We have a two and a half month house sit in Laidley heights looking after a little fur ball called Timmy, as well as the house. The weather is a bit hotter down the range than up in Toowoomba, but we will be back up there before it get’s hot again.
New spot to park the coachOn the side of a hill.
I had some fun trying to level the coach up this time, had to jack the front drivers side up a lot and still couldn’t get it perfect. So it’s as good as I could get it.
Jacked to the max at the front to get the blocks under to level her up.Only need to put blocks on one side.The back tag axle wheel off the ground, that’s a first for me.
So now the next stage of the coach can begin, first of will be clearing out the front of the coach through to the bathroom. Which will give me some where to work and make a mess as I finish of the bathroom. After that it will be into ripping up the old floor on the front half of the coach and replacing it.
We didn’t have much room getting in the driveway.Over looking Laidley Heights..
With the bathroom floor in place and water proofed it’s now time to start on the walls. But first we have to work out were the toilet window will go and lets hope it’s in the right place.
Passenger side marking out for toilet window.Let’s hope it’s in the right place.We have a hole in the side of the motorhome.One toilet window in place.Window from the inside.
Now to start on the wall’s
First off is to cut the insulation followed by gluing it in place, a job I love to hate. Second stage is to cut the first sheet of ply to size and making sure the window is cut out in the place. Now it’s time to start fitting it to the side of the coach.
Gluing the insulation in place.That will do for now.1st wall sheet up with window cut out.
There will be one more sheet put up on this side for the moment which will finish off the bathroom wall and part of the kitchen.
The shower and toilet side is done.
The vanity and laundry side
This side will be straight forward as there is no window to go on this wall at all. So it’s just gluing the insulation in place then cutting the ply to size. Screw some packing in place so I can glue and screw the ply to the wall.
Vanity and laundry side, with packing screwed into place.More insulation in the wall cavity.Insulation all in.One more sheet to go.Drivers side done in the bathroom.Looking from the front of the coach at the bathroom.Some more sparky stuff.Top of the toilet and shower wall finished.240v for a power point in the vacuum cupboard and 12v for a toilet light.Start of the wall between the bathroom and kitchen.Bathroom / laundry side.Just needs painting now.
After running some more power cables around the top of the walls and finishing off the transition from the walls to the ceiling. Just some more painting for Charmaine to do to finish off the bathroom walls for now. Look’s like the next project will be to build some wardrobes to close off the bedroom from the bathroom.
One of the things most people don’t like doing is working over head, but the ceiling has to be done. As we had already cut all the sheets it was just a matter of pop riveting them up in place. This time the ceiling is not flat so it was just a matter of hold it up as best we could and start gluing and riveting as we go.
Lets just get it done.There is so much crap still in the coach to work around.Hard at workStill workingThe pneumatic riveter makes the job so much more enjoyable.
Bathroom all finishedThank goodness for timber propsNow halfway through the kitchen.That will do for now.
We will be finishing off the ceiling later on as I’ll be covering up the front hatch and don’t have the time right now. It was tricky getting it just right with the sheeting needed little adjustments just before gluing. The main work is now needed down the back of the coach as getting the bedroom finished to a stage that we can move back in after we leave this house sitting job at the end of October is our priority.
Just recently, I heard that some companies are doing away with cash transactions all together and card only will be excepted with these certain establishments. Bernie and I are totally doing the opposite when it comes to starting our coffee shop on the road….That’s right you heard it here first!…Bernie has a great idea to use part of the bin space under the bus near the front door for our pull out cafe.
Affordable food on the road
Right now it’s just an idea, a concept that has to be fully planned out, but one thing is for sure we are only selling to people with notes and coins and not card. This is one way to keep costs down so we can make good quality organic food and coffee more affordable to those on the road. Why give the banks our profits when we can give it back to our customers instead.
Empower people to make a real choice
Some people may say that this is going to make us loose customers, yeh that’s most probably true. Providing a cash only cafe gives the people the money in their pockets and not the banks. We want to empower people to have the choice in making real savings without loosing out on quality, these days this very choice is getting much much harder to find. If the banks show some initiative and offer a better solution to cashless transactions then of course we would consider it, but until then, it’s cash.
Another way we want to be empowered to save is to encourage people to use their own cups and get a further discount on their coffee purchase, we may call it something like ‘your cup discount’. We are all for recycling as much as possible and help customers do the same. If you have a good idea please leave a comment and we may use it….all ideas are helpful.
The bedroom ceiling is the lowest overall in the back of the coach, so it just touches the top of my head. The old ceiling carpet had already been removed by Des, so all I had to do was grind the toilet ceiling panel off then scrap back the foam underlay that was glued to the ceiling.
Old Toilet ceiling, it had a 10mm step down made out of sheetmetal.Toilet ceiling after removing the sheetmetal panel.
Time To Remove The Underlay
With scraper in hand it was time to start scraping back all the old underlay. This might sound like an easy job, but it had been glued up there very well. I thought it wouldn’t take to long, but I was wrong again as the bedroom ceiling end up taking around 8hrs just to get the foam off.
Stripping the foam off.Last of the foam off the bedroom ceiling.
Now To Get Rid Of That Glue
With the contacted glue still all over the ceiling, the only way that I could think to do was to put a sanding disc on a grinder and go for it. Well… it worked, I had been covered in glue and dust. Thank goodness for a dust mask and safety glasses as once I was finished the job there was crap all over the place.
Now time to get covered in crap.Almost there.All the old glue has gone with most of it on me…
I’ll Just Keep On Going
Now that I’ve started on the ceiling, I’ll keep on going and finish it all off inside the coach. The next project will be the bathroom then onto the kitchen ceiling area, so once I have cleaned all that up it will be ready to glue and pop rivet some white Colorbond sheet metal that came with the coach from Des. The ceiling is a good job to do when the weather is wet and raining so while its nice and fine I will go finish removing the old air-con on the roof above the bedroom, they are the wholes in the ceiling you can see on the photo.
The condenser unit was fitted in the front bin on the drivers side and only had an out vent so if the bin door was closed, things didn’t work that well. This should have been one of the first things that I should have fixed, but as we were not on the road much I didn’t think about it at all. Now after driving from S.A. to N.T. and now into QLD, it was defiantly time to fix it.
Only one vent that didn’t work to well.Air-con that was fitted.
Time For Some Modifications
To start with we had to seal the air-con unit to the outside bin door, so off to the hardware store for some sheetmetal. Ended up getting some flashing which would mean I would not have to bend any 90 angles. So out with the tin snips and pop rivet gun to make some ducting.
Made up some ducting to get the air out.Rubber seals in place so the hot air only go’s outside.
Time For Some Intake Vents
Now all we had to do was the intake vents, I thought three would do for a start and thats all they had at the hardware. So back to the coach I went to start fitting the intake vents. First off was to mark out the holes for the vents then cut them out.
Marked and cut out ready for the new ventsNew vents in place so no more over heating while driving down the road.
One Cool Motorhome.
Now that job is done It’s so much cooler inside when driving down the road. Also when we stay somewhere I don’t have to open up the air-con’s bin door again, now that all the hot air is blown outside.
The only time it’s good to have a leaky roof is when their is nothing to get damaged inside. After a year thinking the roof was ok in Leigh Creek, we started having problems with the roof again. Mainly because where we moved to rained a bit more. To start off we thought it was only the fiberglass panels that were replaced from the old original bus windows that Des had fitted.
Thanks to Zac for his great help in getting the huge job started by cutting out the old Sikaflex. I was working six days a week @ Curtin Springs Station N.T., all I could manage was regluing after work. It did stop the water coming in around the fiberglass panels.
Fiberglass panels before we reglued then back in place.Panels from inside
Its Still Wet In Here.
Our first house sitting job was in Bowen for Michael and Michelle. We had no rain forecast for the next few days so Charmaine and myself started on the roof to fix the rest of the leaks. The first job was to remove the solar panels and hatches from the roof.
Time to take the sola panels offRemoved the Solar panels now the hatches.Time to start sanding back the roof.
The Fun Starts Now …….Not !!!
The fun of sanding back the old paint job as well as getting rid of the surface rust around the hatches. It was one of those jobs you love to hate, but had to be done, so with buckets of water and sanding paper in hand it was head down & ass up and off to work we go.
Rust all goneRoof all sanded back and cleaned.
I Do Like Painting
Time to undercoat….. we had been so lucky as it had been raining all the way around us and only that a couple of rain drops on the coach. So after I Sikaflexed all the joints it was time to undercoat using some Infrared Heat Reflective Primer.
1st undercoat.Second undercoat, ended up with three coatsInfrared Heat Reflective Primer
Now for the topcoat, the best part of the job as it’s almost done. Des (the bloke we got the coach before us), had already paid for the paint, so now it was time for three topcoats.
Topcoat Solar Reflective Elastic Ceramic Membrane.The roof finished with three topcoatsNo more leaks on that area now.
A Job Well Done
So after four days we had finish painting the roof and the inside temp had gone down at least 4 degrees. The paint was a polyurethane membrane which meant no more water leaking when it rained and would be a lot cooler in summer. We just have to remove the old air conditioner unit which is now under the solar panels. This is way down the back of the coach once done the roof will be totally finished off, in time this back area will also have a deck for us one day.
There are thousands of products these days and we are all spoilt for choice in every direction we turn. We go out to the local shops and our huge shopping centres with their half empty shop fronts that promise the world but most times don’t deliver a true Aussie product.
Most people are unconscious consumers when it comes to buying and only look at the price. Is it on special? Is is a brand I am emotionally attached to? One huge question is…do I really need it. The answer is usually NO.
Being A Conscious Consumer
Bernie has been asked by people travelling if we promote any products and the answer has been always a no. It’s far more important when starting out to be a conscious consumer. What is that? You may be asking…. ask yourself the right questions. ……Where is that product made? Is it promoting Aussie jobs? Is it doing a benefit for my body and health? Is it a quality product or just a brand name? Is it something that correlates with my belief systems? Where is my money going? Church people all around Australia do not give money to the church they do not believe in, ….. so what is any different when buy a product?
This journey of conscious consuming does not come easily to any of us these days,…..why is that so? I can only think of one large word to answer this…CONSUMERISM!!!!.
Bernie and I feel that it is important to firstly inspire people to find their own moral compass…whatever that maybe. Obviously, we both use and buy products for cleaning, bathing, and restoring our health and wellbeing, These mostly correlate with our belief systems, but not all the time, …..as we are on our own journey of rediscovery ourselves and are far from any end.
We both want to encourage people to find what works for you, if you have found something that works for you, please just add a comment, as it may help someone else on their own journey as well….Let’s learn together!
In the next few weeks and months Bernie and I will be putting more blogs up in the ‘Conscious Consumerism’ category.
Have a great Day!
Ps. If you want to read another great blog, read Alden Wicker’s on March 01/2017 …
Leaving Leigh Creek S.A on the start of our new life, We had to be in Yulara to start work in five days. With a smile on our faces the next stop was port Augusta for the night, then head north on the Stuart Hwy. The coach was packed full with only room down the front for our bed and some were to cook on the road.
On the road camping in the coach all packed up.
Too Good To Be True
All was going fine, then I started to lose a little bit of power we were only 150 klms down the road and almost to Hawker. Just an other 140 ks to Port Augusta I thought, then the gauges on the dash started flutter around. Thats when the coach started to drop the RPM of every 30 klms…. I was losing around 100-150 RPM, it looked like some electrical gremlin had raised it’s ugly head. We made it into Port Augusta but just at a max speed of 60k/h, fill it up at the first servo we came to. After a 750 Lt hole in my pocket an 1000 Lt tank sounds great till you have to fill it up.
Let’s Sleep On It
After a good nights sleep it was off to the truck work shop across the road. They just so happen to have someone free to start working on it there and then… How good was that? So off we to the shops to stock up on things you can’t get in the middle of nowhere. ( Yulara NT).
Back at the workshop they had found after 3 hrs it was not an electrical problem at all but a fuel supply problem…..in particular the in tank filter. Bugger I’d just filled the bloody thing up and now It has to drain the hole lot, so 5 x 205 Lt drums later it was 5pm on a Friday night and the filter was out.
Who puts a filter inside a 1000Lt tank?Diesel Tank out put
Back On the Road
So by Monday afternoon, the filter was clean, pumping the diesel back into the tank, we’re back on the road.
Curtain Springs to Alice
But about 9 months later driving into Alice Springs….. Oh bugger it’s happening again! With only 450 Lt in the tank and some drums from a caravan park, we drained the tank again. This time it was modification time because that filter was not going back in again. Some more shopping in Alice and a movie it was back to fix the filter system for good.
New fuel filter train.New diesel filter on the outside with ballcock valves so I can have it cleaned in 20min.
We are still getting sludge out of the tank I’ve cleaned it out about 5 times now, but the tank is slowly cleaning it’s self out. I just have to remember to turn the valves back on after I clean the filter, yes I did forget the first time and had to bleed the diesel pump to get it going again. You only ever do it once..
Currently we are on our third house sit and this is our longest one yet….it’s for 6 months. This is really good for us with such a big project, as it give us time to work on finishing off the bedroom and start on the bathroom. When the weather is good, I am get to pulling out the rest of the old air-con unit on the roof too. There are still holes to patch up, plus a bit of water proofing, since we are putting a roof top deck some time later on. Having a shed a the house to store our stuff makes it so much easier than trying to work around all that crap you still need.
We didn’t think we had so much stuff still, but every time we stop there is less to move.
Pets in all shapes and sizes…
The main part of most house sitting is looking after the family animals both big and small….. so far it’s been from cats to cattle. Our first sit was in Bowen for Michael & Michelle they have 13 acres about 20 mins out of town. We looked after their property for three weeks through the Christmas /New year time so they could go on a family holidays with their son, Jay. They have two lovely and very affectionate Border Collies, Buddy has long hair and Rosie has the shorter hair. They have two outside cats, one ginger in colour called Tom and Timmy is grey, all of them warmed to us very well.
Our February house sit was in Sarina Rangers, QLD, in a peaceful place that has a lovely running (all year) creek that is great for swimming and a cool down in the heat. Which we did almost everyday. We looked after Tyson and Tommy Tigger, four cow + one bull. This was a different house sit as we stayed in the coach half parked in their shed. Elaine and her partner, were in the middle of building their new house. Our blog top photo was taken by her, it was such a good photo we had to share it! It will be nice to pop in an visit them on our way up north next time.
The coach didn’t make it all the way in, at least the solar panels still got the sun.The house was being built so it’s really a shed sitBest friends Tyson (L) and Tommy Tigger (R)We look after all kind of pets when your house sittingOne happy bull to have 4 cows to look after.
Then you think it couldn’t get better we had our own creek to swim in every day.
It’s a hard life house sitting at Sarina Range, QLDWe had to take Tyson for a swim or did he take us every day. lolThe creek in motion.
Chuwar near Ipswich is our new house sit at the moment, we are here for 6 months. We are looking after two dogs, Kingston and Lexy as well as Charlie the cat.
This is Kingston, still missing mum and dad, some days more than others.This is Lexy (sexy Lexy we affectionately call her)This is Charlie.
In addition we get to eat all the fruits, herbs and veggies of other peoples labour, how good it this!
Just one or two Paw Paw, so sweet an delicious.We will be dehydrating most of the bananas and giving some to family.Chuwar house sit Dragon fruit.
House sitting has turn out to be one of the best ideas Charmaine’s come up with. We have pets to cuddle and love part time, as well as meeting some loverly people on our adventure around Australia. So click this link to go to aussiehousesitters it is a great way to get out of the motorhome for a short break or long one, whatever suits you. Housesitting has given us time to keep fitting out the coach, one house sit at a time.
