# Forum Home Renovation The Cubby House  Cubby Frame Building Materials

## nickdablack

Hi all.
What materials do people reccomend for building a cubby. The goal is for it to be solid but not too expensive. I had a quick look at Bunnings and have based my designs on 70x35mm treaded pine. I figure I need about 70 linear meters. Its looking like costing around $100 for the frame alone. Just wondering if there is a way to achieve the same goal for less $$.

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## droog

When I built my cubby house I used the 70 x 35 non structural pine from Bunnies, but then it is fully sealed and is not exposed to the weather. 
Dave

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## shauck

Don't know what your local tip is like but sometimes I've found useable timber lying in great piles. If your prepared to sort through it and denail, cut out unusable bits, etc. Free timber.

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## homesafe

My daughter and i are building a cubby for a couple of kids we unofficially sponsor (dad did a bolt soon after the younger was born and no child support) room is limited in their yard so we have kept the size down to about 1800 square and are designing it to be dismantlable should they need to move.  The base is 70x35 treated pine frame with yellow toungue flooring.  The roof will be external ply as will be the cladding.  The frame will be 70x35 pine built as prefab and bolted together to the other walls.  All relatively light, easy to work with and so long as it painted or shielded from the weather it should do fine.  Neither of us are great fans of treated pine with kiddies

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## nickdablack

To ask a silly question, what is the risk with treated pine?

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## homesafe

The old treated pine to my knowledge was impregnanted with arsenic which isn't too condusive to good health.  They say that the new stuff is ok with kids but i just don't trust anything that has had chemicals added to it.

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## Master Splinter

> To ask a silly question, what is the risk with treated pine?

  Nothing whatsoever, as long as you don't eat more than about a cupfull of the stuff per month.   
"Extensive research has shown that arsenic is safe or tolerable to ingest  at rates below two µg/kg of body weight per day (World Health  Organisation limit), or three µg/kg of body weight per day (Food  Standards Australia limit). Indeed, arsenic is the 20th most common  element on earth, so the ability for animal life to cope with some level  of arsenic is to be expected. 
Arsenic occurs naturally in Australian soil at concentrations between  0.2 and 50 parts per million (ppm, equal to mg/kg), with an average  of five to six ppm.
 The arsenic used in CCA is in a form  (arsenate or pentavalent arsenic) that is five to ten times less toxic  than the most toxic form, arsenite (trivalent arsenic). Fixation  modifies the arsenate into metal-metal complexes and organo-complexes  with wood.  
 Ingestion studies with animals have shown that this  greatly reduces its mammalian toxicity. For example, no evidence of  toxicity was found after beagle dogs were fed 10 grams of CCA-treated  sawdust per day for five days in food. Seventy percent of the arsenic  passed with wood through the faeces. The rest was expelled in urine,  having been extracted from wood in the stomach. The bulk (85 per cent)  of the urinary arsenic was detoxified to dimethylarsinic acid. 
In another experiment, researchers in New Zealand found no abnormalities  after sheep and calves were fed 454 grams of CCA-treated pine on one  occasion, or 113 grams per day for 25 days." 
Reference: CSIRO

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## SlowMick

Master Splinter - do you have the CSIRO library at home?  You have an amazing knowledge of their research - i found myself reading about roof tiles the other night. cheers. :2thumbsup:

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## Master Splinter

....gotta use the 100 gig download allowance per month somehow....

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## The Bleeder

> ....gotta use the 100 gig download allowance per month somehow....

  I'll send round my 6yo and he can fix that. (16gig in two days). Thank god he's back with his mum.  
On the subject of the cubby house just use non structural pine for the wall studs and noggings as these will/should not be subjected to the weather. 
Use treated pine for building the base. Use plywood for the walls and the floor. 
The one I build was from massive pine pallets. Denailing, cutting up etc .... it probably cost me only slightly less than if I bought everything. 
Then I did have fun doing it and the kids that it went to really enjoy it. (Happy allround)

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## Black Cat

Arsenic has enjoyed favour as a beauty aid and as a horse tonic for quite some time (though out of fashion now). As a beauty aid it deepens and moistens the eye so as to look limpid and appealing. It has the same effect on a horse's eye which is why it has fallen out of favour as a tonic for the - the stewards picked up on its presence too easily!!

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## Master Splinter

> I'll send round my 6yo and he can fix that. (16gig in two days). Thank god he's back with his mum.

  Upgraded now - 250 gig, with ABC iView and the Australian Steam servers included on the 'not counted against quota' list.

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