Nothing to see here, move along...

Not much happened on the home front in the last month or two. Kresta finally showed up to replace the 2 blinds that fell down immediately after they first installed them. One of them is fine, the other one in the master bedroom... well, it's the wrong colour. So yet again, another 3-99 week wait for the correct item to show up.

Also got a call from a new service manager at Metricon, who has taken over the last service manager's job (he quit, or something). Anyway... he says he'll chase up the issue of correcting our crooked cavity doorframe. Not holding my breath, I mean - we've only been in our house about 9 months now.

Most recently, a good article in the The Age about changing your mortgage lender. I believe that 99% of mortgage holders probably spend more time trying to save 2c/litre on petrol, than tens of thousands of dollars on your home loan. If you've got a loan with one of the big 4 banks, seriously - read the article in that link, then call your bank or broker tomorrow and get out of your overpriced home loan.

The arguments that used to apply to changing home loans mostly don't apply anymore. Banks aren't allowed to charge punitive exit fees (ie ridiculously enormous, made-up sums to stop you switching your loan). Sure, you might have to go through the rigmarole of providing paperwork if you're changing a lender, but doesn't saving $69,000 in interest payments and/or years off your average home loan make it worth your while? And if you've got a bigger than average mortgage, you'll save even more.

And if you're too lazy, and/or stupid, and/or ignorant to be bothered trying to get the best deal on your home loan, well - it's your life and your money to waste as you will. Excuse the grumpiness, bad case of post-snowboarding muscle pains.

T&T

DIY: Sheer curtains

So we're sloooowly getting through the list of things to do. Still waiting on KRESTA to make good on the two blinds that fell off days after they installed them (grrrr....) but anyway, decided to finish off the two remaining windows left uncovered.

The only reason why these windows weren't done months ago was that we weren't sure what to cover them with. Blinds? Romans? Curtains? Sheers? Anyway, this is what most new homeowners end up doing for the first few days....weeks...months... years it takes to decide what window coverings to use!

Yep, old bedsheets. Not that there's a nice view anyway of our neighbour's horrible ugly old bricks. So anyway, finally Tina decided sheers would be the way to go. On our regular excursions to Ikea, picked up a Vagen curtain rail and Wilmaaaaaaaaa! sheer drapes (too many Saturday morning cartoons as a kid obviously)


Didn't take many pics of the installation as it's pretty easy - but in hindsight, maybe I should've taken more pics for this DIY. Anyway

1) Decide how high to hang your curtain rail. You can stick it on the architrave, but I decided to mount on the wall, but into studs as I don't have much faith in plaster fix screws. Use a studfinder or knuckles to locate studs. Plus we had lots of photos during the build, so I knew where the studs would be. Typically on either side of a window you'll have a double or triple stud support which is ideal to fix into. Predrill holes with a power drill, then fix rail mounts to wall. Take into account the curtain length when fixing your rail, I fixed it so there's an inch gap at the bottom of the 250cm curtain when hung. This curtain also comes with a hemming kit, so you can shorten to any length easily.

2) Safety first - eye protection is a must, and don't climb up on a wobbly chair to drill up high.

3) Iron the curtains to get out creases before hanging them. Duh.

4) Tell your wife it was a very hard, painstaking job to get right, and hope she doesn't notice the one crooked curtain mount *facepalm*. Will cover that later with.. erm.. something.

Anyway, here's a pic of the small (180cm wide) dining window covered. The 280cm family room window was done identically, but with a third support bracket midway along the curtain rail. Ikea sell a long and short version of Vagen ideal for varying width windows.



So, for $8 - $15 for rails and fittings, and $20 for curtains, 20 minutes per window to fit, the sheers are up, and look quite elegant. Easy to DIY, and cheap to change curtains in future if we decided to go for a different look. Cheap enough that you don't really have to put up with temporary window coverings too long, providing you know what you want. Of course, if you were doing these in bedrooms you'd want blockout curtains or other window covering, but since no-one sleeps in the dining room, sheers work well and allow daylight through.

T&T

Product/Company warning: KRESTA blinds

So now with the wedding planning and event all over, it's back to making our house a home.

We've been in over 6 months now - how time flies. We had the 3 month service review done at the start of the year, and while most things have been fixed satisfactorily, I'm still waiting... waiting.... waiting.... waiting....

...waiting... for the service manager to call me back about when we're getting our faulty cavity sliding door frame in the ensuite fixed.



To recap, before handover our independent inspector noticed this fault (door and frame touching each other, failing to meet basic Australian Standards guidelines to tolerances). The problem was "fixed" at handover, but clearly a pretty dodgy "fix" since a week after handover the door and frame was touching again. Noted at 3 month review, promised to get it fixed, nothing done yet. I will be calling in the coming week to find out what's been done.

More issues have arisen with our window coverings. We were able to grab some standard blinds from Spotlight and Bunnings to hang in some rooms, but for the home theatre and master bed we needed custom ones made due to the nonstandard window widths.

Anyway, here's a timeline of what happens - mostly for my benefit, so I can record what's going on in case we end up taking Kresta to the Small Claims Tribunal.

• late Feb 2011: Placed order with Kresta for 7 blinds: 2 translucent and 5 blockout, 50% deposit paid. Promised to be be done by mid March as a rush order.
• Mid March: No blinds.
• Tuesday March 22nd: Called Kresta to find out where our blinds are since they never contacted us after the deposit paid. Turns out we might get them installed next week. Paid remaining 50% owing on blinds.
  
• Tuesday March 29: Blinds installed.
• Thursday March 31: Noticed one blind in the home theatre room had come off the rail and was lying crumpled on the ground. Could've happened this day or day before.
• Friday April 1: Called Kresta Doncaster store to complain about blind. Polite customer service lady said the installer would pick it up the coming Tuesday.
• Tuesday April 5: Defective blind taken away by installer and quoted 10 days to remake.
• Wednesday April 6: Got home after work and saw the big blind in the master bed also fallen off the rail. Looks like it was two blinds "glued" together by a tiny strip of glue and of course glue isn't enough to hold the big blind up.

• Thursday April 7: Called Kresta Doncaster store again to complain another blind was defective. They said they'd call me back to organise another check.
• Monday April 11: Kresta called and said they couldn't check the defective blind until Saturday 16th April.
• Saturday 16th April: Kresta called and says installer is sick. Can't fit us in again until Saturday 30th April. Clearly I'm not impressed. I take the defective blind into Doncaster store and leave it with them.

So, we're in the middle of some issues with Kresta. At the moment it's too early to judge whether or not there are going to be issues with this company - it's OK to make mistake as we're all human, but it's the complaint resolution process and customer satisfaction that will make or break companies. So far, not so good. Will keep updating progress, should Kresta come good on their service claims, we will acknowledge this.

On that note, here is some tips for you new home builders to avoid some of the basic errors that we made when choosing suppliers for our house. Consumer Affairs Victoria reviewed basic contracts for several manufacturers and you are legally entitled to demand a change in the contract should they state:

• contradict or do not allow for consumers’ statutory rights in relation to implied warranties.
• limit the performance obligations of the supplier.
• require the consumer to pay in full before completion of the contract.

Should any company have any clause relating to these terms, first request they change them to comply with the directive by Consumer Affairs Victoria. Should they refuse, DON'T ORDER WITH THEM, take down as many names as you can and contact Consumer Affairs Victoria who will investigate on your behalf - and find another company who trades fair. Unscrupulous retailers will take advantage of the fact that most consumer simply don't have time to research their rights prior to signing a contract - we didn't. But now we are aware that Kresta are in prima facie breach of the Consumer Affairs directive for asking for full payment upfront, we have a strong case to push for a full refund on defective items, even outside their stated "warranty period". Also be aware Vista part of the Kresta Group (Kresta Holdings Limited)

• Google search for "company name consumer affairs complaints" - sometimes provides information on major offenders.
  
• Also, if you're an iFan, get this free app for your iDevice: My Shop Rights.
• Consider reading ProductReview and NotGoodEnough.org - however these kind of sites tend to be negatively biased - bad experiences tend to be publicised more than good ones. Still, a good way to hear of real-life experiences. Similarly Homeone is a great resource for all home builders.
  

*sigh*

Keep fighting for YOUR RIGHTS people! On a related note, I recently reported Micro$oft for selling defective game consoles. While on that particular issue Consumer Affairs decided it wasn't a big enough fish to fry, I was able to claim repair costs through my credit card insurance (though it did take 5 months to be approved). Worth checking to see if your credit card provider offers this service.

T&T

Custom blinds ordered

So, we're both been hugely preoccupied with major works the last few weeks, but managed to get around to ordering some custom blinds in.

We're getting blackout blinds for the home theatre room (finally! no more bedsheets and towels over the windows!), as well as dual roller blinds for the master bed. Hopefully will have them installed in about 3 weeks.

After they're done, that'll only leave the study, family and dining rooms without window coverings - we'll decide on those later.

*EDIT* At first I recommended the company supplying our custom blinds - due to some MAJOR problems with the blinds though, I won't name the company in this blog post - yet.

T&T

90 day service: Southern Star Windows

Had a trade from Southern Star Windows come around 7am yesterday - only about an hour earlier than expected! Anyway, nice bloke called Michael had a look at some of our issues.

• Replaced faulty awning window winder in the home theatre (only opened halfway)
  
• Replaced lock in balcony french doors (faulty)
• New keys for laundry slider door (incorrect keys given)

All pretty simple stuff - good work done there! He also recommended occasional application of silicon spray to exposed chain winders, since dirt and dust will build up and cause "stickiness" otherwise. Ialso got an SMS from the Metricon service guy, he was meant to come yesterday as well but was sick, so I expect to get a call next week to reorganise that service.

Just got a couple of other outstanding items to be scheduled - antenna to be connected, hopefully sometime this millenium, and the garage roof to be repaired where the garage door service cracked the cornice & exposed unpainted ceiling.


We had 20 people over for dinner tonight for an early Chinese Year celebration, and all were pretty impressed with the house - and the evaporative cooling had no problem with the 31 degree day. Let's see how we go tomorrow with 40 degrees predicted!

T&T

DIY: Installing Holland blinds

Happy New Year everyone! We had a quiet one at home with some of my family around to try out the home theatre, and managed to catch a view of the city fireworks, sipping champagne from our balcony - nice!

So after overeating for the last few days, went out to do a bit of belated post-Xmas house shopping, and managed to luckily snare some nice Holland blockout blinds at Spotlight for 40% off. Normally at Spotlight you can only find one random blind in a nice colour, and it'll be in the one size you don't need. But we were able to find 10 blinds, in matching colours, to suit the three smaller bedrooms plus a few other rooms.

Tools needed: Ruler/tape measure, pencil, power drill, screwdriver, a helping pair of hands. Difficulty 2/10 only. I didn't take any step-by-step photos because things were over so quickly.

Anyway, in most Holland/roller blind ready-to-hang packages you'll get the blind itself, two attachments for either end - one with a chain attached, one without. A couple of brackets to mount the blind attachments onto the wall and some screws.

Position the blind so it's in the centre of the window, with equal gaps (if any) on either side. Hold the attachments on with your hands, and mark with a pencil where the screws should go for the brackets. Double check for level using your ruler/tape measure or a spirit level. Predrill the screw holes, screw in the mounts, then slot in the blind. Should take 10 minutes per window with double checking. And the attachment with the chain mechanism will be about 1cm wider than the other attachment, so the brackets should not be symmetrical if you want the blind to be positioned dead centre.

Anyway, this is Bed 3, using a 180cm wide blockout Holland blind, with a 210cm drop. The window drop is much less, only about 100cm, but the excess length just stays on the roll. This blind is mounted in the reveal - ie within the window frame itself.


You can also get double Holland blinds - with a blockout blind combined with a translucent blind, that allows light in but not vision for privacy. Because the upstairs bedrooms had to have translucent glass in them anyway to meet Rescode, we decided that all that was needed was blackout blinds. However we may look for double Holland blinds for the sitting room, as it has clear glass and faces the street.

In Bed 4, because we had to have custom sized windows for some reason, the blinds are slightly too large to fit in the reveal, so I decided to mount them outside the reveal.


You can have Holland blinds cut to size if you wanted your slightly large blinds to fit in the reveal, but not too fussed with it. I've heard conflicting stories as to which mounting method gives you the best blockout (light reducing) effect. Checking the three bedrooms we put the blinds in this afternoon, one faces east, one faces south, and one faces west, so it's hard to make a direct comparison. Tina thinks the outside reveal mount reduces light the most, but in all cases the blinds darken the room significantly, to make sleeping no problem.

Now, just to get some custom window coverings for the master. Final tips, standard off-the-shelf, ready-to-hang blinds are normally 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210cm wide - so if you're in the planning stage of house building and want to avoid custom sized window coverings later, check that your windows are standard sized :) Or use curtains, which can be drawn to any size. We were trying to avoid curtains in this house, but we may have to use them in the home theatre to get the most complete blockout effect there.

T&T

DIY: Obscuring/frosting windows

When we were specifiying our house, most of the upstairs bedroom windows had to be obscured up to 1800mm or so, so that you couldn't look into the neighbour's windows or backyards. It cost more, and that's because the actual glass is replaced by special obscured glazing. Part of Rescode, so there's no way to get around it. But our powder room and ensuite windows are clear, meaning we can see out - and people could see in. The solution to this issue then, is to add frosting/obscuring film, so that looking in or out isn't possible.

For a DIY, this is about a 7/10 for difficulty - it's easy to do, hard to do well. Anyway, what you'll need is some obscure/frosted film, Bunnings may have it, or you may be able to buy it from a window tinting place. Also some scissors, a sharp blade, a measuring tape, and ideally a helper.

Anyway, Step One: Clean your windows thoroughly, scrape off any excess silicon holding the glass in, and make sure it's fully dry. I also got a little step stool to help clean the top of the window.

Step Two: Apply the film to the window. First measure the window size, and add a few centimetres all around as you won't be able to position the film exactly spot on. Peel away the first 20cm or so of the backing paper, and with a helper, position the film so that it entire covers the glass area. Press down with your fingers to get it to stick to the window. If it's off centre, you can pull it off and re-apply, I did this many times.


Step Three: Once you've applied the film reasonable well, use your fingers or a plastic card to push out any air bubbles.



Step Four: Use your sharp blade to trim away the excess, using the window frame as your guide. I screwed this up on one window, trimming too far away from the window frame, so I'll have to redo the window later on.

And that's pretty much it - frosted windows for privacy.


So, if you have any windows that you want obscured, you could give this a go. The film shouldn't cost any more than about $35/sqm, and the worst that can go wrong is that you screw up applying or trimming the film, and you have to start again.

Other things we did today? We were meant to pick up a couple of almost-new King Furniture couches from a private seller, but she reneged on our deal despite a deposit left and a written contract. Pretty sad, poor behaviour. I won't name names, but if someone with a name similar to "w3ndy gr4nt" from a suburb similar to "k3ilor 3ast" wants to do business, don't trust her one bit. Anyway, we ended up spending a small fortune today, what with the King Furniture floorstock clearance sale yielding a brilliant find for our sitting room, and a good deal at Bay Leather Republic for electric home theatre recliners in the softest leather in the world - looks like we won't be spending this Christmas squatting on the floor at least!

T&T

Progressing to PCI and fencing

Was speaking to our neighbour yesterday - they've put up with temporary fencing facing them all year, and I just wanted to tell them we were organising a new fence to be put up ASAP. Good to have nice neighbours and ours are great! Though it's difficult getting hold of tradespeople for a quote, been waiting about a month for a quote on the fence and it's only just come in.

And while we were there, noticed that some more exterior things had progressed on our house - looks like the garage ceiling and portico has been plastered, the garage doors are installed and the fluoro lights in the garage have been put in, as well as the facade lights; all good things!

But where we have gaps around the windows on the ground floor, it looks like they've put in wood infills :(

At our first independent inspection, our inspector picked up on these gaps too;

7. A timber infill is to be installed over the alfresco sliding door and aluminum infills are to be installed over the gaps located on the aluminum windows.

The rear bipart doors are timber, so a timber infill is needed. And the windows are aluminium, so an aluminium infill is needed. This was picked up at the preplaster inspection when we had Monique as our SS and she agreed that aluminium infills would be required; obviously this wasn't passed on to our current SS.

Also just sent a quick message to Ed on the Homeone forums, he's a guru for window questions as he runs a window company.

My enquiry: "Hi Ed - we're got ... issues, small gaps on the sides/above windows. We have aluminium windows and it looks like the builder has used timber/wood infills which haven' been painted yet. Should aluminium windows have aluminium infills to match (is there any specific regulation pertaining to this?) Thanks Ed!"

His reply: "No rules, just common sense. Powdercoated aluminium is easy and never needs maintenance. None of my customers use timber. Aluminium is readily available in matching colours. Ed"

So another issue to flag with our inspector for PCI.

Also looks like our Certificate of Occupancy is now scheduled to be ordered on 17.8.10 (was meant to be ordered 13.8.10); so will have to confirm with our SS for when the PCI is going to be scheduled.

T&T

Day 210: Gearing up for the final stages!

Ran into our SS today - he was at our neighbour's site (which he also supervises), cleaning up all the loose rubbish on the block himself. Nice to see a SS who gets his hands dirty! Anyway, apparently we're still on track to get most of the internal fixing done by end of the month.

He did say we can get our carpets in before handover, which is brilliant news - now I'm wondering if we should get our stairs sanded & stained as well, before the carpets are installed. It's a matter of finding out whether a dark stain on the stairs (to match our front & rear doors) would be too dark - will check with Tina on that first. Be nice to have it done before carpets go in upstairs, for a neater finish.

Anyway, I grabbed a meat pie and sauce (the bakery around the corner does the best homemade beef & cheese pies with huge chunks!) and had lunch in the kitchen, daydreaming about how in the not-too-distant future we'd be in the kitchen cooking up a storm, watching TV, and just living the life in the house we've been dreaming and planning for the last 2-3 years!

No trades have been working the last few days, so I just wandered around, trying to see if there's any defects we need to keep an eye on for our final inspection. I don't think I'll bother our SS with anything I find at the moment, as there's still their own QA inspection and window service to be done, and there's still a lot of internal fitoffs to go. Anyway, here's a few minor things that will probably get fixed before our final inspection.

I've heard a lot about this window service thing, which is where all the windows get inspected and fixed before handover. A lot of our window frames were damaged externally during bricklaying with dents and scrapes, so they'll need to be fixed. Also, some windows are sticking or not straight. For example, this is the family room window: at the top there's a big gap, while at the bottom it's closed. Hopefully easily fixed with the window service.


And another example of window damage: in Bed 2, there's a nail protruding from the frame straight through the top frame. D'oh!


Then there's this issue which might be harder to fix: the ensuite window. I remember the bottom wooden frame for this window was removed at frame stage so the bath hob could be tiled right up to the window frame, but it appears the carpenters forgot to reinforce the bottom edge of the window, as now there's a pretty big bow in the window. Left unsupported, this window could just... fall! Needs fixing; but will probably require removal of some tiles, supporting/fixing the window frame, then repairing the bath hob, re-waterproofing, and re-tiling.



Now this isn't really a problem yet, but the manhole hasn't been put in Bed 4. Normally the manhole to the ground floor roof is in Bed 3, but due to our particular roof design, it needs to go in through Bed 4 robes. Pretty quick & easy job for the carpenters to stick in this manhole, but needs to be done before the electricians come in for fixing, as there's lots of wiring in the ground floor roof they'll need access too. And don't mind the apparent white lines in the robes, it's a reflection of my camera flash against the painted architraves!


Back to the ensuite, the shower niche and around the hob appear to be missing grout - but I've been told the plumbers will do some siliconing, to allow for flexing/movement of the tiles, rather than grout. Hopefully this big gap in the shower niche will be fixed too!



Internal doors: Rumpus room door has a huge crack in the bottom edges, looks like the door is coming apart! Needs to be repaired or replaced. Also the ensuite WC door has horrible dry patches all over it, and a big scar across the master bed door from the inside, both need repainting.


And finally for the day (long post, huh?) the bathroom sink is meant to have a light switch (for a light above the mirror) on one side, and a powerpoint on the other side. However, the electricians were meant to cutout on the walls prior to tiling, so the tiler could leave a cutout for them to get access to the wiring. But since they didn't (forgot?) to expose these switches, I'm not sure how they're going to locate them with the tiling all done! Anyway, not my problem to fix, they'll figure a way out.

Ultimately, these issues are all relatively minor and pretty obvious, and should be straightforward enough to fix. I'd be surprised if Metricon's Quality Assurance people didn't pick these things up before our final inspection, if a layperson can detect them!

And ultimately, we'd rather have all the little things fixed before we get our house - I know for sure that once I'm aware of something that's not 100% right, it'll annoy me forever until it gets fixed!

T&T

Day 170: Waste pipe fixed, kitchen window moved, but manhole in wrong spot.

Carpenters were in the house today getting busy on a couple of items; first of all, the cutout floor joist has been repaired. Just need a plasterer to come and repair the hole.


Also the kitchen window has been moved down an inch or two to allow the stone benchtop to fit properly - glad to see this being done! However now we're missing the wood header that normally goes above the window, so will have to make sure that's rectified.


Also, to move the kitchen splashback window, the brick sill on the outside had to be removed, so at some stage the brickies have to be called back in to replace the sill.

Also some trimmings around architraves were put in. Now, there's also a manhole access panel in one of the rear bedrooms, to access the ground floor roof. Our last SS (Monique) was aware that due to the final roof truss design, this manhole should be in Bed 4 instead of Bed 3, but I think that information wasn't passed onto the fixing carpenters.

Can you see what's wrong with this picture?

You'd have to be pretty tiny to be able to get into the roof space with all those roof trusses in the way! Anyway should be a pretty easy job to move that manhole to Bed 4 and get this plaster hole repaired, will email our SS tonight about it.

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 90: Bricking continues

Today, some more work done on the east side of the house (garage side), I think they've bricked up as high as they can go without proper scaffolding. Plus the first floor needs to be wrapped before any more bricks can go up on that side.



They've also bricked up & over the study and family room windows, with steel lintels installed to hold the weight of bricks over the windows.


This picture shows the colour difference between freshly laid mortar and dried mortar. The bricks at the top were laid today and the mortar is still a little wet, and very dark. The bricks that were laid 4 days ago has the mortar drying out nicely, showing the off-white colour; we reckon they look awesome against the dark Hawthorn bricks! We were a bit concerned when they were first laid because the mortar was so dark, but it's come up a treat now! From what we can tell, the brickwork is being done nicely, with consistent mortar width and everything lining up nicely!


Up on the first floor in the leisure area, we can see about 2 courses of bricks above the existing level of the weather wrapping. When the scaffolding comes back for the first floor, they should wrap the first floor and then continue bricking.

And finally, I messed about a little with Photoshop and came up with this composite image made up of 5 photos in the open plan area. From left to right: Family room, home theatre room, dining room (with bipart door) and then kitchen with window splashback, and on far right the fridge alcove/walk in pantry. Will have to try this again, but using a tripod to take more even photos so the joins are less visible.

Pray for good weather to continue, we're hoping to have the ground floor bricking finished this week!

T&T

Day 78: Wrapping commenced, beams delivered, frame inspection booked

Got a call from our SS this mornin, and we've organised a frame inspection for next Tuesday. It'll just be us and not a formal building inspector - we're working on choosing a building inspector for the lockup stage. Our roof is meant to be complete by Friday (first and ground floor roof tiling) and hopefully doors in by Tuesday as well.

After a huge amount of traffic, got to the site to see our house has now changed colour, and is wearing a raincoat!


Yup, we've been wrapped! The wrap covers the ground floor all around, and from what we can tell has been done well except for an area near the meter box which is hanging loose - you can see it in the front right corner of this photo, on the side wall just flapping around a bit. It's stapled to the frame, joins sealed with tape, and sealed to window frames with tape as well. Internal surface is a reflective foil. When bricking is complete, we'll have a brick layer, a small air gap, then this weather wrap, then internal insulation (walls are R2.0 insulated) then plaster. Much better insulation than our old weather board, which had weatherboard, then plaster, and that was it! We're hoping that with our 5.5 star house, it'll reduce/minimise our need for artificial heating/cooling in winter/summer.

I got out my broom from yesterday and started sweeping out the ground floor - the amount of mud, wood shavings and general dirt was incredible! I think we'll spend our weekend just cleaning up the house, since I doubt any of the tradies are going to pick up a broom - and we don't want plaster going up locking in all the dirt/mud inside the frame! Also went around retaping the protective plastic over all the windows - right, I know it's a bit anal but wouldn't it be better for everyone concerned if our brand new windows stay brand new (and unscratched!) until handover?

Also had a delivery of some steel beams/lintels; these should support brickwork over openings like windows/doors. I think the longest one is for the garage front/rear doors, then the smaller ones to go over windows. We got rid of all standard infill for brick infills; just think it looks a bit better even though few people would ever notice it!

Other things done on site today: the water lead-in pipe has been buried (and someone removed our front tap as well?!).

Crossed fingers - hoping for no more rain until roof is complete (and ideally wrapping complete as well!)

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 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

Day 66: Ground floor windows 80% installed

Phew, what a day - too much stress at work = calm evening with a cold beer! But of course, before beer comes house (though not alphabetically) , and this is what happened to our house on another slightly warm 35 degree day.


Most of the ground floor windows were installed today:

• Sitting room (awning) windows 2x, horizontal fixed feature window
• Study window (sliding)
• Family room (awning)
  
• Kitchen window fixed splashback
• Dining room (sliding)
• Powder room (fixed) x2
• Laundry sliding door
  

Also the upstairs windows were all moved upstairs, but not installed yet. Might go by the site tomorrow - wonder if they'll do anything on a Saturday? These windows are by Southern Star in Pearl White; we picked this colour to contrast against the dark brown Austral Hawthorn bricks, and to match the off-white mortar.


This is the family room window - same as for the home theatre room, except the home theatre room windows are double glazed. This window has two windout awnings on either side of a fixed pane of glass. I was thinking sliding windows would be better as there's more airflow through them, but apparently there's not much difference between sliding and awning windows for airflow? We're getting flyscreens to all these windows, but they'll probably be the last thing installed before handover to avoid damage. If you look above this window there's a fair amount of wall height still (because of the 2.7m ceilings) which is good - as we're planning to put in a big split system aircon here, with evaporative cooling to upstairs.

Hopefully the remaining windows/doors will be installed by maybe Wednesday next week! Can't wait for the front door frame to go on, as well as the rear bi-part doors, they look fantastic even in their raw wood finish!

caroline: as far as moving in goes, our official finish date is the end of December 2010 - but we've got our fingers crossed for an August or September handover!

T&T