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March 30, 2011
Peaceful
Some beautiful calm clear evenings up here, and I've been meaning for a while to go and take a couple of photos of the house looking cosy now. And it certainly is cosy. We've had a number of recent mornings where the temperatures are around freezing, and after a sunny day the previous day, the interior temperature of our house will still be about 17-18° in the morning with no extra heating at all. Passive solar house designs and appropriate thermal mass are definitely the way to go!
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Posted by conor at 12:07 PM
March 25, 2011
Sobering
Footage from the Christchurch CBD after the 6.3 earthquake on February 22, 2011. Footage by Frank Film for the Ministry of Civil Defence.
I just cannot believe more people weren't killed in Christchurch on the 22nd, bearing in mind the earthquake struck at lunchtime.
Posted by conor at 12:05 PM
March 13, 2011
Village BBQ, Castle Hill Station
Christine Fernyhough from Castle Hill Station invited the Castle Hill Village residents along to a BBQ at one of the station huts near the Porter River, and it was a great opportunity to have a peek at one of the less publicly accessible parts of the basin. The Keohanes are still staying with us at Castle Hill, and they enjoyed coming along for the ride too.
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Posted by conor at 2:43 PM
March 11, 2011
Earthquake Damage
Finally here's a small selection of photos showing damage to our house in Huntsbury. The collapsed garage is quite impressive, especially when you see our neighbour John's dinghy still holding up one end of the garage roof even after all the aftershocks. The rest of the damage all looks superficial in the photos, but the insurance company happened to mention on the phone yesterday that their current estimate of repair costs to our house may be in the vicinity of NZ$250,000. We're not quite sure how they've come up with that since there's only been one rather superficial 45min assessment so far (and no structural engineering inspection), although we know that the whole house has shifted 20mm north on the foundations and that it's almost certain all the stucco and weatherboard cladding on the older part of the house will need to be replaced. The brick chimney in the dining-room has already been “deconstructed”.
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Posted by conor at 2:32 PM