I booked us in to a beachside hotel for Saturday night and we came home Sunday midday.

So - not a lot of progress on the house.

I spent about 4 hours on Sunday afternoon reducing the fire load around our residence so that I could spend any spare time during the week working on the steel for the loft wet areas.

Any way - in other news: The previous Wednesday I had some good luck in buying some needed PFC.

During my lunch break I headed down to Vinsans Demolition and picked up 4 x 3 m lengths of PFC 150 for less than $15 per metre.

Each will need about a metre butt welded on to reach 4.1 metres for the wet area span but I am confident in my welding now.

I also investigated buying the mounting brackets that I had previously mentioned. However, the cost would have been over $500 and I did not want to use up 1/2 $K out of the building fund just for brackets.

While at Vinsans I also purchased 5 metres of 75 x 125 x 8 mm lintel steel for less that $10 per metre.

So for $48 I have all the materials now that I will need for the brackets. However, it is going to take every moment of my spare time, and late evenings in the workshop to convert this in to the finished product.

During breaks on Monday I welded two lengths of PFC 150 back to back.

This forms the 2 metre span of the hallway near the front of the house.

This piece of steel will take a vertical column that supports the centre of the front ridge of the loft roof.

Still a lot of cutting, notching and welding to do as this also needs 4 arms to stop any potential rotation of the column.