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> Do you not know how to pour concrete, plumb, pull cable, roof, cut sheet metal, etc? I was discussing the article on this thread. Do you think Nurse Joan was

> Do you not know how to pour concrete, plumb, pull cable, roof, cut sheet metal, etc? I was discussing the article on this thread. Do you think Nurse Joan was able to pour concrete, install plumbing to code, pull cables, install a roof which implies climbing with heavy items (again, we're discussing an elderly person)... I'll stop before we get to cutting sheet metal as this is getting silly.

defrost 1y ago
I read the article that leads this thread: She handed over her pension savings of A$70,000 ($46,700) to a family member to build a small guest apartment in their backyard. Clearly it was the family member who had promised to build a granny flat making your questions about Nurse Joan moot. For $70K it's possible to get a pre fabricated human livable insulated decent looking Colourbond granny flat delivered .. and assembled by third party workers (if they can be found in the current skills shortage market) - it's not uncommon to bring costs down with self assembly and doing as much work as possible without labour hire. > Do you think Nurse Joan was able to pour concrete, install plumbing to code, pull cables, install a roof which implies climbing with heavy items (again, we're discussing an elderly person). I've never met her but I can state for a fact that many men and women in Australia do indeed do such things in their lives and continue to do them into their 60s, 70s, and in some cases their 80s. The staging for a slab is to do the form work yourself and order a concrete pour .. a truck arrives and a couple or workers level it into place and leave again. I have a 70 year old neighbour here currently solo building a large steel frame octagonal house that is presently being roofed; first using a crane hire to lift the steel beams that were prepped on the ground into place and now being sheeted using a scissor lift (so, no climbing) and ropes and pulleys to bring the sheets up. My father turns 90 this year, as an elderly person he gave up climbing ladders last year, he has also given up maintenance of his section of a local 1,000 km walking track that he looked after for three decades, but he still walks 10 km or so daily and manages to load and unload our double axle trailer with tonnes of material (weeds, manure, wood, etc) on a regular basis. > this is getting silly. I'm guessing such things are literally foreign to you and you have little practical experience of either building or older Australians and yet you reject actual first hand experience from actual older Australians? Silly indeed.
- leakycap 1y ago
  I guess I don't know a lot about the abilities of the elderly in Australia, or even the social expectations put on them by persons like yourself with a strong worldview that you expect others to agree with. I am still seeing a problem with the budget and timeline. It seems it isn't as easy to build an apartment in a backyard since the point of the article is that it didn't work out, and commonly most elderly people and their families don't have metalworking and foundation and plumbing and electrical experience. Even if your mother is excellent at tiling floors, which I don't doubt.
  - defrost 1y ago
    Couple of points, * the article is about financial pressures of younger Australians, this is a real problem. * An example of that is this story of an older person handing over life savings to a younger family member to build a granny flat, the implication, to my eye at least, isn't that the budget was insufficient rather the family member didn't carry through on the promise due to issues they had, likely their own financial pressures leading to money being bled off and a lack of time to carry through. * and commonly most elderly people and their families don't have metalworking and foundation and plumbing and electrical experience. What do you consider elderly? I'm at retirement age ion Australia and I was born in a time when the demographics skewed non-urban .. most Australians of that time had rural experience which means most Australians of that era had exposure to hands on dirty work .. they might go to Uni to study Law but they still have hands on experience digging a trench and helping out building a brick wall, paving, etc. Again, it's not a case of skill shortage in the elderly ... it was a presumably younger Australian that likely lacked the skills to carry through and additional pressures that likely caused them to skim the budget despite best intentions. Again, an insulated prefab kit shed variation modified to be habitable should cost less than AU $70K assembled .. the last shed I had built had the right footprint but was bare bones (no plumbing, no electrics, no insulation, no fridges, etc) and was AU $10K mostly built by others (my father, born 1935, did the ground work and form work for me as I was out of the country at the time) - I just funded materials and additional labour. Currently I live in a rural West Australian town with a median age of 64 (half the town 64 or under, the half 64 or older) most people stay active into their 80s and many have hobbies such as raising sheep, miniature donkeys, maintaining vintage cars, building rat-trucks, fire and rescue services, etc. In the past five years I've helped build (no charge, it's a friend of a friend thing) four habitable "granny flats" - single occupant outhouses on existing land with other houses - these have been revamped tool barns, fresh builds, "lean-to" extensions, etc. - all have come in under $50K total. I have a background in pure applied math, traveled for work (geophysical exploration and mapping) to two thirds of the worlds countries (although some them only count as multiple entries in a survey aircraft flipping about while doing survey lines in a primary country), have some million SLOC of mapping and geophysical code behind me in addition to some funky abstract symbolic algebra coding on the CAYLEY|MAGMA system and other stuff, and paid my way through university working in mining companies (labouring, Haul Pak driving, etc) and cattle stations (mustering, etc). I know a great many Australians my age with similar capabilities. You may have read a little Greg Egan, for example.

defrost 1y ago

I read the article that leads this thread: She handed over her pension savings of A$70,000 ($46,700) to a family member to build a small guest apartment in their backyard. Clearly it was the family member who had promised to build a granny flat making your questions about Nurse Joan moot. For $70K it's possible to get a pre fabricated human livable insulated decent looking Colourbond granny flat delivered .. and assembled by third party workers (if they can be found in the current skills shortage market) - it's not uncommon to bring costs down with self assembly and doing as much work as possible without labour hire. > Do you think Nurse Joan was able to pour concrete, install plumbing to code, pull cables, install a roof which implies climbing with heavy items (again, we're discussing an elderly person). I've never met her but I can state for a fact that many men and women in Australia do indeed do such things in their lives and continue to do them into their 60s, 70s, and in some cases their 80s. The staging for a slab is to do the form work yourself and order a concrete pour .. a truck arrives and a couple or workers level it into place and leave again. I have a 70 year old neighbour here currently solo building a large steel frame octagonal house that is presently being roofed; first using a crane hire to lift the steel beams that were prepped on the ground into place and now being sheeted using a scissor lift (so, no climbing) and ropes and pulleys to bring the sheets up. My father turns 90 this year, as an elderly person he gave up climbing ladders last year, he has also given up maintenance of his section of a local 1,000 km walking track that he looked after for three decades, but he still walks 10 km or so daily and manages to load and unload our double axle trailer with tonnes of material (weeds, manure, wood, etc) on a regular basis. > this is getting silly. I'm guessing such things are literally foreign to you and you have little practical experience of either building or older Australians and yet you reject actual first hand experience from actual older Australians? Silly indeed.

leakycap 1y ago
I guess I don't know a lot about the abilities of the elderly in Australia, or even the social expectations put on them by persons like yourself with a strong worldview that you expect others to agree with. I am still seeing a problem with the budget and timeline. It seems it isn't as easy to build an apartment in a backyard since the point of the article is that it didn't work out, and commonly most elderly people and their families don't have metalworking and foundation and plumbing and electrical experience. Even if your mother is excellent at tiling floors, which I don't doubt.
- defrost 1y ago
  Couple of points, * the article is about financial pressures of younger Australians, this is a real problem. * An example of that is this story of an older person handing over life savings to a younger family member to build a granny flat, the implication, to my eye at least, isn't that the budget was insufficient rather the family member didn't carry through on the promise due to issues they had, likely their own financial pressures leading to money being bled off and a lack of time to carry through. * and commonly most elderly people and their families don't have metalworking and foundation and plumbing and electrical experience. What do you consider elderly? I'm at retirement age ion Australia and I was born in a time when the demographics skewed non-urban .. most Australians of that time had rural experience which means most Australians of that era had exposure to hands on dirty work .. they might go to Uni to study Law but they still have hands on experience digging a trench and helping out building a brick wall, paving, etc. Again, it's not a case of skill shortage in the elderly ... it was a presumably younger Australian that likely lacked the skills to carry through and additional pressures that likely caused them to skim the budget despite best intentions. Again, an insulated prefab kit shed variation modified to be habitable should cost less than AU $70K assembled .. the last shed I had built had the right footprint but was bare bones (no plumbing, no electrics, no insulation, no fridges, etc) and was AU $10K mostly built by others (my father, born 1935, did the ground work and form work for me as I was out of the country at the time) - I just funded materials and additional labour. Currently I live in a rural West Australian town with a median age of 64 (half the town 64 or under, the half 64 or older) most people stay active into their 80s and many have hobbies such as raising sheep, miniature donkeys, maintaining vintage cars, building rat-trucks, fire and rescue services, etc. In the past five years I've helped build (no charge, it's a friend of a friend thing) four habitable "granny flats" - single occupant outhouses on existing land with other houses - these have been revamped tool barns, fresh builds, "lean-to" extensions, etc. - all have come in under $50K total. I have a background in pure applied math, traveled for work (geophysical exploration and mapping) to two thirds of the worlds countries (although some them only count as multiple entries in a survey aircraft flipping about while doing survey lines in a primary country), have some million SLOC of mapping and geophysical code behind me in addition to some funky abstract symbolic algebra coding on the CAYLEY|MAGMA system and other stuff, and paid my way through university working in mining companies (labouring, Haul Pak driving, etc) and cattle stations (mustering, etc). I know a great many Australians my age with similar capabilities. You may have read a little Greg Egan, for example.