Slow and steady

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.

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. 

19th Oct 12
Rear of the building Hebel panels completed

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. 

19th Oct 12
Completed North side wall

19th Oct 12
Completed front facade

19th Oct 12
Ducted Vacuum roughed in

Our ducted vacuum points have been roughed in and outlets connected. However it appears that the guy installing it did not follow the drawings he has been given! I spotted another error in our duc vac waste point.
We have upgraded our garage almost a 3 car garage size. The 3rd lot will be serviced as a workshop/storage area. 

The error is as follows:

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 

22nd Oct 12
Plumbing for the upper floor completed

Stacker pipes next to the study room to service the upper level. This is directly next to the open space next to the doorway.

Pipes in the bulkhead above refrigerator space.

Stacker pipe to service upper floor as well

These pipes service the upper floor as well. It is located IN the WIP and next to the Refrigerator space. We wanted to have a bigger refrigerator, but we were told that we cannot due to this reason. 

Breather pipes

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.

Heating/cooling in Family area

Heating/cooling ducts servicing ground level

Cooling duct in Kitchen area

  

Cooling duct for the lounge room.
Seems like the plumber might have made a mistake here.

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!

Another view

Heating cooling ducts will run down this to the master ensuite

Master Ensuite Heating/cooling.
This is integrated into the front facade 

24th Oct 12
The proposed duct opening marked in rooms

 External scaffolding has been constructed only on the ground level.

24th Oct 12 

24th Oct 12

24th Oct 12

Now it seems like the upper level may not be panelled up by the end of this week.
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!

And it begins again

After a having no activity at all for the whole of last week. Our site started to buzz with activity again from Monday this week. No recorded activity from the 8th - 12th October 12. We were advised last Friday by our SS that Electrical will be coming in, then Hebel will go up on the ground level by this week, followed on by 2nd storey in the subsequent week. Plasterboards will go up the following week.

Final Inspect came out to the site to inspect the frames stage on the 5th October 12. Our inspector managed to pick up some minor defects which I forwarded immediately to our SS and BC. He said the lock-up carpenter will get them rectified.

Plasterboards were delivered on the 4th October. SS probably thought it would be a good idea to keep them indoors now as it could be tricky to get them on the 2nd storey later on. They take up the entire kitchen area at the moment. Quite a hassle to get around. 

Hebel delivered on Monday 15th October 12

Our Hebel wall panels which will replace Bricks

The main reason why we decided that Hebel would be suitable for us was because of the promotion offer Porter Davis was having. $3999 FULL render to the house. Hebel has its pros and its cons. We decided that instead of going with bricks and having to pay close to $15,000 to get the whole house rendered, Hebel would be the better cost effective option. Furthermore, it is a much faster and quicker process then if we were to go with bricks. Also, having the issue of 'wrong colours' and delayed bricks was not an option we were keen on.

One of the issues with Hebel is that we have a column at the front of our house. At the showrooms, this column was left as bricks and the rest of the house rendered. We requested that PD maintained this for us. However at our contract signing, we were told that because we were building Hebel, the ENTIRE house needs to be Hebel. They were not willing to budge and let us have a brick column. So I'm thinking of having this column stacked stoned later on.

Finally, a concern we had was "is Hebel a way PD was comfortable to build with?" Knowing that the tradies that come in could vary in workmanship this was quite a significant debate we had to overcome. FInally we decided that if we weren't happy with the job they did, we will bring it up with the SS.

Black bundle cable - TV 

Electrical was fitted for the 2nd storey on the 15th October 12. The electricians left quite early and no other work was done for the rest of the day. 

Electrical ground floor - 16 Oct 12

I went out to site on the 16 Oct 12 and met the electrician working on the ground level. He advised me that they were aiming to have the whole ground floor wired up by the end of the day as Hebel was going to come in tomorrow! But one of the issues he brought up was that due to the incorrect drawing Argus Technologies had when we did our electrical selection appointment (Argus had a drawing of the house that was BEFORE any upgrades were put in. Such as standard window sizes etc). 

Electrician's problem in family room

As you can see in the above picture. The electrical drawings showed that the rear family windows were much smaller in width and as such we were able to allocate a double GPO at that corner. However, because we have upgraded our structural (windows), PD had forgotten to pass that information to Argus Tech and we made our selections on electricals based on wrong drawings. SS called and told me to speak to the sparkie if possible. So I went down and asked him to shift the plug to our laundry wall, allowing me to plug in for ironing in the future. The sparkie was such a nice bloke who was happy to help with anything. 

Wrong Plumbing in Laundry

Another error for PD due to not updating drawings. As you can see in the above picture, I have managed to ask our BC and SS to go back and look at our drawings as during our final construction drawing sign-off, we've requested to have our taps for the washing machine mounted UNDER the trough and IN the cabinets. This will allow us to have the washing machine and dryer flush against the wall and against the cabinets. There will be a small hole on the side of the cabinet which will service the pipes etc. SS was adamant on not changing the pipes as 'it has already been constructed. And the drawings say that the taps are there'. Despite me telling him that the drawings he has are old and I even brought the new one down to let him have a look. He said that I needed to get it in writing from office before he can do anything. So I sent an email to our BC (who was the original one that told us this was possible. And was the one who made the drawing changes for us) and asked her if she could have a chat with our SS. It turned out that she was either sick or on holidays as the whole of last week while there wasn't any activity, I didn't hear from her until the Friday when SS called. Luckily there was no work during that period, or else I fear that we would've missed our chance for the plumbers to come and fix it. Anyway, SS and BC worked everything out and now we have our taps moved!
HOWEVER....our electrical drawings, are INCORRECT. The double GPO is mounted at 1100 and not under the cabinet. I tried asking the electrician to move it for me, he agreed. But when I went to the site and checked, it wasn't done and his reason was because SS didn't allow. Based on the drawings it had to be there and PD was not ready to budge.
I guess..at the end of the day. We win one and we lose one. Nothing we can do about it. Doesn't fuss me - could be a good thing that electricity are not in the same vicinity as pipes/water. Haha!

Hebel started today. 17 Oct 12.

The day's work. 17 Oct 12

I watched the guys install these panels and I'm glad we went with it. Its so FAST and quick. They had 3 men. 2 carrying the panels and 1 screwing them onto the frame. The panels are about 80kg each. And I'm assuming that they only completed 1/4 of the ground level today and left quite early because they have been tired out. Hopefully we will see more of the house completed tomorrow. 

Shower bases have been prepared.
Bathroom 2

There has been some vandalism at our site. Its such a shame but I guess we can't do much about it, other than maybe setting up surveillance cameras like some other owners have. Melbourne is not longer as safe as we think it is. Our site is literally 3mins drive from the police station and yet some people have the guts to enter an unknown site and vandalise. We live in Metro Melbourne and we see this happening! They should get caught and taught a lesson.

As you can see, there are footprints IN the shower base.
That area has been sectioned off and told to Keep Off.
Clearly someone didn't have eyes to see the sign
or must've done it purposely. 

Graffiti on our plaster boards on the 2nd storey.

17th Oct 12

Thats all for today. I look forward to bring even more better news by the weekend!

Roof ON!

As I visited the site today after work, it appears that the weather had proven to pull through for us. Our roof had been put on today! Plumbing within the house has also begin. We've also been wrapped! All in ONE day!


Our site was so busy, it seems like there were 3 groups of tradies there. 
1 - Roof guys 
2 - Plumbers  
3 - Membrane Wrappers

2 October 12 - Roof tiles moved to roof truss

I believe these are the scaffolding 

This small ladder is what they used as a pulley
to bring roof tiles to the top

End of day (2nd Oct 12)

Roof tiles on! 3rd Oct 12

HWS - Sunmaster Rinnai 26

Plumbing for the Master Ensuite

Problem area due to no eaves.
(hopefully they make the area water tight tomorrow)
Read more 

So this pipe was for the plumbing to the island bench!
(follow story here)

Other end of the pipe!
Under the island bench!