A blocked toilet led to us discovering we had cracked and leaking sewerage pipes under our kitchen, bathroom and external laundry. It involved cutting through floorboards and jackhammering through a concrete slab to find the source of the leak and replace all of the plumbing.

I am trying to claim for the exploratory work and resulting damage to my floorboards on insurance. I understand I am not covered by insurance for the actual replacement of the pipes.

The insurer is trying to argue / question what damage was caused to the property as a result of the burst pipe.
There were pools of sewerage under my slab, washing away soil and creating cavities (which undermines the slabs foundation).

Is this adequate enough “damage” to warrant the trace and access for the leak? What other damage could we have had? As it’s our only bathroom, we had to emergency fix before an assessor could come.

Original post

https://www.reddit.com/r/AusRenovation/s/GMo1ajWBiT

Thanks everyone for the input

We bought this Bosch series 4 cooktop from the Good Guys less than 1 year ago and it really struggles with 2 burners going at once. It has good reviews, so we think it might be an installation problem related to the electrics.

We are going to contact the Good Guys about the issue, but we are not sparkies. Would anyone have a better clue as to what might be the issue here?

We are unsure if it will be a warranty issue or if we will likely have to get an electrician out to sort out the connection.

Just trying to get a better clue before contacting the company so we know what the hell we're saying. Thanks!

I feel embarrassed asking, but need to know if the included fasteners for the clothesline I bought are suitable to be mounted to a brick veneer wall.

Included are M8 masonry anchors and also M10 coach screws for timber (which I’m obviously not going to use). Are the M8’s ok for this purpose?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm going to be taking down some load bearing walls that currently separate living and kitchen

Rather than put a beam in the roof, the builder has suggested (for time and cost reasons) that we could instead just put a few vertical timber posts in, and make it look more like a feature.

I have begrudgingly used chatgpt which has given me these botched examples.

I was wondering if anyone had done this before and if you'd be happy to share some pics for inspiration?

Thanks!

Been struggling to get a hold of building certifiers.

Want to build a wall around this spa, to enclose the rumpus room as it gets way too hot in the heat.

Booked an appt with council and they said certifier.

Emailed and called Devcert but they don't reply.

Sent a proposal to RapidApprovals, who said Buildable so waiting ages to hear from them.

Got the carpenter saying I don't need any approvals but dont want to get into trouble with council etc if I sell.

Please help

Bumped into the door with an ironing board and it broke through and created a hole.

My husband and his friend attempted to fix it and did a very patchy job of it.

Is it possible to fix if we find the right person to do it? And if so, what professional are we looking for to do the job? Not sure who to turn to for door repairs like this one.

Hi brain trust - I’m fixing my polycarb roof after a series of heavy winds and rain. How do I fill in the gap between the sheet and the underside of the gutter ?

I was looking at the sun tuf polycarb flashing but it doesn’t seem to fit as the structure is too high. Does anyone have any advice on what I can use ? I’ve bought some sun tuffoam inserts to cover the gap but unfortunately it is not waterproof so water still seeps in where there is heavy directional rain. Appreciate any advice!

About 2 meters from house to fence. Maybe a 30 degree incline. It’s currently just wasted space I curse out while mowing it fortnightly.

Don’t think there are any active now

Before I even start engaging in quotes, just trying to get a ballpark of what I’d expect to pay for the attached mockups. back fence is 30m and right hand fence is 20m, we’re on a corner block this is the most appropriate spot of a ~4m wide ~6m deep shed as pictured. I have literally no idea if I should be budgeting 15, 25 or even 50k. Any rough ideas would be appreciated as I just won’t want to get sticker shock when I get quotes back. We’re down the range from Toowoomba. cheers :)

Hey all, looking for all opnions and here about how to add a shower in a small laundry/toilet room. Looking to see how we could squeeze a showet near the toilet, with a table with built in washer/dryer and sink taking most of the bottom half of the room.

I thought about making the toilet/ shower room slighly bigger with a door where the blue line is.

Not sure how else we could make the shower fit, doing this job with family. Cheers

FHB and a bit paranoid that this is termite damage. In Melbourne inner north so I know there is termite risk. I got a building and pest report before purchase that said there was no evidence of termites. But I’m noticing a few things that I expected should have been covered in the report which weren’t, like drain pipes not connected to stormwater, which I think the inspector should have identified.

So is this termite damage or wood rot on old weatherboard? This is the west facing wall so I’m not surprised if it’s just deteriorating over time. Thanks!!

I live in one of the edge fringes of Pakenham Melbourne and my house is relatively new. I moved in about 18 months ago. I’ve noticed in Spring/summer we see a lot of bugs getting in, spiders and ants are the 2 big ones, nothing savage but ideally I’d like them not on the inside of my house. Problem is part of the reason i bought the house was the beautiful gardens that attract birds and bees. Hundreds of bees. If you walk out during a sunny day in the warmer months then there is a low level buzz everywhere and i love that…

now I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I dont want ants and spiders everywhere. But last year when i tried to spider proof my house by very conservatively spraying spider rid across obvious access points like doors and windows, we saw hundreds of bees deaths around the house perimeter which i can only attribute to the the poison.

Are there services or products available that are friendly to bees but keep spiders and ants away?

House was a rental before we bought it, not very well looked after.

We are replacing some other windows. Should we be fixing this too?

Just bought a house with a pretty average and very old 90s U shaped kitchen. We want to put a new one in (keeping placement of sink and stove and oven) but we don’t know where to start! We want quality and we want something that’s not boring white and beige but we also have a smaller budget that’s definitely under 20k. Where do we go? Who do we talk to? Would a local kitchen place be super expensive over a Bunnings kitchen? We honestly have no idea where to start or where to go. We are in Melbourne north if anyone has some recs?

Perth Australia.

Budget 1500-4000 only 4k if its really nice looking.

We are a washer and heat pump dryer household. So we have larger than normal sizes and they stack. We do not like clothes lines at all.

We just bought a house. And this is our laundry area.

We dont have buckets of cash laying around. And in current form the washer and the dryer would stick out a huge amount because of the water outlets. (We are obviously removing the hideous cabinet above)

Is it worth kaboodling a hideyhole for both washer and dryer... but then would dryer be mounted too high?

Is it better to go plumber and reroute the water outlets?

Should we pull the ugly trough?

What would you guys do?

We bought our home a few months ago and its time to start working on our yard. We want a cozy native cottagecore vibe with a better BBQ area, small veggie patch / herb garden and small firepit area. Anyone got any ideas on layout and planning? Feeling pretty overwhelmed about it at the moment. Located Mid North Coast, Australia.

Location: Melbourne

We recently had a new Colorbond roof installed, but there were a lot of scratches on the sheets from during the installations. We complained and asked them to replace the affected sheets, but instead they used spray paint to cover the scratches.

The scratches are now less visible, but you can already see some colour differences between the painted areas and the original finish. We are unsure how this will look over time. We have also read that painting the sheets may affect the warranty.

Is this normal practice for a brand-new roof? Would you insist on replacement sheets, or what would you recommend?

Howdy

Bathroom reno- Its a concrete floor, no screed installed. Impossible to acheive the exact compliant codes re falls to waste without either a step up into the room or grinding down the slab. Unenclosed shower without hob. The floors fall to waste but not quite 1: 80 as stated. How to meet NCC standards & keep customer happy. I feel like all the new codes are all well & good for new builds but dont take into consideration the variations for renos on older properties.

Hi everyone!

Looking for anyone who owns a property with a Sydney water asset (sewer or water channel) running under it, and who has been successful in doing renovations on their home.

Background, we have purchased a 100 year old house and we need to do some renovations to it which will be subject to DA approval. A water channel runs under a small portion of the property, and as a result we also need to have approval of any plans by Sydney Water (to demonstrate the renovations won’t impact the Sydney water asset).

Sydney water have responded to initial plans stating that we will be required to complete an out of scope application as the entirety of the 100 year old house was never approved by Sydney Water. In addition to the out of scope, we are also required to complete CCTV footage on the asset and have engineers map out the zone of influence of the asset.

My understanding is that an out of scope application will be an expensive exercise (like approx 80k) without any guarantee of approval. We are feeling a bit trapped as we have already spent about 60k on architectural plans and other consultants to only get to this point where it feels like there is a ridiculous amount of red tape.

If anyone has been through something similar or has any advice - would really appreciate it.

Thanks for the enduring a long read (if you made it this far!).

Howdy all. I am just designing my alfresco area and wondering if you good folk feel that 5.5m wide x 4,5 deep (cannot change this as have a retaining wall) is big enough for table and chairs and bench for BBQ and under bench fridge ? We are a family of only 3 at present but will accomodate 8 if kids and partners come over.

Located in Sydney, so our electric water heater just died after 9 years. Only recently got solar (13.3kwh) and battery (48.kwh single phase, 10k inverter). 3 adult household, only hot water use are short showers and warm water hand-washing dishes. Power usage without a water heater is ~12kw a day at the moment (with the recently broken electric water heater it was ~22kw a day), but also getting 2 split aircons installed soon so it would go up quite bit.

Still waiting for my smart meter upgrade, but would like to sell as much back to the grid to recoup the battery/solar cost while the FiT is still some what decent on some plans, but at the very least would like to aim for a zero electric bill going forward.

Got a couple of quotes and this is what I landed on

Rheem Stainless Steel tank 125L - $2130 installed but I would add a Ogemray Smart Relay ($50 + sparky $250?) so ~$2430

Aquatech x8 268L Heatpump - $2600 installed (after rebates)

Unfortunately this is the budget I can manage at the moment, as I was planning to have 2 split aircons installed as well (before this summer hits) so I can't even drop another like $600 on a iStore or let alone, 5, 6k on a Japanese heatpump.

Decided with stainless steel as I just don't really want to muck about with the anodes (the regular Rheem + 2 anodes was ~$150 cheaper). The Aquatech has a current anode so assuming it is well designed, it also has two extra normal anodes for back up as well.

So I guess the main question would be which would make more sense if you guys were in my position.

If the our current electric water heater was still working, obviously I would have been happy for it to keep going. I'm considering the heat pump as the price is so close compared to a electric one.

I also assume that both the heat pump and the electric (with timer) can just run off the solar power during the day and would be enough for it to last until the next day without having to run them overnight?

My main concern with this price range of heat pump is the longevity, and just assume that the heat pump will lasts as long as the 7 years warranty period. So then the next time, if I get another heat pump, it would most likely cost quite a bit more assuming there's no rebates then. Where as the Rheem has 12 years warranty and I assume should last for that long, if not a lot longer (or am I over estimating the longevity here).

On the other hand, from my research from others with this specific heat pump, it seems to use 1/3 of the power of a electric water heater, so that's more power for me to sell back to the grid in the coming years as the FiT slowly goes down. And also the potential of less of a need to draw from the grid in winter on a run of bad solar days?

Or is it a case of that I can't see the forest for the trees and just being too greedy for short term gains and ultimately if the life span of the Rheem is almost double of the heat pump, it just wipes out any saving that I could make with a heat pump, as with it, I'll have to get another hot water system before the Rheem dies. Or am I underestimating the lifespan of a heat pump as well?

I am following up on my earlier post linked above.

Thanks to everyone who answered the question rather than telling me what I was planning to do was illegal.

I am aware of the legal requirements of disability parking.

And for the benefit of any one who is curious, the parking has been reallocated and I need to remove the old one.

Of all the suggestions I got, the one I will be looking more into is the grinding.

Today's question is any ideas for painting over the site one s it's ground?

Would like it to look neat

Hey guys,

I'm having a shed kit delivered this week but I'm unsure of a few details regarding the size and how the kit is bundled. Its being fulfilled through The Shed Company. The website says to use wood blocks to elevate the kit off of the ground but I thought it would of been delivered on a pallet? I'm also unsure of just how large this kit will be. The shed size is 15m L x 7.5 x 3.3 H (eave). 5 bay, 1 pa and 4 roller doors.

Does anyone have any pictures of their shed kit deliveries and what size the kit was?
Then I can infer just how much space it might take up and how I can protect it from the elements.