Key Themes Why do retaining walls fail? Key components in successful design Importance of drainage coil Where to put it, where it goes. In my experience, whenever I've had to look at a retaining wall that's a little bit wobbly or seems to be constantly leaking water, the one common feature of the failure [...]
How Does the H1 Changes Affect Me. Most of us probably have the experience of growing up in a home where we shivered through the winter and then our houses were incredibly hot during the summer! Most of this can be attributed to the poor standard of our insulation in New Zealand homes before 1978. [...]
Back in the day, when I started work as a young carpenter, my boss, Tom, would pick me up if we were working out of town. Tom had a fairly new Mazda B1600 single cab flat deck Ute, which was pretty good in its time, but we are talking 1987. Thinking about that ancestor to [...]
Render has been a popular finish for literally decades in NZ, and we found clever examples of render in the old villa we renovated in 2020. The original fireplace had a decorative render around the fireplace opening, with a piped grout line that was then painted over. Once we got underway with the restoration of [...]
Bryce McDermott from Resene Paints, has kindly provided some additional tips on storage and cleaning of brushes and rollers: BRUSHES Brushes should be cleaned after each use. If I am using water based paint I have two brushes. I use one and when I see a build-up of paint on it I put it in [...]
We have lived in our Devonport villa for close on 20 years. We did a major renovation about 15 years ago, but very little since. At the end of 2016 we decide it was time for a freshen up and to finish some of those ‘jobs I’ve been meaning to do’. When our original [...]
This summer has been a busy one for the Wolfkamp family. While others were bathing and belly-flopping at the beach, I was head down working hard on our family home. We live in a traditional Devonport Villa. The big Reno was done 15+ years ago, when we pushed out the back of the [...]
While much time and energy (and money) is spent during a renovation on many things you cannot see when the job is done, the paint finish is always on display. Potential buyers or curious friends will look closely at walls and ceilings, cast a critical eye over the cutting in and stand back to see if [...]
