I had taken new materials and gardening tools (for the wwoofers to use the next day) - it took quite a while to bring them all in.

Amongst the new materials were some very thin sheets of mdf cut to fit in to the back of the kitchen sink cabinet. I glued these in place to hide all the existing holes from previous plumbing.

I needed to replace the mixer tap (Reeces replaced the defective one from last week). While I was at it I used a steel cutting hole saw to make a 25 mm hole in the sink for the filtered water spiggot. This was a little further forward than I would have preferred but I was constrained by the position of the apron underneath

Also I Installed new sink clamps and locked the assembly in to the bench top.

In order to attach the P trap without interfering with the water inlets, I needed to make up an extension through the shelf. This placed the P trap in to the lower part of the cabinet.

I trial fitted the P trap and marked up the position of the waste line through the cabinet intermediate partition wall. The intention here is that most of the piping will be kept hidden within the cabinet to emerge through the external wall of the house immediately above the connection point of the waste line outside the house.

I used a newly purchased 51mm hole saw to cut the hole for the 50mm pipe. Here is where my inexperience cost me dearly in time. In retrospect I am guessing that you need something like a 55 mm hole for a 50 mm pipe. I spent the next hour labouriously enlarging to the hole to the correct size using a variety of rasps and files.

I will get Wayne to install all the kitchen sink drainage components permanently and to drill the holes through the wall to the outside.

Turned in at 1.30 am in the morning

Up next morning at 7.00 am

I drilled a very small pilot hole through wall to mark the positions of the kitchen and laundry trough waste lines on the outside of the wall.

Then I dug down near the ecomax main tank to find the sewer line and worked back to expose the connections.

Next I ran a string line for the trench and excavated a rough trench.

I set up height references at both ends to measure fall.

The length of run is a bit less than 6 m so a fall of 150 mm or better will give a 1 in 40 incline.

Just then Linda arrived with Xavier, Eve and Sebastion.

I set Xavier and Sebastion to work with the laser level to check if we had enough fall and to smooth in a nice clean trench.

I set Eve to work with the brush cutter.

Eve did a great job clearing the wild grasses at the front of the house and street verge.

Xavier and Sebastion did a great job on the trench (we had more than 150 mm fall)

In the meantime I worked on redoing the metal angle iron in one corner of the kitchen where the stud frame lacked the backing steel. I had done this once before but only sorted out the lower sheet. I redid it to correct the entire height of the wall using a piece of 2.4 m light folded angle iron (doesn't quite reach the 2.6 m ceiling).

It was getting a bit hot by now so I moved Xavier on to cutting the 150mm mdf skirting boards to length and then priming.

Sebastion and Eve I moved on to the first base coat of the flushing in the bathroom, kitchen and garage area.

In the meantime I installed all the shower hardware in the bathroom.

This took us most of the day until we reached the cool of the evening - then they worked on pruning a lot of the branches off the dead pine trees.

Meanwhile I watered the tree plantings along the creek line.

Lost another couple during the week from animal attack so need to install the protective wire mesh cylinders soon.

Around about 5.30 pm I "hit the wall" - so rather than work through to 8.30 pm like I usually do, I waited for Linda to pick up all our wwoofers at 6.30 pm then headed home myself 10 minutes later.