Construction has seems to have slowed down a fair bit since the start of our build.
It probably means that the build is fairly difficult at this stage.
We're still in the midst of fixing Hebel to the exterior of our home. Since the last post, nothing significant has happened other than more panels going on. The panels apparently weigh about 80kg EACH and theres usually only 3 men working on fitting them to the frame.
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| 18th Oct 12 Hebel on the South wall of the house completed |
The above picture is where our Study (sliding door) and Lounge room (fixed window) will be located.
As you can see the garage has not been constructed yet.
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| 19th Oct 12 Rear of the building Hebel panels completed |
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| Rear of the house. Our large upgraded window panels. |
In the above picture, the window panels had been upgraded at our tender appointment, but the drawings were not updated when we sat our electrical appointment. Only when L & O Tech came out to install the double GPO at the location did we realise that the wall in that area was too small to cater for a wall plug.
So instead we had it shifted to our laundry room to cater for our ironing.
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| 19th Oct 12 Completed North side wall |
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| 19th Oct 12 Completed front facade |
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| 19th Oct 12 Ducted Vacuum roughed in |
We have upgraded our garage almost a 3 car garage size. The 3rd lot will be serviced as a workshop/storage area.
Im not sure how strong the Duc Vac is going to be. And whether it will get clogged up easily. It seems like the the pipes they've used aren't very wide at all :S
PD advised that they will finish ALL of the ground Hebel by 19th October. And they did! Well done guys! Credits to our S/S being so organised!
Week Beginning 21st Oct 12
Some exciting thing to be completed this week:
- Wrapped on Upper floor
- Hebel panels on Upper floor
- Plumbing for upper floor
- Heating/cooling unit installed
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| 22nd Oct 12 Plumbing for the upper floor completed |
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| Pipes in the bulkhead above refrigerator space. |
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| Stacker pipe to service upper floor as well |
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| Breather pipes |
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| Plumber installed tap & pressurised pipes |
23rd October
All scaffolding have been moved onto the nature strip.
No other activity recorded.
24th October
Heating/Cooling install has started.
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| Heating/cooling in Family area |
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| Heating/cooling ducts servicing ground level |
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| Cooling duct in Kitchen area |
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| Cooling duct for the lounge room. Seems like the plumber might have made a mistake here. |
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| Potential problem for the plumber. (View from upper floor) The large cut out space is used for ducts to get to the lounge room. plumbing pipe is in the way! |
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| Another view |
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| Heating cooling ducts will run down this to the master ensuite |
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| Master Ensuite Heating/cooling. This is integrated into the front facade |
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| 24th Oct 12 The proposed duct opening marked in rooms |
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| 24th Oct 12 |
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| 24th Oct 12 |
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| 24th Oct 12 |
They've still got to construct the rest of the scaffolding, and wrap up the upper level. If they can do all of that by tomorrow, maybe the Hebel guys can come in on Friday and get a head start.
1st time PD falling behind schedule! Hopefully its not going to be a trend.
On a side note: I just bought our family a new surround sound system for our lounge room from digital cinemas! Im currently also thinking if we'll get a new TV for our lounge! 60inch Plasma Samsung 8000series or 60 inch LED Samsung 6000series?
Denon 2113 AV Receiver
Wharfedale DX-1
100m speaker cables
$1700 all up! I managed to get a deal with the guy selling them to me. I was even able to score a deal better than JB-HIFI can do for me.
Can't wait to give them a try tomorrow when I receive them!
looking good. bummer about the vacuum outlets. Good thing you noticed that early.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteWe are interested in the same PD house. Would love to chat further about your experiences.
Please email me at tush@netspace.net.au to discuss.
Regards,
Gideon
Hi Gideon,
ReplyDeleteThe Sandringham is a beautiful house! You're making the right choice!
Feel free to ask me any questions here on the blog.
g
Hi
ReplyDeleteWe are just starting with PD having selected the Sandringham 45 too, with an enclosed alfresco (as a dining room). We are also a knockdown re-build and hence very interested in reading and following your experience. This has been really useful and your progress is amazing, we love the house and are really keen on getting ours started.
We have taken your advice and got a quote from Peter at FinalInspect. Would be keen to know your prices. He sounds nice to deal with on the phone too. Thanks for the tip.
Having now paid the $1000 deposit we are waiting on the site survey!! Would love a copy of yours to compare, I recall you offered it to those who may be interested. We are :).
PD was very heavy on estimated site costs as we are a sloping block, so very nervous about where to from here.
We have got prices for demolition but they are a bit heavy, one good price though, closer to yours, so here's hoping !
PD has also been a bit slow in getting the BC for us.
How long did it take before they contacted you? it has been 2 weeks for us.
We have a January start and are hopeful but there seems a mountain of stuff to do before then.....
Any advice you can give about locating the house on the block is appreciated. We are in Glen Iris and the block has a 15.2m frontage, what was yours? We are concerned that with our changes max heights and an increase of 1.2m extension to the garage we may not meet the Res code. Did PD supply a res code compliant design before the tender meeting or at contract stage?
Sorry for all the questions but your situation is so much like ours we cant help but ask..
Look forward to hearing from you and watching your blog.
Great work on that by the way, fantastic detail and we know it is going to be all worth it !!
BTW could go either way on the render colours but if it is what you want, painting is still an option. My father in law, who is a solid plasterer, still recommends painting the render (regardless that it's coloured) to seal it and get the max life out of it. So it could be a bonus for you if you get PD to pay for the paint job AND get the colour you want !
N&G
Hi N&G
ReplyDeletecongratulations on the start with PD! Im sure you'll be find the journey very interesting and also very rewarding at the same time. Im glad that this blog is helping people like yourself.
Peter is a great guy! He is very professional and will definitely look after you. We engaged him for the slab, frame and final inspection (PCI) stage.
Have you received your site survey results yet? I can send you a copy of our survey if you provide me with your contact details. But be aware that the surveys may be quite different as the soil in different locations are obviously a main factor. But you are welcome to have it anyway.
Our BC made contact with us when we havent heard from PD about our site survey results. I believe they will give you a call when they have the results from their engineers.
Hopefully they will give you one that will stay throughout the whole job. I just got a call from ours last friday telling me that she was leaving PD! She was a an absolute gun at her job and its such a shame that she didn't stay for the entire build. Just be prepared that you might not have the same BC throughout the job - which means: Paper document everything! All communications!
We wanted our house to have the MAXIMUM backyard space so we requested to have our house with the minimum front setback as possible. Also with our extended garage, we maximised our backyard area. I guess you would want to have the biggest 'private' space as possible.
PD goes through the siting of the house at the Tender appointment!
Things to look out for at Tender:
1. Upgrade heights of the entire house - upper/ground floor
2. Eaves around the entire house.
3. Check the bearings of the site before tender and locate your windows(if any upgrades) to the preferred locations. We're finding that we don't have enough windows facing North. Our kitchen/living area faces the western sun.
4. Internal door heights and the direction of sliding doors if any.
5. Where the hot water solar panel is located (you should have a north facing panel)
6. check the bulkheads on your drawings. (usually located above the kitchen)
Basically try to get as much detail down at your tender appointment. PD is very reluctant to change things after the appointment. If you don't feel comfortable with the tending drawings, don't sign it and request to come back and collect it.
With us, they used a different facade drawing and made the structural changes to that. My advise it NOT to go down the same path as us. It was so confusing and some of the structural changes were not transferred to the tender drawings.
Our SS told us the render was a base coat! I'll update the blog soon and you'll be able to read more about it.
Hear from you guys soon!
Good luck!
g