I think I blogged my pants…….

On the 21st of March 2011 I got my Solar Panels and inverter installed! Thats to Shane from A Womans Spark for tolerating me so much.  If any one out there is interested in going solar give them a call or visit them at http://www.awomansspark.com.au/ and if you do opt to go with them I sent you (maybe I will get some kick backs!!!) 😛
Anyway, I spent the last week playing around with a perl script that was written to speak to the CMS 2000 inverter. http://www.solarfreaks.com/cms2000-inverter-rs232-serial-port-hack-cms-2000-rs232-t271-140.html mad props to the original author for doing all the hardwork and mad props to Shell_l_d too!
Below are a few pictures of my install, I have a Eaton EATN2000 (which is the same as a CMS2000) and 9 x 188W Solar Sunny ZDNY-C72 Panels. I plan to add 2 more panels onto this setup if I can find them cheap!

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When I get some time I will post my dirty hacked scripts and some graphs too! Currently using the script mentioned above but hacked up to produce the rrd I want and Cacti.
Oh and 5 points goes to anyone who can guess where the title for this post came from! 😛

So yesterday and today I have some ATTIC People over fitting out a pull down ladder and some space in my roof. At this stage I have only opted for 10m2 of space, but there is heaps more room to expand later.  Here are some photos from yesterday when they were halfway through the job;

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and here are some photos after they completed it.

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Not too shabby and it has added a bit of storage up top, so hopefully now I can get both cars into the Garage. *Yay*

Well I have been kinda lazy with blogging about the construction of my house and a fair bit has been done. Luckily I have been taking some photos along the way which I will post.

Ok so lets begin, on the 18/10/2008 we went up to the block to take a look as we were advised a few days earlier that building should commence within a week and to our surprise the block had been levelled ready for just that! 😛

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Ok so about 1 week ago we completed prestart.  Surprisingly it was rather stress free “phew”. So now that we have finance, accounts with power and gas companies or building license and prestart is over and done with, there isn’t much more for us to do but sit back and wait for the builders to get into gear and build the damn thing! So I guess it is time to play the waiting game….. *sigh*

Yayayayayayay!!!

Settlement finally came through!!
My gawd that was painful. Everything was going smoothly until the bank fucked up. As they regularly do. But after countless calls by myself and the settlement agent and waiting on hold for up to 60 minutes to bankwest each time we finally had settlement go through today at 3pm.

Now for the another painful journey to come…. The building :~

Well I have just installed a gallery addon for WordPress, so lets take it for a spin..
Here are some images of my block of Land (I hope this works!)

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Ok let me start off by giving everyone a run down on my block of land.

In June 2007 we put an offer in for a block of land out in Vale. (Near the Swan Valley). Yes I know it is in the middle of nowhere and yes they do have the internets!!! So it is all good 😛
Anyway we put an offer in on this block ($2,500 deposit) and we were advised that Titles would be through in August 2007 so we should look for a house we like and sign with a builder ASAP.

So we looked around at heaps of display homes, builders etc. We eventually found one we liked in July 2007 so we signed ($1,000 deposit). Then August comes and nothing. We ring the Land Agent and they advise that is is now delayed till September…. 1 month that’s ok what do you expect with Council etc 🙂 but it doesn’t stop there September rolls by and they tell us November, then they tell us December, then January, then March!!! WTF is going on so unfortunately there isn’t a lot we can do so we generate a little noise, whinge and cry about it but yeah surprise surprise nothing.
So then they tell us May!

By this time the Quote on the house we wanted has long expired they still have our deposit and Building has gone up. So now we have title and no house. We haul ass to the builders see what they have on offer and wow they have a promotion and the floorplan is very similar to the house we wanted to build originally it includes all the variations we made previously as standard…
We as about this house and it is about 6k more. We really liked this house so we threw in a few more variations and the total cost including site works is $20,000 more than the original house we wanted to build… When will the hurting stop!!!! *Sigh*

Any way to finish this up (as I have rambled on way too long) we now have title (just waiting on settlement) and we now have a house we want to build. YAY
Hopefully this Category will tie in with my HA one and it will just be me cataloguing the events to do with construction etc of our new home.

I have taken some photos of our block and will post them up shortly.