Retainer walls completed -Tick - 29 July 2013

Well after having such a quick site cut we were in for a few days of retaining wall building. The guys were great and very professional. As our site fill had a retaining height of 1.4m at the highest point it meant that the galvanised steel bars were in a 2.5m deep hole 450mm diameter (big !!). As the concrete was setting they had to move quickly and all was done over a three day period.

After a few nervous moments where we thought the heavens would open, it stayed nice and dry for the whole exercise, so now we have a good flat block to start with the next phase... bring on our piering !! 66 holes. Yeah they could be doing that for a while we think.

Anyway the attached photos give you a nice look at the new flat block we have. Again great job so far, fingers crossed the weather stays good for another dry Melbourne winter (ha ha), one can only hope.

SITE CUT - Tick - 24 July 2013

Well, it's all smiles around here... very happy to report activity on site, they have started as promised on the 23rd July (yesterday).

Site cut was started and finished by the afternoon! To our surprise, we noted that the cut was a little deeper than we expected. Our land is approx 47 meters long (15.27m wide) and due to the fall of the land and the length of the house (27 metres) the cut line was moved in the 2nd revision of construction drawings. (probably due to the 2nd soil test results, after demolition of the old house).

We are sitting lower than we would have liked on the block, but we accept that not much can be done about it as the block is sloping. The upside of this is that we have a nice elevated aspect from the rear, which is where all our living spaces are. Will definitely have to re-do our back fence.., just a little higher we think...

so this is before the cut when it was pegged out...



a little problem, it was discovered (a little late) that our neighbours phone, internet cables etc ran alongside where our old driveway was and along the inside of our land.... they were damaged and the lines stripped and cut, it was reported straight away and should get fixed up today. The pic shows the white conduit.


and this is during the cut....

and after...


We are informed that next thing will be to erect the retainer walls..... soon.....

Colour Selections

While we wait for next week.... here are our colour selections choices...Cant wait to report some action on site!

Start date set and ready to go!

Wooo Hooo !!! After much to-ing and fro-ing with construction drawing amendments, we are finally on our way now...

Got confirmation of start date to be 23rd July for site cut and a 10th August for slab pour.
We recommend checking over every part of your drawings. Pay attention to the detail; things like the location of waste drains, extraction venting from bathrooms and door heights.

We learned that we needed to check 'standard inclusions' like the hot water system (only 175 litres), which they say is adequate for the size of your 5 bedroom home but not when compared to the Rinnai spec sheet. I think we will upgrade to 270L with an S26 booster. We also added two extra heating vents to the upstairs bathrooms. They can add them to the upper floor but not to the downstairs, we also zoned the heating between the upper and ground floor, well worth it we think.

We also think we need an extra down pipe for our garage.... roof area is in excess of 50msq with only one down pipe; the spreader from the second storey flows onto that roof as well, so I think we will be looking at trying to convince PD to provide a better solution. Slotted gutters or not, we don't want a water problem later. They did !!... we have an extra gutter.

Now we just need to hope for some dry weather, a dry winter, about the 10th of August for the slab pour. Time is ticking, at least with the start of the build now provided, the pressure is on PD to build in the time frame. Thirty eight weeks with 28 days over Christmas and 10 days inclement weather; should be a breeze. Now with a site start date in sight, we are getting very excited that all our hard work and patience will finally materialise and become our dream come true. Stay tuned...