Drove past our block of land today, and was surprised to see some fresh concrete around the underground powerpit that we had put in at the start of November - about time! Looks very neat and tidy now.
However, we also got a letter from the council saying the demolition crew had wrecked a couple of footpath "squares" - I don't know a better word for them - and it'd cost us $600 to have it all fixed. Now, my understanding of the "asset protection permit" was that it would protect us from paying rectification costs, but apparently that's not the case... another $600 going into this build :(
And while we're talking about powerpits and demolition additional costs, we had a comment from B&T (another Nolan builder - I should start up a little club!) asking about the demolition process. Here's a summary:
- Obtain asset protection permit from your council & pay any required bond amount (ours was $160 for the permit, $1000 bond)
- Choose a demolition contractor after getting some quotes
- Arrange telephone line disconnection through Telstra (allow 1-2 weeks), They won't physically disconnect the line - once the phone number has been "inactivated" your demo crew can just cut the lead-in phone line and take it to the telephone pole.
- Arrange electricity and gas disconnections through your electricity/gas providers (allow 2-4 weeks) and the house must be vacant before they'll remove the electricity and gas meters.
- If you're redeveloping your block, make sure you leave the water meter and front tap, and get your demo crew to remove everything but these two items.
Finally, here's a screen capture of MyMetricon, the online tool for tracking your house build. Apparently Porter Davis has a similar customer tool, but I've not seen what it looks like.
This screen shows our "preconstruction" chart with everything completed (finally!). This includes such items as deposit, sales process, colour, electrical selections etc, contracts, planning and ordering, right up to the site start date.
This pic shows us the "construction" screen - and clearly nothing's been started yet (the site scrape doesn't get a mention on this screen). Hopefully this empty screen will rocket along to having a whole bunch of yellow bars soon!
Also got an email from Gena yesterday (didn't think she'd be doing emails on her break!) just letting us know we won't be getting any bills while we're overseas in January, which is nice.
I think we'll head to the beach for a day or two tomorrow as it'll be over 30 until Thursday afternoon. Not much accommodation about, but will find a little motel or something near the beach (hopefully) online.
T&T
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteYou've been charged $600 for fixing the footpath, did council return you $400 straight after demolition? or is it going to be hold until building completion?
Cheers,
B
Well, as it turns out I've spoken to council recently and will get a new reassessment once the build is 100% complete. Will probably end up replacing the footpath when we do the crossover and driveway, and get all my deposit back from council.
ReplyDeleteT&T
Thank you for your reply.
ReplyDeletedid you cap the sewage before/after the demolition?
we have to organise the demolition soon, you've provided so much information, good on you!
Cheers,
B
Cap sewage? Didn't have to worry about that, just had to disconnect gas & electricity first, and the demo crew handled everything else.
ReplyDeleteT&T