Just wanted to share a quick progress update from the site! We’re really starting to see things take shape.

A lot of the main house structure is down now, and we’ve swapped out the bin. Our trusty 25-tonne and 3-tonne machines are still hard at work. The main goal for today? Continuing with site establishment and getting everything organized.

Getting Organized: The Container Makeover

Yesterday involved several trips to the hardware store. We picked up some shelving/racking that’s going inside our site container. The plan is to clean it out completely, install the shelving for much better organization, and then reload everything neatly.

We’re also putting up another shade structure mounted to the side of the container. Once installed, it’ll extend out to give us a bigger, more useful shaded area to work under.

Site Essentials: A Functional Toilet & Water

We spent a good chunk of yesterday getting our site toilet fully operational. We’ve run irrigation lines with little sprayers around a nearby tree (better than a loose hose!) and hooked it all up to a Bluetooth timer for automated watering. We’ll cover the tree’s root ball with geofabric to help retain that moisture.

The big win for the day? The sewer is now connected to the toilet, and we have a water hose connection at the back. The toilet is running perfectly.

We’ve also set up a chilled water bubbler using a salvaged 40mm waste pipe. We even salvaged a few floor mats and doorstops from the previous residents. It might seem simple, but having a proper, stocked toilet with all the essentials (yes, including the brush and cleaner) makes a huge difference to everyone's morale on site. It’s surprising how much happier a team is when they have a decent place to go!

Site Access and Setup

You can see we’ve pulled the material from the front of the property and brought it all in here. We’ve tracked and rolled it a bit, and as it gets wet, it’ll compact down nicely to create a solid access way.

Right now, we’re planning the final setup for the container interior. We’ll be running power inside, mounting timber to the walls, and fitting plywood to the interior faces. This will let us set up all the necessary site services in one spot, and we’ll probably install a sub-board inside for charging tool batteries. The result will be a nice, dry, and secure hub for our gear.

Demolition Progress: Careful and Methodical Work

The demolition team from Nyanda has been working diligently. Huge credit to Damien, the site manager—his level of organization is fantastic, and the whole operation runs like clockwork with machines smoothly coming and going.

The operator, Darren on the 25-tonne, is doing a great job. He’s very careful, meticulously scraping up tiles and clearing space. A big thanks also to Ed the water truck operator who's been keeping the dust down and sorting materials into groups.

They’ve also started on the pool demolition. They began by using a rock breaker on the smaller machine to punch initial holes. You can see the larger machine now has a ripper attachment on it, and they’re using that to break up the structure.

One thing that struck us: this was a 30-year-old pool, but wow, it was built thick! Serious credit to the pool builders back in the day—they did a fantastic job.

Inside the pool area, you can see the double height cavity bricks used for the retaining wall. They’ve been core-filled (you can see the concrete between the two block layers) and had starter bars connecting into the overhead slab. The team is now setting up, watering for dust control, and will keep working on breaking out the pool, the associated stairs, and the surrounding concrete.

So that’s the latest! We’re keeping the dust down with a couple of watering hoses, and the momentum is building.

More updates soon!