telephone line – rather like our Faxability service. So, although there’s only one physical line and if someone is using it noone else can, two distinct numbers call on that line with two distinct ring tones. That is more cost effective (ie cheaper) than having two lines for the cottage and homestead.

The cables will be in a conduit when underground so the LAN extensions, beginning at the garage switch/router will be carried in Cat5E cables to the cottage and to the homestead garage, the centre of the current homestead LAN. This cable can carry 100BaseT 100 MB Ethernet for up to 100 metres but preferably less than 80 metres.

My intent is to leave existing telephony and LAN wiring in place so that should we switch back to Telecom NZ using the wire from the road and use ADSL for the Internet we would not need to do any digging.

CedarVille Joinery

In the bid for the exterior joinery, windows and doors, we gave the work to “PJ” of Steads who were not only a little cheaper but had significant experience in making and repairing double-hung sash windows (according to our architect, Les). As he and his one joinery associate will be busy with these windows and doors we’ve decided to find another joiner for the wooden stairs and kitchen cabinetry. So we have an appointment to visit Tony Page in Cedarville Joinery on Friday 3:00pm to discuss it.

Tony Page 027-688-8023 06-878-0019 cedarville@xtra.co.nz
Cedarville Joinery
Irongate Road, off Maraekakaho Road, just before Tumu Timber Merchants. 200m, sharp corner, look right, three gateways. Middle gateway has sign Stevenson’s Transport with Cedarville Joinery sign just below. Joinery is 2nd building back from road.

ProDoors – Jeff

ProDoors are to quote for and most likely do:
1. Double pocket doors between the living room and dining room. Doors to be “paint quality” cedar, panelled to match the existing front door which includes Vicrtorian moulding. The doors are suspended with no rail on the floor.
2. Plain single pocket door into the laundry, the door to be “paint quality”.
3. Frame of door into loo from laundry – this door opens outwards, not inwards as shown on the plans.
4. Frame for the bathroom door from the bedroom. NB this doorway is a little narrower than usual.
5. Frame for door from kitchen into the passage to the back door.

The frames with doors rely on reuse of existing old Kauri doors no longer needed in situ in the cottage.