Evaporative Cooling/Heating

PCV raised..

My family and I think we'll probably need to zone our heating/cooling arrangements for the house. We've requested to have 2 thermostats installed in the house, one on the ground level and one on the upper level. 

It is not very usual that someone would make an arrangement such as ours. Have 1 stat on the upper level controlling all of the upper level and the Master Ensuite on the ground level. 
Another stat in the kitchen and controlling all living/dining/lounge/study areas. 

We decided that this would be the best for our family as we can easily get the kids to adjust the heating/cooling for all the bedrooms. Well we tend to be in these areas the most during night times when it can get quite chilly!

One the plus side, we were told that the stat on the lower level CAN adjust the heating/cooling for the other zone, and vice versa!
WIN WIN!

The zoning will be as follows:

We have been advised that this will cost us:

$534 for each zone.  It comes with 1 thermostat as standard, which needs to be upgraded ($220). You will then need an additional thermostat for upstairs ($451)        

Total Cost:

$535 for each zone = $1068

$220 to upgrade the existing thermostat

An additional thermostat is needed for the zones ($231 +  $220 for upgrade)

The details of the unit are:

Mx35i 21kw – 14 outlets.

Contract Signing

Just signed our Contract! 

Again the meeting was longer than usual. 

The sales manager was taking our appointment this time. He went through HIA contract and our Contract again. Going through every single point in the contract. 

We were even able to request for some changes to be made within the house. 

• Included sliding doors in our Ensuite and WIR - this will ensure that no moisture gets leaked out into the bedroom during showers. 
• Provide revised Electrical changes - Include 20 amps
• Include half body height tiles to Powderoom
• Provide mirror extension to Powderoom

Still waiting for the council to get back to us regarding our front setback!!

Sparkies!

Our Electrical appointment was equally as long as our colour and tile selections. We have been to too many in a row!

Well first off, the charges for bulbs and circuits and electrical Amps are WAYYY too expensive! Thus we have opted to go with just standard bulbs in the whole house. 
Allowing for circuits to be run for the whole LOWER level in all rooms, and only single bulbs in the UPPER level. 

Find the compete electrical selections here.

We only finalised our electrical selections after the date because we decided to add on a 20Amps switch for our future air-conditioning system in our Family Room.

Tile Selections

We only visited National Tiles once before our actual selection day. 

Our Facade has some Bluestone chip tiles on the front horizontal area of the balcony. We like how it looks and were happy to go ahead with it until we found out the price. 

The cost of the tile and installing JUST the balcony area with bluestone was going to cost us $12,000. We told them that we'll gladly stick with the standard cladding option. 

Our tiles selections can be found here.

Our Cladding option for the balcony.

James Hardie Scyon Axon Cladding 400

Colour Selections!

We just had our colour selections today!

It was a long and tedious meeting, however because we have had already visited Hopetoun multiple times (almost 3) before our actual colour appointment, we've had a good idea of what are the things we want and didn't want. 

We mainly liked the colour/style scheme from the Greenvale showroom (Whitsundays), Here are some of the things we've selected. 

The full list can be found if you click here

It was hard to select the flooring we wanted as we were given a promotion of paying $4000 for Evaporative cooling AND Bolero Laminate flooring. 

I had been trying to get more information about Bolero and where can I have a look at it being used, but it seems like there is little information about it. The range of colours available for it however is quite extensive and they are almost comparable to the Timber floorings on display. Our sales consultant even told us that Laminate flooring will be more durable compared to Timber. 

So at the end we went with the Rustic Coffee!

We also decided that we will upgrade our carpet underlay. Having good carpet without good underlay is like having a beautiful house built on sand. Cat 4 Steplex Underlay. 

Oh and because we have an extended Garage, we needed a separate Render colour to our Hebel wall to hopefully give it that distinct look. 

Render Colour: 

#1 Time Capsule 

#2 Carriage

Rustic Coffee - Bolero Floor

Our Majestic Pivot Door - INFWS 6G

Vallo Sink for the Powder Rm

Milli Edge on ALL sinks

MIlli Edge wall mixer in all bathrooms

Kado Cirque Sink in Bathroom 1 & 2

Cube 500 Undercounter Sink - Ensuite

Ensuite Bathtub

We had some problems with the free standing bath. Because it is a free standing unit, the spout that is coming out from the wall needs to be long enough to reach the Bath. We initially had a standard spout and that was insufficient. We had to have at least a 300mm bath spout. At our Tender appointment, we had been told that IF by any chance that the spout is discontinued, we will receive a FLOOR spout. Just like the one in the picture above! 

Things to improve on:

Our colour appointment was not finalised until AFTER our contract signing because: 

#1 all of the selections we made at the showroom was NOT transferred to our Building coordinator...for some odd reason. We ended up having Milli Flow tapwares instead of Milli Edge which we selected.

#2 We somehow managed to forget about our evaporative cooling unit COLOUR! 

#3 Our Hopetoun coordinator was helpful and great at what he was doing, however he somehow managed to not select our roof tiles and roof colour tiles. 

#4 Maybe have some sort of internal network link between PD and Hopetoun, rather than having paper documents floating around. An electronic selection method will be great!

Although it took me 4 takes to rectify all the misunderstanding between hopetoun and PD of our selections. My building coordinator was so helpful and most willing to help us get the selections right! She was very prompt in getting our file updated with the correct selections and clarifying areas that were not properly done by Hopetoun.