I’m a carpenter.
I’m self-employed.
I specialise in timber-framed homes, pole homes
especially, built in the hills on sloping blocks.
Everything is timber right from the poles right through to the roof.
Good day, Razza. How are you going, Chris?
You got here before me for once. Yeah, got up when the alarm went off.
That’s a change. It is, hey.
Typical day’s work – we get on site and depending on what
stage the job is at, we get out our tools, our saws,
our extension leads, our air lines for the nail guns,
and start cutting timber and putting it together.
Today we’re working on the roof.
I’m just cutting off the ends of the rafters so we can put the roof battens on.
The gutter will sit at the end of the rafters.
Once we’ve finished the roof, we will start putting in the
window frames, door frames, ready to put the wall cladding on.
Now I’m going to find this window that goes in this opening.
They’re all marked on the plan. They’re all pre-made aluminium.
The glass is already in them.
We’ll put this one in. We’ll chisel at the bottom.
I’m fitting them in with these little brackets.
And then later on the cladding will fit in behind here to lock the house up.
I got into this line of work after finishing Year 10 high school.
I did a one-year pre-apprenticeship at TAFE in carpentry and joinery.
Then after that one year of TAFE I did an apprenticeship,
a four-year-long apprenticeship and in that
apprenticeship, I did things from building bridges
in formwork, carpentry right through to putting
doors and skirting on, pitching roofs.
I finished my apprenticeship and became a qualified tradesman and then I became
self-employed and now I subcontract to different builders specialising in pole homes.
What I’m fitting here is a leak control flange.
That goes into the structural part of the floor.
The plumber can put his pipes underneath the house and connect to it
and the tiler will tile over the top of it and put the floor glue in.
As you know in your bathrooms you have a waste outlet.
I think doing an apprenticeship is the way to get into it. It’s
invaluable, the on-site training and also three years at TAFE.
Probably the only thing they don’t teach you is how to get on with other trades.
You need to get on well with the plumbers, electricians, all the other
trades so you can all work in together and make the job run smooth.
So when do you want to get into the bathrooms, Stuart, and put your pipe work in?
Oow!, I don’t think I can get to that before Tuesday.
Yeah, OK. We’ll work that in. Cool.
The good thing about carpentry is you see the job as a whole.
You’re there at the very beginning and you can be
there at the very end. You don’t just come and go.
Some of the things I like about this job are I’m working outside in the fresh air.
I can work my own hours and I love working with my hands and it’s a great sense of
satisfaction to stand back at the end of the day and see what you’ve constructed.