We met with our CSC at M head office from 9:30-12 today. We went through the siting, modifications for rescode (setback and window obscuring, mostly) options list (where we deleted a few options and added/modified a couple) and the results of the site survey and soil test. Apparently we had an 800mm fall over the block, not that it looks like that much at all!
Here's an interesting tidbit: You can put the garage wall right on the boundary line, 150mm from the boundary, or 1m or more away. You can't put your garage wall anywhere between 15cm and 1m from the boundary! Keep that in mind if you're planning a rebuild... again, this led to our issue of fencing - still need to organise to remove the fence (temporarily) while the garage wall is being built. Will get stuck into that sometime this week.
Anyway, we left feeling that we're almost at the complete level (which is where we should be by now), just a couple of floorplan modifications to be approved and costed. The laundry modification and ensuite shower/toilet swap shold be drawn up and costed by Friday. The redesigned powder room, where the WC and sink are all enclosed, was only $220, including 2 narrow windows to replace the normal single window.
The thing is, there's a chance we might even start building this year! If all goes smoothly, we may accept the preliminary contract in a week or so, have the final one signed by early October, (organise the demolition end October) and start as soon as November! Didn't think we'd even be able to get ready by early next year - apparently M can get the building permit within a week of final contract; depending on whether everything is unconditional by then (eg finance approved, demo permit approved, easement permission given etc).
After lunch, we went to Whitehorse council, where we had another good meeting with a building regulations officer who helped us on a few issues:
- Building (near) the easement should be fine - our issues are a slight bit of excavation over the easement side, and the eaves overhanging. Submitting a $125 bit of paper should get us approval for our needs - yay!
- Demolition - well, I got one quote back via email today for $11k, which is about what we expected. Still waiting on a few more quotes. But on this note, we have to pay for an Asset Protection Permit - but if we get it in our name, will cover the demo, build, and the extended crossover.
- Crossover - we definitely want a wider driveway, as the 50yr old entry is barely wide enough for a small car. We;ll apply for the largest possible - about 3m across. More expense, naturally - $150 application fee, $500 bond, then the price of the actual crossover itself which I've been told is north of $2500.
Hoping to hear back from our CSC on Friday regarding updated floorplan and revised pricing. Right now it's madness making lists of things to do (which I'm mostly doing) and picking colours (which I'm leaving to T to sort out).
T&T
Hi There,
ReplyDeleteI'm in the process of building with Metricon and it is exciting to see where you're at in your building process. Just something you should be careful of when it comes to setting start dates is the banks. We had huge delays in getting our finance through due to the backlog of people applying for first homes.
We dropped our finance application in about the 4th of Feb this year and we didn't get our final documents to sign to make it unconditional until 27th of April, almost 2 months later. In the meantime Metricon don't apply for any permits or order anything which held us up quite a bit.
Now all is going pretty well though, we're only building 1 storey 32sq and it is about week 12 and we're already into the completion phase.
Not good about the tiles, we had all silver stickers to choose from which was just about everything, I think we only upgraded one tile because everything else was standard, now I feel very lucky.
Good luck with it.
Cheers,
Ben