Got some gravelly type stuff at the front (roughly where the future driveway will be) and a bunch of pipes sticking out of the ground - I reckon these are mostly stormwater pipes, judging from their location. Probably a few pipes for sewerage too (the ones located "within" the future slab). My aunt gave us a call to say she drove by at about 2pm, and they were packing up the bulldozer onto trucks, so they probably started early today as all tradespeople do.
This pic alongside the fence; there won't be any slab here (approx 3m gap between the house and the fence, you can see two smaller stormwater pipes which mark the edge of the house halfway up the photo) so I'm not sure what the gravel here is for - any ideas? Also this big pipe at the bottom of the picture is not located anywhere near the slab, so maybe it's for general drainage or something?
We also found a invoice letter in the rubbish cage, and it listed another property in Blackburn that was having pipes delivered - we went there, and sure enough, near Blackburn Lake is another Metricon house going up, but they're about a week ahead of us going by the date on the invoice. Interesting how many Metricon houses are currently being built or recently finished in our area - I know of at least 7 others in the whitehorse area now!
And to go to our regular "feedback" section of blog posting where we reply to comments left on the previous post (which we quite enjoy, everyone feel free to comment on any post!)
sarahV: yep, you were right about the trench, there's 2 trenches connecting the outdoor room pillar to the rest of the slab area. Plus I've also had a look at the floating floor youtube vids too :) I've also had a play with the floating floor samples at Bunnings, seems easy enough to DIY, so I reckon we'll give it a go ourselves! Tina likes a very dark/black style of wood floor which isn't generally available in a hardwood floor, so we may end up looking at laminate flooring to get the right look - also will have a look at bamboo and vinyl plank timber look, which is apparently very good nowadays.
sean: I think the reason M give a contract time of 370 days is to avoid any possibility of them having to pay late fees; there's been another Nolan built a few streets away from us, and it was fully complete in about 7 months. We'd be plenty happy if our house was ready by August/September (best case scenario?) and worst case scenario - we're still in before xmas 2010 :). So, while M probably estimate they can finish this house in 8 months, they'll quote 12 months just to make sure they're not in a position to pay $250/week late fees!
julian: We used Gravity Demolition. Price was good, though there was about a week's delay in demolition from the date quoted, and some damage to council property which we ended up further out of pocket for, so I'm not giving them a 100% recommendation. After the demolition is done, M will send a "pre planner" to assess the site which can take 1-2 weeks, and they will check that everything is ready to commence. In our case, we had to get the neighbour's phone line shifted as it was overhanging our block of land which delayed starting by about a week. After this was done, the site was scraped about a week later.
I doubt there will be much activity over this long weekend (how come I have to work Monday?) but have saved up some other relevant pics which I'll post up during this time!
T&T
Hi Tim & Tina,
ReplyDeleteabout the contract time - where I used to live one of the neighbours built a Metricon - a Liberty 42. It nearly took a year with various delays including brick shortages that caused a standstill of over 1 month. It was one of those situations where you saw lots of activity at once, then nothing for a long period.
In the second pic - You may have an agricultural drainage pipe to capture surface water from flowing from your neighbours side into your house. I have a couple of those in my backyard and along the fence. The gravel is to provide a porous layer above the pipe - so that any excess waters drains into the pipe instead of flowing towards your house.
With the damage to the pavement - have the same problem. best not to do anything until the house is finished. Resist all attempts by council to fix it. I started out with one cracked segment after demolition - but now have 4 cracked segments after the various contractors have been through. The agreement I have with my builder is that they will either fix it or when I get my driveway done - I can get the concretor to fix it and then the builder will reimburse me.
My other comment is watch the water meter. Find out if your builder is going to replace it with a new one. if so, best to inform Yarra Valley water because it will save you a lot of grief with water readings. I have wasted a lot of time after the plumbers took my old one away and didn't replace one, then got a nasty letter from YVW threatening to charge me for a replacement meter, then took 2 weeks for the builder to get the plumbers onto it and now I have a new water meter.
the stories I can tell........
Regards,
Sean
its exciting when you see things progressing nicely. We got excited when the insurance company builders rebuilt our house after the fire in Jan 2009. We photographed the repairs and put them on my facebook site. We're all done now and back in (took 6 months)to rebuild half of our roof, fix the loungeroom, rebuild ceilings in lounge and in the kitchen.
ReplyDeleteWhen your all done- make sure you have a good insurance policy covering your house and contents (WITH TEMP ACCOMMODATION CLAUSES IN POLICY!!!!)We would have been in serious trouble if we didn't have good insurance.