Christmas break

Sorry its been a while since the last blog update, been busy with a lot of things. We were advised that the color of bricks we selected was out of stock and is not available till 4Jan. There were 2 options:

1. Select a different color and continue with the construction.

2. Wait until after christmas.

Since we had selected all the windows, doors, gutters, roof tiles based on the color of bricks we decided to wait till after christmas. Anyway a lot of this time will fall during the christmas break. At most construction will be delayed by 2 weeks which they can catchup on later.

In the mean time insulation to ground floor has been installed and all the plaster for both floors has also been delivered on site. Further work will commence around 10Jan

Roof complete

The roof trusses have gone up and the roof tiles have been delivered.

Frame for the first floor has been erected..

Frame

Frame for the ground floor was put up today, now we can which room is room

FAMILY ROOM

(The two steel beams can be seen in the picture)

Slab has been completed and Frame started

The slab was completed yesterday afternoon. Went to check back this morning and the timber for the frame was getting delivered at 7:00AM. The contractors said it takes about 4 days to put the whole frame up.

Concrete pour has begun this morning

Completion Date

We got a letter from Porter Davis today advising that the completion date will be 13April 2010.

Waffle Pod slab

What is a Waffle Pod?

Waffles are made of heavy duty moulded Polystyrene. These are about 1 sq meter and about 375mm thick for H class soil.

uses moulded void formers, which are arranged on a levelled building area in a grid (similar to waffle)pattern. Once the concrete is poured it fills the spaces between and across the Waffle Pod and Rib Raft System to form a concrete slab over the entire area. The Spaces between the void formers effectively become concrete beams resulting in a slab which has a structural element of immense strength. The system uses less concrete than the conventional method, of beam trenching, so the need for labour intensive digging has been eliminated.

Will try and get some pictures tomorrow..

Pebbles have been spread and the land levelled. Steel rods have been delivered.

Gravel

Gravel was delivered this morning. This will be used to level the land in preparation for the concrete pour. Concrete pour will now occur on the 18th. Nov. It was delayed a bit since they needed time for the concrete in the piers to dry completely.

Piers being dug

Holes for the slab's piers are being dug this morning. There are 42 holes 1.5m deep. The piers are necessary to provide extra stability to the slab since the soil gets disturbed after demolition. Digging the piers will take all day. They use sort of a bob cat with a massive drill bit.

Concrete will be poured into these holes tomorrow then gravel will be poured over the ground and levelled and made ready to pour concrete for the slab. The concrete piers will stay exposed when leveling is done. The piers will bond with the slab when concrete for the slab is poured. In essence the slab instead of just sitting on its own on the ground will have 42 piers 1.5m deep to sit on for extra support. This is where a lot of the site cost goes into I guess.

I spoke to the site supervisor yesterday. Concrete will be poured on 10nov and frame will be started on 12Nov

I thing the images in the last blog were too small .. heres a bigger picture

Construction Begins !!

Its been a while since the last blog. Construction on the house has finally begun.

• Temporary fencing has been erected at the front.
  
• Portable loo is also in place
  
• Ground has been levelled for the slab to be laid.
  

This morning the guys had dug trenches to lay the plumbing pipes. Once the slab has been laid, it will be clearer how much fall there will be at the back. From what the guys were saying this morning, there will left over soil and we can decide what to do with it later. Either gradually level the back or have a drop.

Electric cable from the underground power pit at the nature strip has been drawn into the block.

Construction on the property should begin this week. On the weeked a new tap was installed on the property and a new pipe laid from the front of the property to somewhere on the side so that the builders can use the water connection from there.

The rubble left from the power pit installation has been removed. However there is a pot hole on the opposite side of the road where the electric company would have dug up to pull the underground cable. It is sealed with black tar but is not level with the road. I have called the electric company and asked them to fix it up.

Final drawings

We have received the final construction drawings to be signed. These are the drawings that will be supplied to all the trades.We have also been provided the contact of our site supervisor

We have heard back from Porter Davis this morning. The slab needs to be upgraded from class H to class HD. The cost to upgrade will be $2385. Good news however is that the site start has been brought forward. The file will be given to construction on 16/10/09 after which they will place the order and organise trades. Building should commence around 28/10/09

The rubble from the power pit has still not been removed and one of the neighbours complained about it. I have called the local power company Jemena to organise to fix up the place.
Good news finally on the soil test front - The Engineering company has provided a soil survey report back to Porter Davis. This will now be given to the drafting team at PD to see if they need to upgrade the slab or if it is all OK. The dates for the construction to begin as it stands at the moment is 30 Oct. So if all goes well then we might even have a late Oct start.

More digging

I thoguht the power pit was installed but obviously not. There was some more digging where the power pit is installed. I guess the power pit is NOW installed.

Results from soil test are back, it has now been passed on to the drafting dept to see if they need a slab upgrade.
POWER PIT

Soil test has been completed and the results will be sent to us this week. Power pit was not installed last week as I thought it was. There was something dug up near the pavement but was not the power pit. Power pit is meant to install today.

Power pit has been installed. It is single phase 100Amp.

It is interesting how some people dont think. We used to have TheAge home delivered on weekends. We had not yet stopped the delivery and on weekend the newsagency delivered the newspaper even on the vacant land.

Demolition complete

Demolition is now complete. Its amazing to see your house gone and how big the block looks now. The second soil test and survey will begin next week and hopefully construction commences first week of Oct.

Gone

The house has been completely demolished. Only the bunglow and the garage remain. Next the land will be levelled.

Going going ..

There has been a delay with demolition since the demolition guy who operates the machines has had a ski accident. They are trying to organise extra machinery and operators to backfill.
Fortunately the strippers have arrived this morning and are ripping up the timber flooring and garage roof. So hopefully there wont be too much of a delay.

Demolition

First Blog

We are demolishing the existing dwelling, a 30+ year old, 3 bedroom brick veneer house to build the PD Cremorne 41. Demolition of the old house began yesterday and is expected to complete early next week. A second soil test will follow, the results of which will be provided in a weeks time. Following the results of the soil test, material will be ordered and we start building hopefully by first week of Oct.