Week Three: Concrete Slab Completed

Busy week! We had tradies onsite Monday and Tuesday preparing the slab. Tuesday afternoon also brought out the termite dude, he mentioned something about laying the termite columns or something. Sounded intriguing, but I didn't ask for further clarification.

No one on site Wednesday, but from today (Thursday), cement trucks arrived at 7am and the slab was poured and finished by around 1pm. Job well done!

We've already received notification about the next progress payment invoice is coming our way. We finally spoke to the site supervisor for the first time this week and we've been told that frames have been ordered. We're looking at 1 week for the slab to dry, then 2 weeks for the frames to start going up.

I wish that I'd asked about our estimated PCI date, but didn't want to peeve him off further. He's already cranky with us regarding a misunderstanding regarding our neighbours fence. I wont bore you with the details, but suffice to say he was only passed our file 3 days prior to the phone call. So, two site supervisors in two weeks. Hoping that's not an ongoing trend.

Here are some progress pictures that have been taken throughout the week.  It was wet and overcast, but luck seemed to be on our side.

Authors note: I conveniently live 5 minutes from the block and have to pass my street to get to our current lodgings. Still, can't help feeling like a stalker ;-)

Tuesday 5th July

Thursday 7th July

Week Two: Concrete Piering and Slab Prep

And we're rocketing along. Popped down this morning to check on the progress, and we're a little excited about this development. Nothing had initially happened since last week's update, so was very happy to spot the trucks and machinery this morning.

We also received our email this week that confirmed we'd officially moved into construction.

Here are this week's pictures.

All Wrapped Up

Variations are paid, sign is up and we have excavation starting next week. Happy days! Heres some pics of our sign, our final plans and final documents.

 

Pretty sign...

  

Final Floorplan

 

Facade

Facade 

 

Roof Pitch

 Colour Selections Exterior

 External Paint Colours

 Door Colours

 Internal Colours

So Close, Yet So Frustratingly Far

So we received the bill for the sewer encasement. While it wasn't a worst case scenario, it was certainly more than we'd budgeted for. The 7.5 metres will cost us $11K, as well as required strengthening of the slab which will set us back $3K. Chuck in $6K for additional piering, and we're smack on $20K.

We've made the decision to sell our caravan to help cover the costs. My dream was always to have a lower mortgage than our previous property, and we should still come in well under if we use the van proceeds towards the sewer and landscaping.

Meanwhile, our file has been passed on to drafting and estimating where it has stopped... again, due to "high sales volumes and associated delays". Story of our life! Meanwhile the land release backing onto our block sold 6 MONTHS AFTER OURS, and most already have builders onsite, slabs, frames and one is already finished (Clarendon)!

Frustrating to see, especially when all paperwork is returned within 24-48 hours and no changes have been made. Getting a little despondent now. We hoped to be in by Christmas at the most, but even that seems to be slipping away. Think it's time to make some waves again, Wisdom... get your bloody act together!

I'll stop now, I'm venting. Instead,  I'll leave you with a few pics taken at the beginning of our building journey. The first is a feature that I fell in love with (the awesome entry and shelving in the study) when initially stalking the Prosperity display home.

I'll also include a pic of my eldest complaining about the fact that we're stalking the Prosperity display home.

Catch ya on the flip side,

S

Administration Woes

We have officially hit the 24 week mark since we signed up with our builder. 6 months, and we are still nowhere near starting construction.

So far, it has taken:

• 11 weeks to receive the initial tender (told 4 weeks)
• 2 weeks for tender revision: change of facade (the only change/ delay caused by us, the client). 
• 11 1/2 weeks to receive the architectural plans, with the final two weeks of this time frame spent amending errors made by the draftsman (told 4-6 weeks) 

 Plans were finally approved, so we headed down yesterday to sign the paperwork and pay our next deposit. We are then advised at the beginning of the meeting that the compliance team picked up on a major issue with our driveway, the problem being due to the cul-de-sac and subsequent house set back.

CDC/private certifier will no longer be an option due to this, so we are left with no choice but to get our DA approval through council. This was unexpected and soooo disappointing. 7-10 days DA approval has now turned into another 6-8 weeks waiting on council to approve us... or not, which may be the case.

Needless to say, I folded up the bank cheque I'd busted my arse to get organsised the day before, placed it back in my purse and we left with our two overtired children, as we needed to talk and consider our options.

I'm happy to report that management contacted us a few hours later and our file will be passed on to the director at Monday's management meeting, in the hope that some things can be expedited for us.

I'm really happy with this course of action and really can't fault Wisdom Home's customer service. They have an extremely high sales volume at present and all calls and emails have consistently been returned in a timely fashion, in particular our tender presenter.

Hoping for some good news soon!

In the meantime, here are some images...

FACADE

A nearly identical facade on a local home. Ours will have a double garage rather than the twin, and we'll have a cedar infill between the portico and fascia, as well under the fascia to the left of the portico.

EXTERNAL COLOURS

We are aiming for the following colour combinations. The following image is a mock-up with our preffered choices

Monument Colourbond Roof
Austral "Urban One" bricks in Pepper
Portico render will be "Dune"
Caboa stained cedar infills and garage door

PLANS: Florence Facade

 PLANS: Front and Side Views

PLANS: Floor Plans

Patience is a virtue.

Long time between updates because the tender process was incredibly, frustratingly slow. We paid our initial deposit on the 22nd August and it took 11 weeks for Wisdom to come back to us with the price.

We spent much of that time doing drive-bys, gazing forlornly at our block of land. The only thing of interest within those 11 weeks was some low-life dumping rubbish on our block the day AFTER a scheduled community council clean-up. Nice. Great fun to tidy, especially after dogs had rummaged through the bags of dirty nappies and copious amounts of takeaway, leaving it in the condition below.

Word to the wise... when dumping rubbish, don't leave identifying letters, invoices and paperwork buried within the broken garbage bags. Whoops!

Tender came in at $10 000 above what we were quoted. We can thank the saline-affected soil, building adjacent to the Sydney Water sewer line and H-class conditions for that!

During our time waiting, I also did a lot of research into the 'Promenade' facade we originally had costed. I was able to get my hands on a 3D representation of the facade and we immediately changed our minds (after dry-heaving, of course). We're now going with the lovely 'Florence' facade. So back to the tender office to make the necessary changes. Luckily this only took a bit less than 2 weeks.

 These are our current working/draft drawings.

We'll need some cut and fill done, as well as some drop-edge beams at the back and right hand side of the build. Luckily we can go through CDC rather than council regarding approval to build. Now just waiting on formal house plans to be drawn up. The fun begins! 

We also received our colour folder in the form of a USB stick as soon as we accepted the tender.We think we've narrowed down our external choices. 

Austral Urban One 'Pepper' brick

Same brick on a project builder display home, along with 'Dune' cement render.

So, that's it for now. Cheers and thanks for reading! Now off to trawl the internet for more colour ideas ;-)

Building with the Robbo's...

Hello all! I've started this blog as a way of keeping friends and family up-to-date on the progress of our build, as well as serving as a way of preserving the process for us along the way.

We've purchased a 670 sqm block of land in the Wollondilly Shire. We settled on the land last week and paid a deposit on a house through Wisdom Homes about 2 weeks ago. Just waiting now for the tender presentation. Very exciting!

I'll leave you with some images of the Prosperity 26. The display home is at Oran Park and the design fits our block perfectly. We have a large cul-de-sac fronting our block, which complicates the home setback but we found a floor plan that fits like a glove.

View from the land...

Floor plan Prosperity 26

Prosperity 26 Display Home Images