It's just cats on the roof ....

[Ond]

Not a great start to 2014 when your garage ceiling completely collapses and comes crashing down on top of everything.  My garage is also my workshop so, yeah.  *SIGH*  This happened over night last Saturday at around 2 in the morning.  My wife and I awoke to a huge crashing sound.  I was so sleepy and out of it I started muttering about "cat's on the roof" my wife was somehow convinced I was right and we both went back to sleep!!.  My son pointed it out to me next morning when he went out to get something from the garage.  Well I can't touch any of it until this Friday after the insurance assessor has taken a look.  I'm not too optimistic about the house insurance covering it but we'll see.




So a set-back? yeah, but it will make no difference, it will be fixed, I'll have to do it if insurance doesn't cover it.  I can't afford tradespeople, I will have to have an electrician in of course to certify any electrical repairs.

Luckily my arcade projects were not damaged, my Astro machine was in the house at the time and the plaster board did not land on the bar-top on my bench.

Countering things to be thankful for in 2014:

No one got hurt
Nothing damaged too much that I can see.
My eldest daughter got her first selection choice for University (only 50 people in the Australia get in each year)
We are all healthy
Has motivated me to fix a bunch of things in the house,  I'm organizing some off-site storage to clear the garage and some other stuff in the house so I can get on and finish home improvements started last year.

[bearzilla333]

Ahh that sucks, happened to my mothers home in the living room, thankfully no one was hurt.

[Le Chuck]

Is the garage heated?  Any reason other than aesthetics why you would even put it back?  Looks like some good rafter storage for plank wood to me. 

Sorry those cats tore your roof off, glad everyone got into college and no one was hurt! 

[Ond]

The garage isn't heated, If I wasn't looking to sell the property in the next few months, I'd do just that, leave it bare and use the storage area.

I did live in a place with a garage like that previously but around here everyone has a ceiling so..

All I want to do now, is clean up, empty the garage and fix it / get it fixed. 

My wife was laughing hard at the fact that I had managed to convince her it was just cats when it sounded like a meteor had crashed into the house 

Dats 1 farkin BIG cat!

[Donkey_Kong]

Wow! Good thing you weren't in the shop gettin your cab build on!!

Yea rocking the ceiling sucks too, maybe it's not bad if you rent a sheetrock lift?   It's probably just a matter of a few weeks before this happens to me. Pretty sure I didn't put a fastener every 8-10 inches like you're supposed to. DOH! I suppose I could add some now 

[Ond]

Wow! Good thing you weren't in the shop gettin your cab build on!!

Yea rocking the ceiling sucks too, maybe it's not bad if you rent a sheetrock lift?   It's probably just a matter of a few weeks before this happens to me. Pretty sure I didn't put a fastener every 8-10 inches like you're supposed to. DOH! I suppose I could add some now 

I keep having visions of what it would have been like if anyone had been in there, I think it all fell down really quickly.  A Sheetrock lifter, that's exactly what I'll need to rent.  Heh, better check those fasteners!

[pbj]

Tear that crap out and build some overhead storage.

I helped my parents do it.  Their house sold instantly to someone that LOVED the garage.

[TopJimmyCooks]

In the US you'd have lost your garage door as well, since everyone here has sectional doors rather than that cool roll up door.  So that's, uh, a plus?

Seriously, glad you didn't have a major project under there - nothing worse than having to go back and redo or do repairs on such painstaking work.  Cars are pretty repairable/replaceable. 

Most importantly glad everyone's safe. 

[SavannahLion]

Tear that crap out and build some overhead storage.

I helped my parents do it.  Their house sold instantly to someone that LOVED the garage.

+1.

I hate the drywall ceiling in my garage. There's a ton of storage above that goes to waste.

[Howard_Casto]

Tear that crap out and build some overhead storage.

I helped my parents do it.  Their house sold instantly to someone that LOVED the garage.

+1.

I hate the drywall ceiling in my garage. There's a ton of storage above that goes to waste.

+2

I'm looking at the garage you have... it isn't finished anyway.  That's some valuable storage space.  I have strips of about 2ftx4ft pieces of plywood put in the rafters of all my buildings with a bit of open space in between to get up there with a ladder.  I store all kinds of crap up in it and you really can't see it.  I would take pics but it's currently 2am here and we are expecting 6 inches of snow tonight.... so I might not make it out there in the morning. 

[menace]

That sucks dude--glad no one was hurt--any idea what caused it?  rain leaking through maybe?  Seems odd that it just decided to drop one night without something to 'tip' it over the edge..if its any consolation i bet it fell in sequence--sort of like coming unzippered from the rafters--if you were in there you likely would have noticed it before it crashed on you...maybe..

[Howard_Casto]

From the pics I don't see any screw holes.  If it was held up by construction adhesive that is the most likely culprit.  I know that stuff is supposed to be permanent, but I can assure you it isn't.  I've seen many tile ceilings fall that were put up with it and obviously they aren't holding up nearly as much weight.

[jdbailey1206]

If it was actually a true plaster ceiling I am surprised it has lasted this long.  I used to work in the field for our demolition company and you would be surprised at how much heavier a plaster ceiling is compared to a sheetrock ceiling.  Most times too the plaster ceiling would have a thick metal mesh that the plaster would be applied to.  It was treacherous getting them down.  We would have to create a hole in one corner and poke our body in and start cutting hangers.  Not fun.  I don't know how many times I got huge gashes on my arms.  You are very lucky that no one was in the garage while it fell.

Congratulations on your daughter also.  That is awesome news.   

[pbj]

Can I admit I've just moved into a place with a lot of garage potential and I'm pushing OND to do it just so I can steal his ideas? 

Okay, because I've just moved into a place with a lot of garage potential.

 

[Vigo]

Glad that you and the fam (Including Astro  ) are safe. Ceiling cave-ins suck. I've dealt with a few myself. Your case looks like it is just a case of shoddy workmanship.

I'm gonna add another + on the leaving it alone and adding drop down ceiling storage and a hatch ladder to make it look intentional and then it will feel more useful.

[hypernova]

Not a great start to 2014 when your garage ceiling completely collapses and comes crashing down on top of everything.  My garage is also my workshop so, yeah.  *SIGH*  This happened over night last Saturday at around 2 in the morning.  My wife and I awoke to a huge crashing sound.  I was so sleepy and out of it I started muttering about "cat's on the roof" my wife was somehow convinced I was right and we both went back to sleep!!.

Much different than my reactions to bumps in the night.  A few months ago, we went to sleep, and at about 2-3 am, heard a small crashing type sound.  I had heard something earlier while falling asleep, but it was light, so I just thought it was normal creaking/settling sounds of the house.  Our master is above the garage, but I called 911 and proceeded to go through the entire house, leaving the garage until last, just to be thorough.

Of course, the dispatcher tells you to hunker down and stay put, but I can't do that.  Better to get a jump on the intruder than the other way around, in my opinion.  The officer arrives after I've got all the living areas cleared.  Basement and garage last.  Did the basement first, then to the garage.  I look around, inspecting around each car, nothing.  Then for whatever reason, I look again, and out of the corner of my eye, see a large opossum underneath the back end of my car!  What kind of creeped me out was my feet were about 1-2 feet away from that thing at one point.

Opened the garage door, and shooed it out.  Found out the source of the sounds.  The small sound early on was a razor scooter that tipped over on its handles, thus the soft noise.  The louder noise was an aluminum bat that was knocked from its slightly elevated position.

God I hate waking up to those kinds of sounds.  You just never know until you've found everything, and by that time you're awake and the adrenaline's pumped through your body completely waking you up.  Eventually went back to sleep later, but it took awhile.

[Ond]

In the US you'd have lost your garage door as well, since everyone here has sectional doors rather than that cool roll up door.  So that's, uh, a plus?

Seriously, glad you didn't have a major project under there - nothing worse than having to go back and redo or do repairs on such painstaking work.  Cars are pretty repairable/replaceable. 

Most importantly glad everyone's safe.

Thanks Jimmy,  that would have broken my heart if the Astro cab was damaged.  I think the car may have a few small dint's and scratches but I'm not fussed, it needed body work done, now there's a bit more.

Tear that crap out and build some overhead storage.

I helped my parents do it.  Their house sold instantly to someone that LOVED the garage.

+1.

I hate the drywall ceiling in my garage. There's a ton of storage above that goes to waste.

+2

I'm looking at the garage you have... it isn't finished anyway.  That's some valuable storage space.  I have strips of about 2ftx4ft pieces of plywood put in the rafters of all my buildings with a bit of open space in between to get up there with a ladder.  I store all kinds of crap up in it and you really can't see it.  I would take pics but it's currently 2am here and we are expecting 6 inches of snow tonight.... so I might not make it out there in the morning. 

Yeah, I'm giving this some thought.  I mean I first posted this as just a "hey look what happened here" kind of thing but really something good/useful should come out of it.  Like I said earlier I used to live in a place where the garage had no ceiling and the guy before me had set up some storage space, it was very useful.  There is something to consider though, the typical garage roofing framework (around here) is not really designed to be load bearing beyond supporting the roof.  I think house design in Australia is pretty 'light weight' in terms of structural integrity.  I know in Europe and parts of the US structural standards are much higher due to the environment (snow etc).  That all said, some storage for boxes of lightweight items that get dragged out once a year (bloody Christmas Tree!) is still not a bad idea.

That sucks dude--glad no one was hurt--any idea what caused it?  rain leaking through maybe?  Seems odd that it just decided to drop one night without something to 'tip' it over the edge..if its any consolation i bet it fell in sequence--sort of like coming unzippered from the rafters--if you were in there you likely would have noticed it before it crashed on you...maybe..

I think you're probably right, god I hope it was rain (i.e. qualifying as storm event and covered by insurance).  I didn't mention that I noticed a slight sag just along one ceiling edge of an inch or so a few weeks ago.  Nothing I would have thought was that serious - the night it happened we had a huge temperature swing from 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees F) to around 22 degrees (71 F) in the evening before.  The garage is the only room in the house not insulated.  I read online that this makes them prone to suffer from humidity which can cause glues to fail and weaken fastening points (nails or screws).  I'd say it unzipped from the rafters, but quite quickly, I heard just the tail end of it clearly which sounded like movement across the roof - thus the 'cats on the roof'.

From the pics I don't see any screw holes.  If it was held up by construction adhesive that is the most likely culprit.  I know that stuff is supposed to be permanent, but I can assure you it isn't.  I've seen many tile ceilings fall that were put up with it and obviously they aren't holding up nearly as much weight.

There are nails or screws as well as glue points.  I haven't had a chance to look closely yet.  If I redo it, I'll definitely use screws and adhesive.

If it was actually a true plaster ceiling I am surprised it has lasted this long.  I used to work in the field for our demolition company and you would be surprised at how much heavier a plaster ceiling is compared to a sheetrock ceiling.  Most times too the plaster ceiling would have a thick metal mesh that the plaster would be applied to.  It was treacherous getting them down.  We would have to create a hole in one corner and poke our body in and start cutting hangers.  Not fun.  I don't know how many times I got huge gashes on my arms.  You are very lucky that no one was in the garage while it fell.

Congratulations on your daughter also.  That is awesome news.   

It's not a 'true' plaster ceiling just boring old Gyprock or what others call Sheetrock I think.  Gyprock is a brand here in Aus, but the term Plasterboard is the generic term.

Thanks for the congrats  I mean you gotta remind yourself of things like that now and then especially when this sort of crap happens.  She got into a writers course which includes screen play, journalism and novel writing.  It's a very job specific degree with a high job placement success rate, so I'm pretty chuffed for her!

Can I admit I've just moved into a place with a lot of garage potential and I'm pushing OND to do it just so I can steal his ideas? 

Okay, because I've just moved into a place with a lot of garage potential.

 

Ah ha, the clouds part to show the true sky!  So Jim, did you really help out your parents who had a quick sale!    Actually, before we decided to sell this place I had contemplated putting in one of those drop down ladders and adding some storage space in the garage.  Those ladders are horribly expensive though ,even the cheaper metal ones are more than I want to spend.  I may look at covering an area of couple of square meters with pine siding, putting in a manhole with a ladder mount point (for an ordinary ladder I mean).  You can totally rip this idea off if I do it.  It would be no big deal to add in while I'm repairing the ceiling.

Glad that you and the fam (Including Astro  ) are safe. Ceiling cave-ins suck. I've dealt with a few myself. Your case looks like it is just a case of shoddy workmanship.

I'm gonna add another + on the leaving it alone and adding drop down ceiling storage and a hatch ladder to make it look intentional and then it will feel more useful.

Yeah thanks man    I'll report back whatever happens.  Fingers crossed for Friday when the insurance dude comes out to look at.  It's a real pain in the ass, I keep going out to get a screwdriver or something, open the door and look out over the mess.  I know it probably looks a lot worse than it really is.

Not a great start to 2014 when your garage ceiling completely collapses and comes crashing down on top of everything.  My garage is also my workshop so, yeah.  *SIGH*  This happened over night last Saturday at around 2 in the morning.  My wife and I awoke to a huge crashing sound.  I was so sleepy and out of it I started muttering about "cat's on the roof" my wife was somehow convinced I was right and we both went back to sleep!!.

Much different than my reactions to bumps in the night.  A few months ago, we went to sleep, and at about 2-3 am, heard a small crashing type sound.  I had heard something earlier while falling asleep, but it was light, so I just thought it was normal creaking/settling sounds of the house.  Our master is above the garage, but I called 911 and proceeded to go through the entire house, leaving the garage until last, just to be thorough.

Of course, the dispatcher tells you to hunker down and stay put, but I can't do that.  Better to get a jump on the intruder than the other way around, in my opinion.  The officer arrives after I've got all the living areas cleared.  Basement and garage last.  Did the basement first, then to the garage.  I look around, inspecting around each car, nothing.  Then for whatever reason, I look again, and out of the corner of my eye, see a large opossum underneath the back end of my car!  What kind of creeped me out was my feet were about 1-2 feet away from that thing at one point.

Opened the garage door, and shooed it out.  Found out the source of the sounds.  The small sound early on was a razor scooter that tipped over on its handles, thus the soft noise.  The louder noise was an aluminum bat that was knocked from its slightly elevated position.

God I hate waking up to those kinds of sounds.  You just never know until you've found everything, and by that time you're awake and the adrenaline's pumped through your body completely waking you up.  Eventually went back to sleep later, but it took awhile.

Funny what sounds will alarm you and which you choose to dismiss.  I've done the same, some little noise and I'm sneaking around checking rooms.  We have a lot of cats around here, they get up on the roof and whine and moan, fight each other and race across the roof, I must have been really out of it that night!

Well the ceiling MUST be replaced I've decided that, there's just no convincing way I can explain to a prospective buyer why the ceiling isn't there.  In this instance there's no way the builder wouldn't have completed the house without it.

Potential buyer - "I notice you have no ceiling in the garage"
Me - "Yeah it just fell down one night"
Potential buyer - backs away slowly - "Oh I see, well thanks for letting us look at your home"
Crickets chirping......

You guys have got to me though (again) I'll ponder the storage thing further 

[pbj]

In all honesty, my parents had a garage with a ridiculous vaulted ceiling.  We put in a loft that gave you maybe 5.5 feet of clearance to stand up, which was enough to sit on a stool up there and roll around.  There was already a staircase going from the parking spaces to the back door, so we built a side staircase from the landing to the loft.  Pegboard and a handrail along the exposed edge to keep people and objects from falling off the side.

Place sold in 24 hours to a single mom who's daughters wanted to use it as a play room.  It was an enormous amount of storage space.  The inspector was quite impressed with it.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Ond:

I find extreme fault in your logic. 

1.  Nobody is going to know there was a ceiling there in the first place. 
2.  If they do question it why would you volunteer the information that "it just fell down"  instead of the appropriate response of "yeah I took it out for storage space". 

[CCM]

Ond:

I find extreme fault in your logic. 

1.  Nobody is going to know there was a ceiling there in the first place. 
2.  If they do question it why would you volunteer the information that "it just fell down"  instead of the appropriate response of "yeah I took it out for storage space".

You are assuming that it is a detached garage?   I haven't seen where he clearly stated what kind of garage it is.

If it is an integral garage with a room above it, code may require the ceiling to be finished for fire rating and to protect from carbon monoxide from car exhaust.   And even if code doesn't require it, you would most certainly want insulation and drywall to keep the room above warm in the winter .    I have never seen an integral garage without a ceiling, so if I were a home buyer I would certainly question why there was no ceiling in an integral garage.

Now, if this is a detached garage, I would definitely opt for more storage space as opposed to a ceiling.

[Vigo]

Ond:

I find extreme fault in your logic. 

1.  Nobody is going to know there was a ceiling there in the first place. 
2.  If they do question it why would you volunteer the information that "it just fell down"  instead of the appropriate response of "yeah I took it out for storage space".

You are assuming that it is a detached garage?   I haven't seen where he clearly stated what kind of garage it is.

If it is an integral garage with a room above it, code may require the ceiling to be finished for fire rating and to protect from carbon monoxide from car exhaust.   And even if code doesn't require it, you would most certainly want insulation and drywall to keep the room above warm in the winter .    I have never seen an integral garage without a ceiling, so if I were a home buyer I would certainly question why there was no ceiling in an integral garage.

Now, if this is a detached garage, I would definitely opt for more storage space as opposed to a ceiling.

Can you see the pictures? All I see are rafters and metal channel roofing panels.

[jdbailey1206]

Why has no one recognized Ond's car yet?  You're really Mad Max.  Aren't you?   

[CCM]

Can you see the pictures? All I see are rafters and metal channel roofing panels.

Well... then I guess this:

Now, if this is a detached garage, I would definitely opt for more storage space as opposed to a ceiling.

[Vigo]

 


 

[Ond]

In all honesty, my parents had a garage with a ridiculous vaulted ceiling.  We put in a loft that gave you maybe 5.5 feet of clearance to stand up, which was enough to sit on a stool up there and roll around.  There was already a staircase going from the parking spaces to the back door, so we built a side staircase from the landing to the loft.  Pegboard and a handrail along the exposed edge to keep people and objects from falling off the side.

Place sold in 24 hours to a single mom who's daughters wanted to use it as a play room.  It was an enormous amount of storage space.  The inspector was quite impressed with it.

 

Ahh nice work then.  That's really my mission with my place, making it highly sell-able with value adds where I can.  There's no room to stand up ( a low crouch more like it) in my garage ceiling, but when it's all stripped back I'll see.

Ond:

I find extreme fault in your logic. 

1.  Nobody is going to know there was a ceiling there in the first place. 
2.  If they do question it why would you volunteer the information that "it just fell down"  instead of the appropriate response of "yeah I took it out for storage space". 

Heh Howard, "extreme fault" c'mon man my little dialogue was meant to be humorous.  OK well I guess I can't blame you for questioning my logic, I didn't provide much in the way of description / explanation.  CCM basically has it right, the garage is just another room in the house i.e. it's all a single roof space above garage and house.  There's no room, above it though.  I dunno what Vigo means by" Metal channel roofing panels" though.  Like I said, just plasterboard screwed to timber.  There's no way the builder would not have put in a ceiling, unless he went bust couldn't finish the job.

Please believe me when I say I'd have a hard time convincing anybody looking to buy around here that I removed my garage ceiling to put in some storage  .  If you were standing next to me in my driveway and looking up at it you wouldn't question it.  Well maybe not as much...... 

Quite a few folk are selling up in our street,  I know what prices they sold for and what effort the vendors put in to prepare them.  At the end of the day I've got to make decisions about aesthetics, practicality and overall budget to get the price I'm after. 

We can now switch the debate to "Is Ond fooling himself, does presentation make a difference in the selling price of a home and is there such a thing as the emotional buyer?"  My opinion is yes, of course it does.   
 

[pbj]

Don't spend $5,000 on repairs just so some potential buyer won't offer $2,000 less than they would if you just cleaned it up and left as-is.

[Le Chuck]

Don't spend $5,000 on repairs just so some potential buyer won't offer $2,000 less than they would if you just cleaned it up and left as-is.

This is sage advice.  You can even entice buyers by offering a 1000 or 1500 decorating/repair budget on the sale and not mention that roof.  If it'll pass code as is then let the buyer jump at chump change and fix what they want. 

[Ond]

I'm not leaving as it is it's just not happening, but I also won't be spending any stupid amount either. The idea of selling it as a 'fixer upper' does not interest me.  Directly opposite me are two properties that have just sold, one was a rental for about a year and a bit rough after the tenants cleared out.  The other was a well maintained home prepared well for sale.  Both properties the same size, bedrooms etc.  No prizes for guessing which got a substantially better price at sale.

The excess I'll have to pay on the insurance (if it does cover it) would also just about cover the cost of new plaster sheet.  The extra cost will be in carting away the old ceiling if I'm not covered.

I've been working at finishing the property off (landscaping, garden, decking etc) over the last year or so.  Wherever possible I've kept this effort as cheap as possible using my time instead of costly tradespeople.

The one advantage I have is I've done it at least once before.  I took the same approach to the last property, during the sales process we dealt with (and resisted selling cheaply to ) the 'investor' buyers they're like vultures the ---daisies---.  In the end we sold to a couple moving from the country closer in to the city.  The husband loved how I'd plaster lined and carpeted a shed out in the backyard - he was going to use it for his hobby shed.  We made $100K on that place.  I spent all up about $7K including new carpet for the whole house.  That profit obviously can't all be attributed to improvements I did, much of it was just due to rising home prices, nevertheless we did get a quick sale for what we wanted.

While I'm on about it, my brother and his wife were trying to sell their property and ended up getting pretty pissed off with the estate agent trying to undersell their property.  They ended up firing him and ended up managing the sale by themselves for the price they wanted.

I'm considering doing the same.  Anyone here ever managed the sale of their property rather than go through and agent?  My wife used to be in conveyancing so she has some knowledge which could be useful.

[TopJimmyCooks]

In the US, like everywhere, there are good and bad real estate agents.  a good one will definitely get you a better/quicker sale for a typical house.  We have basically a monopoly on online real estate listings in most areas (divisions of Multiple Listing Service or MLS) and the biggest benefit of an agent is getting listed in that database, which all the other agents review and search every day. 

Price is not the only factor, sometimes they can analyze your buyer's qualifications and determine that it's risky/waste of time to get into a contract with them (tying up your house/delaying your sale until they finally crap out/can't get financed).

I buy, fix and sell houses sometimes for profit and I know quite a bit about real estate, but i still use a good agent I know well and trust, and pay commissions - it's worth it to me.  Some real estate investors just pay a flat fee to get on MLS and then do the marketing themselves. 

[pbj]

As soon as you hear yourself saying things like, "I've got to protect my investment" I think it's a good time to step back and reconsider.

Anyway, I don't have any money so do what thou wilt.

 

[jdbailey1206]

My wife and I had the same problem with our first real estate agent.  He wanted to put us in $350,000 homes (which was 7x what we wanted to pay) and by three weeks of him not listening we found someone else.  We were much happier with our second agent and he was patient with us and it only took about a week and a half until we found what we wanted. 

You're going to have pro's and con's of both side but in the end if you sell it yourself you will not have to pay a commission to the real estate agent.  Which is more money in your pocket in the end and that's always a good thing. 

[Vigo]

I dunno what Vigo means by" Metal channel roofing panels" though. 

Isn't that corrugated channel roofing up above the rafters? It looks like sunlight is even peeking through it. Maybe I am just seeing it wrong, but if there are rooms up there, why is there no insulation on top of the ceiling that fell down?

[pbj]

Vigo seems like one of those dudes that was freeze framing movies 20 years ago and praying for nipple.

[Vigo]

Vigo seems like one of those dudes that was freeze framing movies 20 years ago and praying for nipple.

Yeah, but pause on my VHS player always garbled up the image. I was better off watching scrambled boobs on the premium cable channels we never got.

[Ond]

I guess finding a good agent is the key thing then when it comes to selling.  There's interesting language differences sometimes around here ....I get what you mean now Vigo about the roofing.  Nope its just roof tiling, there's no rooms up there, hardly a crawl space really.  Well today's the day the assessor is coming around (Friday).  I'm working from home today and then it's a long weekend with the Australia Day holiday on Monday.  Hopefully I can find out today what his assessment is so I can use the long weekend to clean up if need be.

[Vigo]

Glad you have a job where you can work from home. Hope all goes well with the assessor. You folks from the future (Friday-land) always throw me for a loop. I'm still stuck in Thursday.

Oh, and have a Happy Australia Day! I suppose you celebrate it like we Americans celebrate our 4th of July? BBQ and fireworks?

[pbj]

Isn't every day in Australia "Australia Day"?

 

[Ond]

   The great Aussie stereotype, blonde sheila's n kangaroos all over the joint!

 Thanks for the Australia Day thoughts Vigo,  the more patriotic of us will be out having picnics and barbies (that's BBQs BTW not the the toy from Mattel)
in parks, going to concerts or organized events, fireworks etc.  For many it's just another public holiday.



Well whataya know!!  The assessor deemed our claim to be covered by insurance.  Apparently these type of ceiling collapses are common, he'd been to quite a few recently and the cause? Vibration in the uninsulated ceiling caused by wind, particularity on the edges.   He was critical of the lack of glue and fixing points where ceiling meets wall and says this is where the loosening begins due to wind pressure.  He's not wrong about the wind, we live on the top of a hill and we recently had many weeks of seemingly endless strong winds, my garage doors rattle like mad with it.  Insulation in the roof greatly lessens the effect.

On Friday I sat on the front lawn with a beer as the clean up crew took away all the debris and cleaned up.  The dudes carefully lifted the plaster away from everything and were curious about my Xenolix bartop revealed underneath on my workbench undamaged.  My car suffered one or two minor dents where falling plaster board hit it, also covered if I choose to have them fixed by a panel beater.  I won't though there's a lot of other work on the car I was going to do myself, the dents are minor issues.  Repairs should be carried out in the next week or so.

Post clean pics:




You want to see and aussie icon, forget the roos mate, check out this fella, our new pup Australian Cattle Dog - Kip.   He's now 4 months old, a complete nutbag, fired up about everything and just an awesome dog!



Just before the garage roof fell in I managed to finish up his kennel.  If anyone's interested I can share some pics of his new Heeler Homestead complete with 'corrugated channel roofing' and covered verandah.


*In my strongest Aussie accent*   time for a beer, catch yez all later!
 

[Slippyblade]

The roof sheathing is corrugated metal?  Is the whole house done like that?

[Ond]

The roof sheathing is corrugated metal?  Is the whole house done like that?

There is no 'sheathing' that's the underside of concrete roofing tiles you're looking at.  Sheathing on roofs in Australia is pretty rare as are shingled roofs.  Typical suburban homes are either built with a metal roof typically referred to as Colourbond roofing (which is actually a brand name) or concrete tiled roofs.  I lived my whole life in those sort of homes and never heard of or seen a ceiling collapsed until now.  Colourbond roofing does have an intermediate insulation layer directly beneath it, a kind sheathing I guess.