There is no OVERHANG, page-87

I went down last Thursday to watch the Hadrian in action. It was a beautiful day and the build was three or four courses high. I had a chat to a lovely bloke from fbr who gave my son a red ball and me a pin. There was two vans onsite, one for engineers to follow and correct mistakes/software issues, and one for fbr media. I was told neither would normally be there. There was a telehandler and a couple of employees flying a drone. The back of the Hadrian was open and you could watch the internal workings and see the brick storage. I stayed for about half an hour.

It was impressive to watch in action and long suffering shareholders deserve some relief. It didn’t really alleviate the concerns I have about the concept though. The main positive was that it was very quiet. The machine moved at a slow and steady pace and it is obviously technically impressive. The back of the Hadrian didn’t hold as many bricks as I thought it would and it will need regular reloading. It also takes up a large amount of space, although I was assured it could park closer to the build. But for most builds, in Australia anyway, it would need to be parked on the verge in front of the house. I personally think this will be a problem. For this build it is working from the empty block next to it, and looks to have been driven in from another block next to it (it is working from an empty corner position). It was also laying the bricks flush to the edge of the concrete and the single layer gave the house a bit of a cheap look to it. I will leave the technical side of building approvals to others, but I would imagine it would be a hard sell to West Aussies who are used to double brick construction. It will be interesting to see how much work is needed on the house once the Hadrian leaves.

Good luck to holders. The cynic in me sees a capital raising in the next week or two while the price is up, and I have no idea how fbr will make money out of the Hadrian unless it is cheaper than a bricklaying team (after all, with both options you still end up with a house), but at least they are outside having a crack and inventing something.