Your hobbies...

Restoring old furniture people chuck out
A.bit of gardening nothing serious something the missus and me both can get into...we got a herb garden going now and a few veg...
Gym about 5 times a week
When i got home after my liver cancer op in ' 22 I had 8 weeks.off work...i made a scale replica of our house with furniture appliances etc with match sticks...was a skow hobby like my recovery was very suitable.
“i made a scale replica of our house with furniture appliances etc with match sticks”

WOW!!!

I have to let that sink in.

Was there a Big Bad Wolf?
 
I'm a nerd, so whenever I'm in Newton with the family, we drop into Astros for some old school gaming love, and a good feed.

We're both weirdos, most nerds don't like sports
 
I follow the music scene in Sydney. There are so many talented musicians playing in venues and I'm out and about every week in various places catching them play. Know lots of them now and have met a lot of like minded people who have become friends. Fills a gap that my footy team has failed at for the last 15 years in terms of enjoyment.
 
Pinball machines. Particularly late 70's early 80's machines like Flash, Six Million Dollar Man, Sinbad, Disco Fever etc.

My wife once asked me what our house would look like if she died before me . I pointed at all the furniture and said "All gone, just the television and one bed would remain. The rest of the space would be pinball machines".

She now plans to make sure she outlives me.
I have been pushing for a pinny for years with no luck. I am building a new shed for my "retirement". I have a plan!
 
Hard to split hobbies and self sufficiency for me. I have a few acres so grow what I can including cows for the freezer, make beer from grain (not grain from the property), smoke meats etc along with renovating the property. Still got a couple of projects to finish before I will get time to get stuck into the hobbirs: a decomposed grainte driveway with sandstone retaining wall and basalt durface drains, and a retirement shed.

My real passion bubbles along at a much slower pace. That is the restoration of classic bikes and cars. Fortunately I have plenty of shed space, that is chockers at the moment. I have a couple of late 40s and early 50s Royal Enfields that are complete but have little time to ride and two car restos on the go: a Ford Capri XR2 Turbo convertible for the wife that is up to painting and an FC ute on a rotisserie finishing the body repairs.

Hidden in the shed and under covers in the paddock are several bike and car projects lined for my retirement: a V twin side valve bike project, a 43 International ute as a Summernats project with son 2, and an 04 VY SS ute as my run around (only needs a repaint).
 
I follow the music scene in Sydney. There are so many talented musicians playing in venues and I'm out and about every week in various places catching them play. Know lots of them now and have met a lot of like minded people who have become friends. Fills a gap that my footy team has failed at for the last 15 years in terms of enjoyment.
As a musician myself, happy to hear this! That said, things aren't certainly what they used to be, when it comes to gigs...And I talking CHEQUERS; War And Peace, Trade Union Club...there is a thread on this somewere here I think..
 
Hard to split hobbies and self sufficiency for me. I have a few acres so grow what I can including cows for the freezer, make beer from grain (not grain from the property), smoke meats etc along with renovating the property. Still got a couple of projects to finish before I will get time to get stuck into the hobbirs: a decomposed grainte driveway with sandstone retaining wall and basalt durface drains, and a retirement shed.

My real passion bubbles along at a much slower pace. That is the restoration of classic bikes and cars. Fortunately I have plenty of shed space, that is chockers at the moment. I have a couple of late 40s and early 50s Royal Enfields that are complete but have little time to ride and two car restos on the go: a Ford Capri XR2 Turbo convertible for the wife that is up to painting and an FC ute on a rotisserie finishing the body repairs.

Hidden in the shed and under covers in the paddock are several bike and car projects lined for my retirement: a V twin side valve bike project, a 43 International ute as a Summernats project with son 2, and an 04 VY SS ute as my run around (only needs a repaint).
I love a good retaining wall and an Enfield.
 
Nice there’s a bloke around the corner who does up Enfields and Nortons. He had a sidecar for sale couple of months back.
But sorry Jolls that retaining wall is a glorified step.

View attachment 44057
Yes, 100%, compared to that mine is a glorified step; but, I did it my self though.

I personally lifeted every one of those sandstone blocks in ...... with the excavator.
 
Yes, 100%, compared to that mine is a glorified step; but, I did it my self though.

I personally lifeted every one of those sandstone blocks in ...... with the excavator.
Well it just got better, DIY, nice.
Did you use a crushed concrete/rock base and back filled?
Any drainage behind?
Anything done behind an excavator is more fun.
 
Well it just got better, DIY, nice.
Did you use a crushed concrete/rock base and back filled?
Any drainage behind?
Anything done behind an excavator is more fun.
Yes, nothing like taking the sandpit to the next level. I have a fleet of small earthmoving equipment so I get to play on the machines a fair bit. We do a bit of this stuff. The drainage we use is a geotextile wrap encasing 20mm single sized aggregate and a 100mm agline. Overkill for such a small wall that will leak water like a sieve but the geotextile is mandatory if you want to stop the soil from leaching through the cracks. 20mm ag is cheap in the overall scheme of the project and will tie into the drain system.

The drain and driveway will be an aesthetic engineering job in itself. 200mm corrugated pipe below ground with several pits to transfer the water to the open storm water drain at the front of the property. There will also be a geotextile layer to separate the decomposed granite and basalt rocks from the clay. The sub surface drainage will be hidden beneath 100mm single sized basalt rocks 500mm wide on either side of cement stabilised decomposed granite.

Most of the larger retaining walls we are doing now are DINCEL and then clad with stone or something else.

An interesting one we did a while back was DINCEL fertilzer bays for a local landholder that supplies Herefords for Woollies. We built two bays under what was a very large hay/machinery shed. The bays were big enough to allow tipper and dog access. Apparenty the cost would be recouped in the first year by switching from bagged to bulk fertilizer.
 
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Yes, nothing like taking the sandpit to the next level. I have a fleet of small earthmoving equipment so I get to play on the machines a fair bit. We do a bit of this stuff. The drainage we use is a geotextile wrap encasing 20mm single sized aggregate and a 100mm agline. Overkill for such a small wall that will leak water like a sieve but the geotextile is mandatory if you want to stop the soil from leaching through the cracks. 20mm ag is cheap in the overall scheme of the project and will tie into the drain system.

The drain and driveway will be an aesthetic engineering job in itself. 200mm corrugated pipe below ground with several pits to transfer the water to the open storm water drain at the front of the property. There will also be a geotextile layer to separate the decomposed granite and basalt rocks from the clay. The sub surface drainage will be hidden beneath 100mm single sized basalt rocks 500mm wide on either side of cement stabilised decomposed granite.

Most of the larger retaining walls we are doing now are DINCEL and then clad with stone or something else.

An interesting one we did a while back was DINCEL fertilzer bays for a local landholder that supplies Herefords for Woollies. We built two bays under what was a very large hay/machinery shed. The bays were big enough to allow tipper and dog access. Apparenty the cost would be recouped in the first year by switching from bagged to bulk fertilizer.
That got me as excited as @innsaneink and his matchstick model house.

I had a “deep dive” into major construction site excavation and retaining wall systems on tight sites. Like fitting a skyscraper in between 2 others, basements, etc. fun stuff. It’s not something I’ve had much involvement in, so I talked to an geo engineer, got into some Performance Solution reports, etc. but I’ve always like doing a retaining wall.
During my estimating days I did a bit off Dincel on the canals at port Macquarie, so I know the system well. A bloke around the corner from my house built a new house over the top of a 100,000 litre risewall water tank. It was pretty kool and had the locals talking. 1.2m deep and under his 6car garage.
He also has the only Habitat Pond between north Sydney and QLD, and a million solar panels. He’s also a structural engineer so he’s a little wierd and unsocial but knows shite about everything.
 
I was building custom sustainable homes before I cut back on the workload and am now doing what I want when I feel like it sort of work while doing the earthmoving gig. Done a couple of cool things - incorporating a water tank as the west wall of a home and a water tank table both for thermal stability. I also did a lot of work with a client on what was eventailly 8.9 star home (that never ended up getting build due to cost). The design plan was to get to 9 star - but the cost of the extra 0.1 star was enormous. Anyway cool thing with that one was a geothermally run thousand bottle wine cellar in the middle of the house. It was kept at a constant temperature by running a 100mm of corrugated pipe under the dewlling as the depth of its undercroft garage drawing air from jut above the garage floor and runing through the cellar and out the roof and picking up a cool cupboard for vegies and fridge heat on the way. Convection run - just a shame we didn't get to build it. The triple glazed windows and sealed door into the cellar were quite espensive - but cool at the same time.

Most of the sustainablity measures we used were more common sense than cutting engineering though. Standard walls with R2.7, double sided reflective breathable wrap, sealed at the joins and a 35mm batten to space vertical corro. Manage to keep homes at about 16C in winter when it is in the minuses outside.

Quoted but never build (due to cost) a couple of PassivHaus designs. Did incorporate some aspects of this into other homes, like heat recovery systems and recirculating hot water etc. While some of them are good ideas the cost makes it prohibitive.

Sustainable building is just wank workds for common sense when it comes down to it. If you take it to the extreme and try to build what is common sense in eurpoean environments where a hot day is in the minuses it is not common sense to build here in Australia. Most of the aspects of what we were building in the Southern Tablands would make just as much sense in Townsvlle.
 
I was building custom sustainable homes before I cut back on the workload and am now doing what I want when I feel like it sort of work while doing the earthmoving gig. Done a couple of cool things - incorporating a water tank as the west wall of a home and a water tank table both for thermal stability. I also did a lot of work with a client on what was eventailly 8.9 star home (that never ended up getting build due to cost). The design plan was to get to 9 star - but the cost of the extra 0.1 star was enormous. Anyway cool thing with that one was a geothermally run thousand bottle wine cellar in the middle of the house. It was kept at a constant temperature by running a 100mm of corrugated pipe under the dewlling as the depth of its undercroft garage drawing air from jut above the garage floor and runing through the cellar and out the roof and picking up a cool cupboard for vegies and fridge heat on the way. Convection run - just a shame we didn't get to build it. The triple glazed windows and sealed door into the cellar were quite espensive - but cool at the same time.

Most of the sustainablity measures we used were more common sense than cutting engineering though. Standard walls with R2.7, double sided reflective breathable wrap, sealed at the joins and a 35mm batten to space vertical corro. Manage to keep homes at about 16C in winter when it is in the minuses outside.

Quoted but never build (due to cost) a couple of PassivHaus designs. Did incorporate some aspects of this into other homes, like heat recovery systems and recirculating hot water etc. While some of them are good ideas the cost makes it prohibitive.

Sustainable building is just wank workds for common sense when it comes down to it. If you take it to the extreme and try to build what is common sense in eurpoean environments where a hot day is in the minuses it is not common sense to build here in Australia. Most of the aspects of what we were building in the Southern Tablands would make just as much sense in Townsvlle.
Great work. A tip for when you're playing with sandstone, if I may, when laying sandstone only use use a lime mortar mix never use a cement mortar mix . A cement mix retains moisture and doesn't let the surrounding edges dry out. Cheers
 
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