Evaporative cooling installed

Fortunately the rain and hail held off today, and the crew arrived at 8am to start work installing our evaporative cooling system.

There were 4 blokes on the job, and managed to get everything installed by midday. This is the Braemar 550 with 7 vents. The one thing about the Braemar is that the unit is simply a huge box - some other designs have a sloping lower edge so they sit a little closer to the roof. This makes them appear visually smaller - but has the side effect of being a tiny bit noisier too. Anyway, the shape of the box wasn't really a factor in choosing this unit, since we're not going to spend much time staring at it from the street. At least it's a matching colour (Slate Grey) to our roof tiles!

Still got a pile of old ruined fence sitting in the front - the fence guy injured his back and hasn't been back on our job for a week so far.

The end result - the boss was good enough to spend a bit of time discussing vent placement and where things should go for the best result, so I was happy for him to advise us. The main thing was that we want as much flow as possible down through the stairwell, and it's not necessary to have the main vent directly over the stairwell void. This is because this big evaporative unit pushes a huge amount of airflow into the house, so the main thing for whole-of-house cooling will be keeping the upstairs windows only a little bit open, all the upstairs doors open, and the downstairs windows wide open to get maximum air exchange.


So now we can bring on Melbourne's heatwaves without fear! The smaller bedrooms have a 12" duct, the master has a 14" and the ensuite a 10". The leisure area upstairs has a 16", and the stairwell void, a massive 18" duct. Getting some window blinds is the next priority. I rang the bloke today about the flooring from the last post - he said he'd call me back, never did. Anyone who's been following the blog knows how shitty I get about bad customer service...

T&T

Day 158: Garage roof flashing and gutter

Sometime today, the garage roof had metal flashing and the lear gutter installed.

You can see the metal flashing up against the bricks - also the last 3-4 ridge capping tiles have been dislodged from the mortar, so will have to make sure that gets fixed. Wondering if the ridge capping at the back of the house has been fixed? The lear gutter is hidden from view, between the garage roof and the house wall, and diverts drainage to another gutter.

T&T

Day 156: Garage roof in daylight

Day off sick today - first one in years; but managed to drag myself out of bed to drive past our house. Looking good with the roof finished over the garage now!


Also got a call from our SS today - the fixing carpenter should start work tomorrow, doing things like doors etc and also addressing the issues from our inspection; and probably painters coming in the week after next (hopefully the missing plaster in the kitchen will be installed and sanded by then!). Tina's going to meet our SS next Friday to check on inspection issues and to get a feel for how everything is going so far.

T&T

Day 155: Garage roof done, and more work in the wet rooms

Turned up at 7pm and astonished to find someone still on site!

Anyway, we're thinking that the tilers came in the morning to finish off the garage roof - finally no more rain and mud in our garage area! Been keenly anticipating this part of the roof being done, as there's not much more to do for the facade to be complete.


However there's a couple of little things that need fixing in the garage roof - I think the rear gutter is incomplete, and there's a couple of noggins missing from the truss in the pic below. Easy to fix providing it's done before the plaster goes up!!!


The people who stayed back to dinnertime were working in the wet areas, just finishing off some cabinetry work.

In the ensuite (above pic), handles have been installed, basins placed in rough position (won't be sealed in until ceasarstone delivered) and a big backing board for the wall mirror mounted. Because of the little drawers in the ensuite vanity, the handles here are smaller than used in the other vanities; but still looks good.

And in the bathroom, handles, basin and mirror backing board installed. Still no more items from our inspection fixed yet.

T&T

Day 151: Site clean, and noticing other work done during the week

Turned up at the house this afternoon to find a bloke doing a site clean - finally, all the broken tiles in the backyard are gone, and a much neater site for the trades to work on.

We were able to discover some other things that have been done during the last week; first of all, the missing garage roof truss has been delivered and installed.


You can just about figure which roof truss has been installed, as it's missing horizontal noggins on either side of it, just above the garage side wall.

Also, the shower bases in the ensuite and bathroom have been flush finished.

The cool thing about the showers we're getting, is that the tiling is totally flush and continuous from the shower base to the floor of the bathroom - there's absolutely no lip or raised guttering required! Very modern and minimalist - it'll look fantastic!

Finally, Item 15 from our independent inspector's report has been rectified.


From his report: "15. As per AS1684.4 for timber framing table 8.3, ply bracing requires fixing along all edges at 150mm maximum spacings. The ply brace on the kitchen wall adjacent to the window has not been nailed along the top edge. The structural engineers bracing design will also detail these fixing requirements. Recommend viewing the documents for confirmation of
the requirements." If you look closely in the above pic, you can see quite a few additional fixing nails in this ply brace - probably twice as many as required, but better too many than too few!

Still many other inspection items to be rectified, so as they're done we'll tick them off our list.

We're thinking that a few things need to be fixed before the kitchen & vanities go in - first of all, the remaining issues in the kitchen area need to be fixed, so that plaster can be finished before the kitchen is installed. Also, the laundry waste needs to be moved from out unde the cabinet position before that's installed too. Hopefully our SS is on the ball with that too!

T&T

Day 144: Plasterers working on a saturday - cornices installed

Thought we'd stop by the house after lunch today, nothing much has happened the last couple of days but apparently the plasterers were in this morning, as the cornices have been installed.

Hopefully the writing will be scrubbed off, or at least fully hidden by painting! This is a closeup of a weird little recess near the entry door.


Standing in family room looking at kitchen. There's still some frame issues to rectify before plaster is installed over the fridge recess & along the side. You can see the horizontal kitchen window splashback, which will have cupboards above & below there. To the right of that is the door to the pantry, then the huge fridge recess. Because we moved the laundry door from the kitchen, the fridge recess is now big enough for 3 fridges! One for food, one for wine, one for beer...

And this is why we still don't have tiling on the garage roof - we're missing a truss right here. The roof protection is on, the tiles & pointing are delivered, so I guess as soon as the truss can be delivered, the carpenters should stick it up, then the tiling can get started. Sooner the better too - with all the rain lately, there's a few inches of mud coating the garage floor!

Hoping to see some action with stairs in this coming week too!

T&T

Day 141: Garage roof protection

Just some scaffolding/OH&S stuff for the garage roof, which means the roof tiles here should be put up pretty soon.


T&T

Day 136: Roof tiles for garage delivered

Today, a delivery of nearly 2 pallets of roof tiles for the garage roof, as well as the timber tile trusses.


MyMetricon has also had a little update, with the plaster scheduled to be completed by 21.5.10; two weeks from today. That'd be nice!

T&T

Day 133: Roof tilers repairing damage

Went by after lunch to find a roof tiler working hard, throwing out broken tiles all over the backyard.


After running a few errands, came back a couple of hours later when it started pouring rain - a good chance to check there were no leaks!

Looking out over the ground floor roof, can see all the broken tiles have been replaced, with a small pile of tiles for later? The broken roof pointing has also been replaced but not cemented into place.


And some detail of the garage roof trusses. The garage wall is 150mm off the boundary, which means a regular gutter will fit and be right on the boundary, so no need for a parapet gutter. Will have to get the side fence put back after this roof is done - 4 sections of fence were removed, and 2 were destroyed during the site scrape, so we'll have to pay for some new sections of fence, hopefully not too expensive!

T&T

Day 132: Garage roof trusses put up

Carpenters came back today to put up the roof trusses, and apparently they started work on rectifying the internal frame issues caught at last week's inspection.


T&T

Day 111: Lockup carpenters on site

Got a voicemail from Monique this morning for our weekly update. Apparently the lockup carpenters are working on the eaves today, and hopefully will start on the balcony floor and cladding for front & rear tomorrow!


A minor job, but an important one - the bipart sliding doors have been installed in the frame. They look great already, can't wait to get them stained!



Also a very elegant sign from Slattery & Acquroff stairs! Check out their website for some of the stair designs on offer, many pictures of stairs from Metricon display homes. The stairs we chose is the Contemporary 17 design - cantilevered with stainless steel balustrade and continuous handrail, which we will stain dark to match the front & rear doors.

At the rear of the house, some timber framing has been installed outside the wrapping to which the linea board (weatherboard cladding) will be fixed to. You can also see the eaves installed, and when they're painted they should match the Surfmist fascia well. Plenty more broken tiles on the roof... but with a lot more work to be done above the roof, all the broken ones will be replaced after work is complete.

This view looking up at the front shows how the eaves have been installed -the lockup carpenters fixed extra battens under the roof trusses, to which the eave plastering is fixed to. Only a few more sections of eaves to be installed tomorrow!

Finally, went back at night to see how the house looks - things are moving along well, and I think I'll spend my day off tomorrow hanging around the front, watching the carpenters work! Monique thinks the lockup stage should be done in a couple of weeks, right on time for the end of April.

T&T

Day 100: Tragedy!#@$$!!@!!!

Erm... well, not really :) April fools day, right? Also Day 100 of the build. Lots of pictures in this blog post!

I was all set to go home without visiting the site, as I thought there wouldn't have been anything done - I mean, it's the day before the Easter long weekend, what self-respecting tradie would bother working on a day like today? But when I checked in with Tina, she was all excited..
"I'm up on the scaffolding... there's been heaps of work done!" - well of course I had to see what the fuss was about!

Today's Work #1: Brickies on site early, again! They weren't meant to be back until after Easter, but they were hard at it today! The balcony is starting to take shape, with the lintels all installed and a few courses of bricks put up. Also, the west side ground floor bricking has been completed, though it's hard to get a look with the scaffolding in the way.


Plus the rear bipart door and home theatre window bricking over has been done too. Ground floor bricking, all done!


Today's Work #2: First floor has been wrapped all the way around. We're now pretty well protected from the elements! See first picture.

Today's Work #3: The heating unit has been installed, and a whole bunch of heating ducts have been run through the roof and through to the ground floor! No idea how they managed to get such a huge unit in the house and up into the roof cavity.


Next picture shows another view of the gas unit sitting on some wood in the roof cavity, and a bunch more pipes. Very interesting in how the pipes are run through spaces in the frame to get to the ground floor!


Today's Work #4: Chippies have been through the house, planing the studs and adding packing - this is to make sure the stud walls are as vertical as possible so that the plaster goes on straight. No pics of this today (maybe tomorrow)!

Today's Work #5: This may have been a few days ago, but when we were up on the top level of scaffolding checking out the solar panel, we also saw our aerial perched at the very apex of the roof. Nice! And looking to the right, you can see the solar panel that has been installed up on the roof, connecting to the hot water service, also installed in the last few days.


It's incredible seeing the amount of work being done in just one day - good organisation by our SS! She didn't call us this week; probably because she was too busy calling tradies in, and that's fine by us! Hopefully the first floor bricking and cladding will be complete in the next few weeks; though there's quite a bit of work for the garage to be done (putting up the garage roof, trusses and tiling). Hoping to be at lockup stage by the end of April, and maybe we'll dare to ask our SS when she reckons everything will be complete!

Happy Easter everyone!

T&T

Day 99: Internal plumbing, roof flashing

Realised when we got to our house around 7pm that the days are definitely getting shorter and darker already - note to self; pack a big flashlight in car for future visits! Didn't think anything would be done this week except for the scaffolding, but happy to be proved wrong!

Anyway, while it didn't look like anything was done on the outside, we've had our front tap replaced and water connection to the water meter done, and internally the plumbers had been busy connecting up all the "hidden" piping for the basins, showers, baths, toilets etc.


This picture is standing in the dining room, looking up at the bathroom plumbing. The big pipe on the right leading nowhere will be connected to the bathtub, the pipe on the left connects to the vanity and shower. Other connections have been installed for the toilets and other waste outlets.

Also all the mixing mechanisms had been installed for the showers & baths; and the ensuite shower floor had been put in - though the rainfall showerhead still hasn't been moved - need to remind our SS next time she calls. Another thing to follow up on is the floor waste to the laundry hasn't been moved yet.


Also, flashing for the ground floor roof had been installed; the metal gutter-like thing running alongside the tiles. Plus a few tiles broken in the process! There's also 2 pipes connected to the plumbing, that look like they drain from the roof. Not sure what they're for.


T&T

Day 83: Roof completed, bricks delivered!

Today the ground floor roof tiling & pointing was completed - nice to know that everything is undercover now!


This is a view of the ground floor roof from Bed 3. We love how they look close up!

Also had a big delivery of other items today - I think it was about 15 pallets of bricks, around 7200 bricks in total, weighing something like 24 tonnes - if the delivery invoice is to be believed! Still waiting on another 9000 bricks or so in a later delivery. Funny thing was, I was driving through Heidelberg this morning and saw a big Austral Bricks truck going the other way, and was thinking to myself "Maybe those are our bricks?" Can't know for sure...


Checking things out in closer details, these are the correct Austral Hawthorn bricks that we chose. They look like a good batch - nice dark brown bricks with many black specks in them!

Internally, we noticed the drain pipe for the powder room sink had been moved about a foot - we also need to let our SS know the laundry waste pipe also needs to be moved. Hopefully they won't damage the laundry sliding door in the process, as the powder room was full of concrete bits when that pipe was moved.

Meeting our SS tomorrow afternoon - need to print off a list of minor things we need to check up on.

D&E: Glad to hear you're finding our blog useful! If you need any other details don't be afraid to post a comment anywhere on the blog.

T&T

Day 80: Happy 100th blog post! First floor roof tiling completed

OK, so I think this is the official #100 blog post - woohoo! And to celebrate, today was a beautiful Melbourne autumn day, just right for the tilers to finish off the first floor roof tiling including pointing.


Kind of hard to see from this angle, but the first floor tiles are all up there. Plus at least another hundred smashed on the ground! We'll go in on the weekend with brooms to sweep out all the crap from last weekend's hailstorms.



The other thing done today was that the carpenters came back to cut out the bottom part for doorframes - you can kind of see the trail of sawdust in the doorways above. Unfortunately the wrong door position from Bed 4 to the bathroom hasn't been corrected, so it's another thing to add to our list of things to be fixed. Plus there's a couple of doors which haven't been cut out, I think to the linen cupboards, and all the sliding robe doors, so the chippies will be back a few times for that anyway. I'm never quite sure why tradies turn up to do 30 minutes of work each day - wouldn't it be more efficient and practical to do one job at a time until it's complete? Anyway, not my responsibility to organise all that, as long as it all works out in the end!

We also got the frame stage invoice today, dated from yesterday - while officially the frame stage isn't complete as the external door frames aren't on, we'll just pay this invoice as there's a list of minor things which we'll raise as items to fix on Tuesday when we next meet with our SS. We're hoping that by our meeting, the ground floor tiling will be complete, and hopefully the doors all on too!

T&T

Day 77: More roof tiling, windows finished, fence replaced

Last day of a 4 day long weekend, and I thought I'd go mop up the damage at our house... the ground floor covered in 2" of water (at least we know the frame is watertight!

When I got there, a bloke from Jim's Fencing was replacing the rear fence (which was infested with ivy).


Said he had been there from 7, and the tilers were there about 8:30 but couldn't finish the job because a truss was missing, or something. The ground floor roof has had the tile trusses installed, and the first floor is about 50% tiled now.

I went to buy a broom and misc things from Bunnings, and when I got back the carpenters were finishing up putting all the windows in. They installed all the remaining windows, as well as the master bedroom french doors.


View of home theatre. You can look out the window on the left to the backyard, and the window on the right to the outdoor room. I mentioned that the wrong window had been put in the family room, and they moved it so it was in the HT (double glazed awning windows).

Asking about when the remaining doors would go in (front door, rear bipart door and internal access doorframe), they said they were waiting on something, but should be done this week sometime - and that would mean frame complete! Hopefully a wrap will be added this week, that might stop some rain coming in.

T&T

Day 76: The "Once In A Lifetime" hailstorm takes vengeance!

So the plan this long weekend was to first enjoy a game of golf yesterday at Tahatuan (Rowville). Of course, I can't even fit my golf clubs and cart into my car (which I'm trying to sell) so I borrow Mum's old Mitsubishi 4WD to get to golf.

Nice hot morning, but after lunch and by the 17th hole, the sky suddenly turned black - getting out my umbrella, hailstones the size of the golf balls we had been hitting all morning started pounding down - felt like I was being shot with paintball pellets!

So within minutes, the golf course had flooded, and a blanket of hailstones started piling up. What a disaster! Plus... only found out on the Sunday that Mum's car didn't fair well, with about 100 dints from hailstones on the bonnet and roof. Sorry mum! And with hundreds of cars/houses damaged, it'll take forever to get the repairs done... at least I didn't drive my car to golf; I think the dents would make it even harder to sell!

Anyway, our house was (of course) flooded on the ground floor, seeing as we didn't really have any walls or roof to speak of. Might go in tomorrow and use a broom to push out the water if it's still there. No pics worth putting up here.

stefan: yup, we were worried the tiles would be cracked, or that the piles of tiles on the roof would fall off! From ground level all seems OK, but will have to check closer once the weather makes it safe to get up on the first floor.

The one big score for the weekend was when Tina remembered there was a new "estate" just around the corner from my parents. I remember thinking it was a bit pricey when I checked out the first release about 4 years ago, I think asking $500k+ for the the smallest 500m blocks? Anyway. when we drove past there on the weekend, about 60% of the blocks had buildings on them, most still in construction but a few completed ones, and a great variety of styles. And... at least half a dozen Metricons going up! Here's one of them.

This one has almost the same facade we're getting (ours will also have the balcony rendered). Tina's figured out this particular house is a Riva with home theatre extension at the rear. Looking at the side of the house. you can see a narrow vertical window where the stairs are, plus on the ground floor a horizontal kitchen window splashback. This house also has standard eaves, about 450mm projection at the facade, but a few metres back on the side the eaves stop altogether. There's timber windows to the facade (and also strangely enough, the rear of the house), two-tone gutter & fascia, with downpipes matched to the gutter.This house must be close to completion, as there's an aerial on the roof and hot water system installed.

There's also a pretty big slope on this bit of land, with a 1m retaining wall on the left, and the garage is setdown at least a meter from the house slab - plus you can see three steps leading up to the portico. I'd imagine site costs would be a fair bit on this particular house - but then again, there's no flat blocks at all in this estate (we saw one house with a front door about 3m off the ground - I'd imagine a massive set of stairs would have to go up to that!). The bricks are similar to the Austral Hawthorn we've chosen, but not exactly the same. The light cladding is similar to the "Surfmist" matching colour we've got on our cladding.

Some of the other builders in this estate are Porter Davis, National Builders Group, Simonds and a few others that I can't remember. Will post up with other Metricon houses from this estate in later posts, if there's no work on our house being done! Should be quite a prestigious estate when it's completed, as the cheapest blocks were $500k and the house build costs at least $350k - not many single storey houses in this estate.

The weather outlook is pretty bleak for the next few days. MyMetricon has been updated and we're meant to be wrapped this week, and have the roof tiling completed tomorrow - both things that won't happen if the storms continue. sarahv: we've also seen some houses with roofs first, and other with bricks. I think it doesn't make much difference, as long as both are completed before plaster goes in!


T&T

Day 73: Roof tiling commenced

Despite the intermittent showers today, we've had a bit more work done on our roof.

The first floor has had all the tile trusses installed, and lots of little piles of tiles have been moved up to the roof (hard job, I wouldn't want to have to lift all those tiles up!).

Seems simple, doesn't it? Screw together some lengths of wood, then lay tiles across them, and that's a frame and roof done! Love these tiles, seeing them up close again they have these cool lines of different widths running through them.


This pic is standing in the master bed, look up & out of the french doors. Some roof tiling installed up here.

Won't expect anything to be done until middle of next week - unfortunately predictions are for constant showers for a few days!

We also received a variation for the ensuite vanity - just need to change to slightly narrower handles, no big deal. Tina says that there's a sticker on the house saying the kitchen had been measured up for cabinetry already on 2.3.10, so it looks like things get organised quite far in advance!

T&T

Day 72: Happy 100...no, 95th blog post! Ground floor roof, gutter & fascia installed

*edit* Apparently this is not blog entry #100 - there were some draft entries still hanging around. Anyway, we'll probably hit blog entry #100 by next week at this rate!

Missed a call from our SS this morning - apparently carpenters would be onsite today, and roof tiling to start tomorrow, and hopefully finished by next Tuesday! Tried to call her back, but no answer on her phone - need to organise a frame walkthrough end of next week.

This pic is standing in the backyard, looking at the corner of the home theatre. We're loving the two-tone combination of gutter & fascia still! You can see the eave width on the ground floor roof is standard, compared to extended eaves on the first floor roof. There's no protection to the ground floor roof - I guess it's not that far to fall!


This pic taken from Bed 4, looking out over the home theatre and to the backyard. There's meant to be roof access from Bed 3 to this ground floor roof area, but from the looks of where the roof trusses are, there's not going to be enough space for that - add that to the list of things to check on. No windows installed today, but at least all the remaining windows/doors are undercover on the ground floor so they won't sit out in the long weekend's rain that is predicted.

The chippies didn't install any tile trusses to the roof - I'm not sure if that's the chippies job or the tilers job. Forecast for tomorrow is for occasional showers and the odd thunderstorm, so we're hoping for clear skies over our little patch of land!

T&T

Day 71: Scaffolding & bracing removed, first floor windows 80% installed

Another glorious day, stuck indoors at work. But at least every hour at work is an hour closer to 5pm, when we can leave to go check on our house progress!

Today we found that the scaffolding for the roof trusses/gutters had been removed, just the railing to the roof top remains. Also, all the internal bracing has been removed, but it's left quite a few small holes in the first floor that you can see right through to the ground floor! Of course, it'll be covered up by carpet, but it's still a little offputting but what can you do?! Also, most of the upstairs windows have been installed.


This photo shows two fixed windows in the upstairs leisure area, and I'm standing where the garage will be looking up at them. From this angle you can also see how wide our extended eaves will be - all 600mm of them! There's also a black pipe hanging down the right side of the photo, I think this one will connect to a water tap to be installed behind the rear garage roller door.

This photo shows a little awning window that will be over the bathroom bathtub, then to the right of that a loop of black piping which is carrying hot/cold water to the mixer tap for the bathtub. The last window on the right is the Bed 3 window, which we relocated to the south facing wall (rather than the hot west facing wall). To comply with rescode, it has obscured glass up to about 1700mm, then clear glass in the opening awning part.

Windows still awaiting installation: Home theatre windows x2 (relocating one from the family room installed incorrectly), leisure area sliding window, master bedroom awning window and french doors. Plus waiting on installation of the front doorframe, rear bipart and internal access doorframes.

T&T