More Room Required

There isn’t sufficient room in my “man cave” for all the projects I have planned.  After reviewing all the shed’s contents I decided the sawdust extractor was taking up too much room and needed to be relocated outside.

After digging out some turf beside the shed I got lazy used my initiative and fixed the boxing for the concrete pad to the timber baseplate.  I also fitted the retain bolts to the baseplate allowing them to dangle down into the void where the concrete footings will be poured.  I don’t intend to remove the boxing after the pad has been poured.  It can rot away.

My boxing and baseplate. 

The white pipe connects to the middle of the concrete pad inside the shed.  I installed the pipe before the shed floor was poured in anticipation one day I might want the bench saw to be connected to the dust extractor system.

After hand mixing seven bags of concrete in the wheelbarrow I had the footings and pad poured.  Then I erected the timber framing.

I’m going to use two sheet metal offcuts from the new boundary fence for the roof.  The three walls will be clad in fibre-cement sheeting.  However before I do that I need to make two access doors.  One for the motor and the other for the bin and filter bag.  I’ve already cut two circular holes through the shed wall.  One for the sawdust extractor pipe and another for the motor 240V power cable. 

The project will likely pause in the next couple of days as we have gone back into lockdown.  Another incident of COVID spreading in hotel quarantine.  The Perth and adjacent Peel regions of Western Australia have gone into lockdown until at least midnight Monday.  It’s a long holiday weekend and thousands fled the city before the curfew commenced at midnight last night.  Many of those that didn’t flee raced to the supermarkets and stocked up on toilet paper. 

I shake my head in disbelief that the State government persist with this hotel quarantine system.  Most hotel rooms have windows that do not open.  Air is pumped into the rooms through ducting systems that do not have filtering systems capable of trapping airborne COVID-19 particles.  The rooms are therefore slightly over pressurized which means the air has to leave the room,  mostly via the doorway or gaps around the door.  This has led to cross contamination between rooms infecting otherwise healthy guests.  The risk is then compounded because the hotels are almost all located in the middle of the city; a densely populated area.  Logically quarantine facilities would be located in a less densely populated location, in a facility where those in quarantine were sufficiently separated thus avoiding cross contamination.  But who am I to feed chocolate to donkeys!

The Federal Government COVID-19 Vaccination Program is starting to look farcical.  I suspect the Federal politicians wanted to take credit for the vaccination response and accordingly wanted to retain control of the plan and implementation.  This appears to have backfired spectacularly as actual vaccinations are well below the targets set by the Federal Government.  My assessment is there are two major issues.  The first is a very poor communication plan resulting in people not knowing where and when they can have their vaccination.  The second is a reluctance to have the vaccine as a result of the blood clotting risk.   Obviously if COVID was rampant in Australia people would decide the risk of contracting COVID was greater than blood clotting and would be clamouring to have the vaccine.  The situation gets even more complicated when the government tells the population the vaccine with the blood clotting risk (AstraZeneca) will be reserved for the elderly and Pfizer will be offered to the remainder.  Their logic is the potential for blood clots occurs in those with a strong immune system.  As the elderly have a weak immune system they are less likely of suffering from clots.  Moreover the elderly are more likely to suffer serious consequences if they contract COVID.  It appears many of the elderly aren’t buying the argument. 

I’ve done some research and it appears the risk of suffering from blood clots is greater from air travel than from the vaccine.  I’ve travelled by air quite a bit and I’m also on blood thinning medication, which leads me to believe the risk of me suffering from blood clots, if I have the AstraZeneca vaccine, are quite low.  But then no one has contacted me about having the vaccine.  Frankly, I think the Federal Government is three tomatoes short of a salad!