Week 9 - a Cracking Pace....

Our house is really starting to take shape and look real!

Apart from one window that is missing and therefore not hebelled, the rest of the house is fully hebelled and the top storey rendered.  Can't wait for the render to be painted and to see our colours take shape.

Now today they installed the eaves, which looks fabulous and makes it look lovely and neat!

Other bits and pieces:

• Solar panels for hot water installed
• Evap Cooler installed
• Everything roughed-in - Plumbing, Electrical, Heating/Cooling, Gas
• External doors and locks installed (except bi-fold)
• Shower Bases installed

We are moments away from lock-up!

Tomorrow the plumbers are heading back to site and will fix the shower rose to the correct height.

Still waiting to hear on some fixes to the electricals.

Front Entrance with temporary door

Evap Cooler looks quite big up there!

Heating/cooling ducts

2nd Storey is Rendered - Eaves have been installed

Missing window and no Hebel

Guest Ensuite - Biggest Shower!

Kids Bathroom with incorrect shower
inlet height.  We put a note on it to
ensure they didn't board around it.

Week 8 - Wrapping, Electricals and more Plumbing

8 weeks in and not far off "Lock-up".  Chat with SS last Friday suggested it would be the end of this week.  However as the Hebel for the 2nd level hasn't started today as supposed to, I think that lock up is more realistically next week - that also means another huge chunk to the mortgage!

Lots of bits and pieces this week.  Didn't quite realise how much till I typed it all up!

Scaffolding
So the 2nd lot of scaffolding was put up last Thursday and Friday.  What a jigsaw, can't believe it takes 2 days to install, but it is pretty impressive.  Much needed for Hebel and Rendering the whole house.

Wrapping
Yesterday the 2nd storey was wrapped in preparation for Hebel today.  As mentioned, not a sole on site though today.

Electricals
All the wiring has now been placed in with all switch and powerpoint point plates in place.  On inspection we are missing:
Washing Machine powerpoint - although I think that perhaps maybe the Electrician is thinking ahead and as the standard placement is 1350 above floor level, perhaps he realises that the WM is to go under a bench and needs to check the height????  Lets hope.  Better check with SS though so that it doesn't get forgotten.

Bath 
We have a bath frame - one of my favourite bits of the house.  I love a big deep bath.  Lots of controversy getting the bath we wanted, but managed in the end.

Doors
The Front Door (temporary one), internal access door to garage and Laundry Door now all installed.  Lock up is looming!

Preparation for Plaster
Someone has gone happy with fluro pink marking all the areas that need to be squared off in preparation for the plaster installation, which isn't far away.

House as it looks today - 8 Weeks in

Front all wrapped for final Hebel 

From the Back

Hebel begins...

A Saturday morning and the Hebel starts going up.  Apparently it takes 5-6 days to do each floor.

Plumbing Rough In

This week had the plumbers roughing in all the pipes etc for all the taps through the house.  A few days ago, I popped in to quickly have a look at the downstairs area and took some photos to just double check everything in the right place.  Straight away I noticed the washing machine taps were in the wrong location.  I remember discussing moving them on our Construction plans to from the LHS to the RHS of the cupboard so they would be closer to the washing machine and I then wouldn't have pipes taking up the whole cupboard.  However, needed to check the actual plans.  The on Friday I snuck upstairs to check the plumbing there and noticed that the shower rose wasn't at the right height.  On our first plans we had a shower on a hose, but then decided to change this at Construction Plan stage and just have a normal shower rose at 1900mm high in the Main Bathroom.  So I quickly realised that perhaps the Plumbers were not working off the right plans - the signed Construction Plans!  The errors made were from previous plans.

I emailed this all and photos to the SS.  He got back to me pretty quickly and said he would look into next week.

As those reading my blog know I am obsessed with driving past, so on a drive by after sending my email I chanced upon the plumbers back on site - bingo.  We had a quick chat about the problems.  He showed me the plans he has and yes, he was working off the original draft construction plans, not the ones that we actually agreed on and signed.  So as people have mentioned before, often they find errors because the contractors are given the wrong plans.  Just annoying that draft plans are sent out.  I was very adamant that I wasn't signing any Construction Plans until everything was spot on (to the best of my knowledge).  I felt very apologetic, but the plumber was just disappointed that he finds this out from me and that he didn't have the right plans.  So I headed home, printed off the right plans and took them around to him (perhaps with a 6 pack beer - bribery!) to thank him for making it right.  He thanked me for bringing the new plans as he called the office (guessing plumbing office) and they had no record of any newer plans - ie my signed plans!!!  Anyway, we will head over this morning and see what is happening.

 This photo shows the taps on wrong location on bottom left of wall

Edit - 11 Jun
Went by on the weekend to do a double check and the washing machine taps now fixed.
Also checked the shower rose height to see if fixed - well a shower rose was adjusted higher, just the wrong bathroom!!!  Not too fussed as I actually wanted all the shower roses at 1900mm, so now I might just say, leave our ensuite at that height and correct the bathroom one as per the plans and discussed on Friday!

It's a wrap - week 6

Thursday and the Carpenters back on site working on some of the roof trusses over the garage and installing steel beam across the front of the garage.  Originally in the plans this was listed as timber, however due to the width, it was changed to steel.

Garage - photo taken from the back,
you can see steel lintel on far side

On my little drive by, found a PD car in the driveway - yes, great opportunity to finally meet my SS.  So a quick chat.  They were discussing the double stud wall at the back of the garage and discussing a different way to resolve this issue.  Would love to tell you what that is, but a little bit over my head...........Something about building the roof trusses into the wall that is already there.  As the 1st Storey is higher than the garage, they will install the roof trusses between this gap.  Shall show a photo when it happens.

With the end of Week 6 - the 1st Storey has now been wrapped with sisalation foil, the first layer of insulation.  Getting ready for Hebel...Yippee!

Amazing how warm it is inside now that it is all wrapped up.

Frame Stage Independent Inspection

Saturday Morning opened my letterbox and found invoice for "Frame Stage Complete", posted on Weds prior to this.  Ooops, this really eats into the 7 day payment terms and dealing with the bank.  Emailed accounts at PD asking if they could please email invoice in future as they did the first one.

Suddenly occurred to me that I should be arranging for the Frame to be inspected prior to being wrapped up for the Hebel.  So got onto this on Monday.  However as I knew there was an error on our plans at the back of the garage where it joins the house - it is supposed to have a double stud wall to support the garage roof trusses, I needed to get the altered plans from PD and also the Building Variation for this.  Took till Tuesday for me to get the BV, then apparently my BC had to get the Drafting Team to change the plans.  Strange as I know the Carpenter informed them back on 10 May of this error!!!!!!  After a little harassing, BC managed to get me the plans (not the actual framing plans though) on the Weds morning.  This was in time for the Frame Independent Inspection on the Weds afternoon.  I had delayed this inspection a day, however I shouldn't have, as the double stud wall hadn't even been built yet!

The inspection went well.  

They re-looked at the issues from the Slab Inspection:

• Concrete rebate needed to back bi-fold door - been corrected
• Slab is level and should be sloping on southern side of Alfresco - needs to be corrected still.  SS asked what we are doing to this area post handover, but we don't know yet.  I do want this slab fixed.

Frame Inspection - Very good overall, mainly things still to do:

• Garage Roof Trusses not yet completed
• Alfresco Roof Trusses not yet completed
• Back Bi-fold to be installed
• 2nd Storey windows to be installed
• Side flashing to the front entry both sides of door frame to be installed

Inspector's Photos:

Concrete rebated ready for Bi-Fold Doors

Alfresco - it is the area above the drain pipe in the middle
 that isn't sloping towards the drain.

2nd Storey Windows

We have a roof..

The roof is on... Colourbond Windspray roof/gutters/fascia 

So fast - On Friday the guttering and fascia installed, followed by the roof on Tuesday.

Little difficult to get a photo of, had to head across the street.