Rapidwall helps "Black Saturday" fire victim

Rapidwall helps out “Black Saturday” fire victim

A little over six months after the devastating Victoria bush fires destroyed her home, Jacqui is preparing to move in to her new Rapidwall home.

Built over the ruins of her old home, a section of concrete was laid onto the existing slab in May and building started in mid June.

“The incredible thing about this” said Jacqui, “is that the planning and getting approvals took more time than it did to erect my new home.” 

“We only started erecting the walls on June the 11th and here it is just nine weeks later and I’ll be moving in to a completely new home.  I can’t believe it.”

“And it would have been sooner if not for a few weather delays”, she added.  

Mr Zwaans said, “Our manufacturing, research and development facility is in Kilmore and fortunately was untouched by the fires so we wanted to contribute in some way to the rebuilding the community that surrounds us.   And what better way, we thought, than to offer to provide the panels and to build a Rapidwall home since it is so ideally suited to quick construction, it’s fireproof and ecologically sustainable.” 

“We were approached by a local resident Kieran Barry who was helping fire victims and we told Kieran, who was previously a builder, that if he found the right person we would be happy to donate the Rapidwall and to erect a home.”

“Over the next few days, Kieran talked with many fire victims about building with Rapidwall and it was at one of these discussions, with a number of local residents, that Jacqui’s name was suggested.”

“We were delighted to know that it was people in the local community and not us who identified a person deserving of our assistance.  Soon after we met with Jacqui and she accepted our offer.” 

“We commissioned an architect, who worked with Jacqui and soon the designs for her new home were complete.” 

“This has been an amazing experience for us all.  It has been wonderful working with Jacqui, she is such an inspiration to us and the rest of the community and has contributed her time, energy and money to get this project completed.”  

“And of course the most pleasing thing is that Jacqui is delighted with the end result.”