Day 20-31

Well, this is way over due, partially because I just haven't been able to make time and partially because I accidentally deleted a lot of important files from my computer and the, thus far unsuccessful, attempts to recover them have taken up my usual blogging time.
I've still been taking photos and have just spent the last hour or so sorting through them and adjusting them ready for your perusing. A lot has happened in the two weeks since my last post so I'll split them up into days and try and keep it reasonably brief.

So, let's get into it shall we?

Day 20
Nothing terribly exciting today, but progress none the less. Some PVC piping has grown around the outside of the slab near the toilets and the verge. I'm assuming they're sewerage pipes, please feel free to leave a comment correcting me if I'm wrong, but I can't see any other purpose for them.




Day 22
Quite a few things today. First and foremost, the bricks were delivered. I went down to the block during lunch time to find some of our external bricks sitting around the slab and our door frames leaning against the storage container. Just as I was about to leave, a truck full of bricks turned up, so I stayed whilst they unloaded them. I was speaking to one of the guys delivering the bricks and he informed me of a crack in our slab, once all the bricks were off loaded I went and had a look to find a large corner of our slab cracked all the way through, more on this later.
I went back the block after work and was greeted by a large pile of yellow sand amongst the bricks.







Day 23
Nothing new today, but I did go and take a few better photos of the crack in the slab. The previous day, I decided to call RedInk to inform them of the crack in the slab, I figured the sooner they know about it, the sooner it can be fixed. This was also my first proper conversation with our Client Liason, Hayley, she's very friendly and quick to follow everything up, always has an answer the same day. I was told the site supervisor would go and check it out and let me know what the rectification would be.
After some discussion, my friend Joel's theory is that when the pipes were put in before the slab was laid, the dirt would have been dug up and then probably not compacted quite as much as the dirt in the open areas. Once the slab was laid, the uncompacted dirt would have settled and then something drove next to the pipes causing the concrete to crack under the large weight. This explains why the outside corner has lifted.




Day 24
There were a few bits and pieces delivered today into our storage container; cement, our meter box and a few other things I'm unsure of.
I heard from RedInk today also, they informed me that they have booked their engineers to go to the site to determine the method of repair early the following week.


Day 28
Four whole days with no changes! Two of them were the weekend though. Anyway, a few more additions today; window frames and a wooden front door frame. I assume the wooden frame is the internal one because there is a metal frame with holes in it for a deadlock as well as the normal door handle and we did opt for a frame that could support a security door.
Also I heard from RedInk again today, the engineers had submitted their report and basically their recommendations were that the damaged section be cut off, re-inforcement bars be inserted into the existing slab and ground and then that section of the slab be re-poured, there was also some recomendations for additional strengthening when laying the bricks. Hayley even sent me the report so I could read it myself. This method was pretty much exactly what I expected thanks to my friends in the know. Also I was told that someone had been scheduled to cut the corner off on Friday(Day 31) and that the brickies would be starting and just staying away from that corner until it's repaired.



Day 30
Ash and I met at the block after work to discover evidence of the brickies having started their preparations. They had added cement around the edges of the slab to (I imagine) smooth it off, they had also marked out the internal walls, moved our door and window frames around closer to their positions and moved some of the bricks around.





Day 31
Today was easily the most significant day since the slab was laid. We have walls! Not too much to say about it other than that, pretty much the whole left hand side external walls are done up to about head height. Also the slab has been cut, I'm not sure exactly what the process is from here, but I suppose we will find out early next week because RedInk don't seem to muck around when it comes to getting things done.
Also Joel came down and gave our choice of bricks the thumbs up, as did another friend of ours, Rachael, who happens to be building a couple of houses down from us.
I was a little dissapointed that the mortar was rolled when I had specified that it be raked, but it's a small detail and rolled is a more practical option. I don't think it will really make too much difference in the end.






That's all for now, I've updated the picture and video in the sidebar, it's almost doubled in length now. I'll try and keep the updates daily or at least every two to three days from now on, time permitting. If you want to leave a comment, you just have to click the word "comments" below here.

Day 17 - Bricks have been chosen

Just a small update today. Yesterday Ash found out that our bricks had been ordered to be on site next Wednesday(Day 22) so she organised for us to go down to the brick yard and pick our bricks out. As I mentioned in a previous post, we have obviously chosen our bricks at pre-start, however the bricks we chose (Midland Brick - Sandalford Handmade) vary from batch to batch. Because of this we went to the yard and were shown the three different batches available at the moment, they were all quite similar and also all quite close to the ones you see in the brochure. Ash and I have very similar taste and we both knew which ones we wanted without needing to ask each other. I forgot to take my camera but Midland Brick takes a photo of each batch so Ash got that:
So that's our bricks, we actually got to see our house today, just in pieces :P

I know I said just a small update, but I just remembered that the other day Joel bought over the photos that he took a week or so ago with his fancy camera. So I thought I'd put a couple of them on, they're so much better than anything my camera can take.


Day 1 - We all went down for a couple of drinks the day after our block settled.



Day 13 - Panorama of our block after the footings were done.


Day 13 - As above


Day 13 - We're an environmentally friendly bunch. Joel, Nys, Ash and I all came in separate cars :P


Day 13 - Ash braving the cold.

I've also got a slightly updated time lapse picture for the sidebar, I'm going to try and get an animated time lapse thing happening soon. That's about it for pictures today.
In other house related news, the block next to ours(Right hand side looking at the block) has been cleared and I imagine the slab will be down soon. Also, as you can see in the new picture in the sidebar the house behind ours is growing a roof.

That's it for today, I'm off to play with photoshop for a while.

Day 14 - Slab Down

Well, today involved an early start for me, I got down to the block just after 7am to find the grano workers having finished placing all the form work and in the process of placing the chairs under the mesh(The chairs hold the mesh up off the plastic so the concrete can get under it. The mesh strengthens the concrete.) The site supervisor wasn't there but I told one of the guys who I was and that I just wanted to watch and he didn't have a problem with that. I stayed until all the concrete was poured and took lots of photos throughout the process. The guys were obviously experienced and showed a lot of care for their work, I don't think you could hope for anyone better to do such an important part of the house. They even took the time to explain to me why they did certain things and I learnt quite a bit. Probably the easiest way to explain it all is by writing a description after each photo of the process, so here goes:


As mentioned above, the form work(Wood around the edges to hold the concrete in) is all complete and the chairs are being placed under the mesh.



Not long after everything was ready the first truck showed up. I was happy to see it was Boral. Ash works for Midland Brick which is part of Boral, so we have somewhat of a loyalty and also despite possibly being biased, I have a slightly educated opinion that Boral generally has superior products to most other suppliers.



Another sight I was happy to see was the truck driving onto the middle of the slab-to-be to pour the concrete. No concrete pumps here, so that's about $1800 provisional site work costs saved, plus we have evidence so we can argue if need be, although I'm sure there won't be any problems.



Here comes the first of the concrete!



They started at the back and worked forward. Two of the guys left after the first truck.




Truck number one almost empty.



Truck number two ready to pour.



Truck number two all just about done.



Truck number two driver was a bit of a pain in the ass and resulted in a delay, here you can see truck number three waiting.



Luckily truck number three's drivers were helpful and things got back on track.



Here you can see our bathroom, powder room, toilet and laundry. Those of you who have seen slabs will notice that usually the bathroom floor is recessed and not finished very well. This is because normally the tiler uses a different type of concrete on top to shape the floor to make the water flow to the drain. I was told that RedInk is the only builder who does it this way, the grano guys actually shaped the floor and the tiles go straight on. I don't know if there are any advantages or disadvantages to doing it this way other than you don't have to wait for the other concrete to dry. I can't see it making a big difference either way. The recesses that are there are for the shower and the bath.



The slab is almost done being poured, here one of the guys is going over the first part of the slab. I think this process is called breaking, I'm not sure though. As my helpful teachers told me though, the idea behind this is primarily to bring the water to the surface(I imagine the dry surface is being broken to allow the water out, hence "breaking") it also smooths out any imperfections in the levelling and just generally smooths the surface. This process is done a number of times(About 4 or 5 I think), the machine is run length ways and across ways alternately so that you end up with a really flat surface.



Here it is, all poured. Still a bit of work to go, but mostly done.



The last few passes are more for smoothing than bringing water to the surface. At this stage I was told the slab would be ready to walk on in 10 mins. It was about this time I headed off to work after thanking the guys for letting me watch them work and for explaining the process to me as they went. I got their card and if I need any concreting done I know who I'm calling.



Ash and I went back to the block after work and I took a couple of photos of the finished product. Here it is! Even though it should have been fine to walk on, we decided not to just yet, we'll give it a couple of days.



From the back yard.



Here you can kind of see the shaping of the floor around the drains.

One thing that is missing is the garage. I haven't been told, but we've observed that the garage slabs get done separately after the bricks are all done. My mates and I have decided that it must be due to the extra loading of cars compared to people which means it requires a thicker slab and necessitates separation from the main slab so any movement due to cars going in and out doesn't effect the main slab.

That's it for today, I've added a new picture to the side bar, you can click on it for a bigger view. Ash also found out that the site supervisor has advised Midland Brick that the bricks can be delivered next Wednesday. The order hasn't been placed yet, but it's expected in the next day or so, at which point we can go and choose which batch of bricks we want.

The next step will be selecting our bricks, clearing excess dirt from around the slab and delivering the bricks. I'll update as things progress, so stay tuned!

Day 13 - More Surprises

Well, today was full of surprises. On my way to work I went past the block to find a whole bunch of guys digging the footings and preparing our block for the slab. Considering construction wasn't supposed to begin until tomorrow at the earliest, this is all looking very good.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we were supposed to have a meeting with the site supervisor, which we are yet to have. So I called RedInk and just asked if the meeting would be bought forward seeing as construction has started, I was then corrected and told that there is no meeting, it's just a letter with contact details. I don't mind, I don't think we would have had much to say anyway. Whilst I was on the phone I asked if they could tell me when the slab would be going down as I would like to watch, I was told that it was scheduled for this Friday but they'll just double check. When they came back they told me the concreter had an opening and it's now being done tomorrow. Apparently they aren't allowed to start work until after 7am, so that's when I'll get there tomorrow morning, hopefully it's the first job of the day :)

So, this is all fantastic news, everything is going much faster than anticipated. Luckily my (Civil Engineer)friends Joel and Nyssa were free this afternoon to come and check it out and give it the thumbs up, not that there was too much to check. I was also able to get some time off tomorrow to go and watch the slab get poured, I mainly want to see if they use a concrete pump because that's an $1800 provisional cost and I have no way of knowing whether it was used unless I see it, plus I'd also like to see it all happen.

One other thing, seeing as things seem to be moving at a high pace I thought I might now label each blog post with a Day number. This number being the amount of days since the settlement paper was given to RedInk. Today is Day 13, as noted above, check back regularly, there will definitely be an update tomorrow. Here's the picture from today, Joel took some more photos which I'll try and get a hold of soon.

Maybe every title should be "Finally!"

Well, in keeping consistent with my posts, this one is a bit over due. Since the last one we have finally settled on the block. As I mentioned, it was due to settle on the 28th of August and as far as I knew that was what was going to happen. Being unfamiliar with the process I assumed that it was all pretty straight forward, there was almost a month for everything to be organised so what could go wrong, right? You'd think I would have learned by now, wouldn't you?

I hadn't heard anything from our settlement agent since we got formal approval and being in the mind set I just described, I wasn't too concerned. A couple of days before settlement was due, I called the settlement agent just to check that everything was on track. They informed me "Oh, umm, no, we haven't even got the FHOG yet, no it won't be happening this week". Over the following few weeks we had many extensions on the settlement date and I also wrote a letter to Keystart.

In the letter to Keystart, I outlined the dates of major occurrences, such as application date, pre-approval, formal approval, settlement and the time frames between each. I also told them if settlement didn't take place in the next week we'd be going to the Minister for Commerce. I forwarded a copy to our local member for parliament, Judy Moylan. The following week we settled.

In total we settled a bit over 7 weeks after formal approval. One of the people I spoke to at Keystart mentioned that 6 weeks was the longest some of the files had been waiting for settlement, so I'm not sure if my letter actually achieved anything or if it was just a coincidence.

So anyway, on Tuesday the 29th of September, our block settled, so we now own land. Ash and I went down to the block, just to see if it looked different now that we owned it or something I guess :P. It just so happened that Andrew, the sales guy for Waterhall, was there, which was strange because he isn't usually on Tuesdays. Anyway, we went and said hi, and he asked if we wanted a SOLD sticker, which of course we did. We went to the block and put the sticker on, finally some change in the block.

The following day we sent the notification of settlement to our builder who told us that construction should begin in about 2-3 weeks, which today is less than 1-2 weeks. Apparently we will receive a letter letting us know when construction will commence and we also will meet the site manager who will then be our new contact person.

Also, due to Ash working at Midland Brick, we get a bit more of an insight into things. Our bricks are Handmade Sandalford and because they have about 5 or 6 different shades of bricks, each batch is slightly different(Apparently it's down to the clay that's used and I suppose some other factors which are uncontrollable). The normal procedure is that when you're building a house with these bricks, you go down to the yard and there are a couple of batches of bricks that you can choose from, so if there is a batch you don't like, you're not stuck with them. When the bricks are ready, photos are taken of them, and Ash gets the photos for work, so we've seen the current batches and they're pretty much spot on to the catalogue versions. We're really hoping we can go and choose the bricks from these batch's because they're exactly the way we like them. Ash is going to find out today if we can choose them yet. We'll actually get to see part of our house!

...

Well, that was a bit of a surprise. I wrote that blog entry before going to the block with Ash to get a picture of the block with the sold sticker. When we got to the block we discovered our block has been excavated and has the metal framework for the slab ready to go. Quite a shock considering we weren't expecting to even hear from RedInk for another week or two, never mind actually have construction begin.

So I never got a picture of the block in it's untouched state with the sold sticker, but I'm willing to live with that seeing as construction has started early. Here are some photos:



I've also updated the photo of our house in the side bar at the right. That's it for now, but hopefully we'll have a lot more to update from now on!