Day 33 - Fast

They really don't muck around once they get going. We drove past the block yesterday and saw they were working, went down this afternoon to see the progress and were quite impressed. They've done about half of the external walls, about half of the internal bricks for those walls and even started on one of the internal walls itself. Not to mention that the damaged corner has been removed now save for a few remnants. Here are some pics with a bit further detail:


They've placed some scaffolding around the front corner of the house, I assume in preparation for laying the bricks above head height. Also, you can't really tell in this photo too easily, but the big pile of dirt out the front is gone.


You can see here that they've now done the whole back wall and half of the right hand side one up to head height.


The internal bricks are done on this side, and you can just see the strapping coming up over the top in between the two layers of bricks. This strapping will be tied to the roof to help keep it on :)


Our first internal wall! This is our ensuite and toilet.


It's true what they say about everything looking bigger once the walls go up. We're really getting an idea of the size of our back yard, it seemed a bit small before, but it seems quite reasonable now there are walls. The boundary of our block is where the limestone wall on the far side steps up.


This is the right hand side of the house from the rear. Once the slab went down we thought there would be room for a thin path and a narrow strip of garden, but it's quite a spacious passage now.


We saw a bobcat at the block on Saturday and judging by the track marks I'd say it was used to lift and remove the section of the slab that is now missing.


And here is the missing section, up side down. I suppose this is going to be the rubbish pile now.


We also went for a walk down to the lake. The grass is starting to fill in and it's starting to look quite nice.

That's it for today, I've updated the picture in the side bar, don't forget you can click it for a larger version. I won't be surprised if the new part of the slab is poured tomorrow so we should have another update then.

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!

I can not avoid it any longer...

Well, I haven't posted a new blog entry for some time, basically because it's the only way I could stay sane. After what has happened the last few weeks I've been trying to avoid anything to do with the house so as to reduce my stress levels, I've even stopped going down to the block, which I was doing every second day at least(It's on my way home from work). What could cause such stress you ask? Well, I'll tell you, just let me try and remember the beginning...

Wow, I just checked the last blog post, that was a long time ago. I'll start where we left off.
We'd just finished pre-start and were waiting for our final costings, after a couple of days, we got them. Mostly they were to our liking, there were a few things that were a bit more expensive than we would have liked and a few things that were less expensive than we expected. Apart from a couple of alterations and some confusion with the cost of our different to standard pavers and bricks, everything was as it should be and after a week or so it was all done and signed and returned to RedInk. At the time there were a few things that seemed dramatic, but in light of recent events, I say "meh" to them. That's about it as far as constructive progress, now on to the Keystart saga.

Firstly, a bit of background; when we got our pre-approval from Keystart, they said that once we gave them the required documentation it would take 5-10 working days for them to process everything and give us the money. About 4 or 5 weeks after we gave Keystart the documents they requested (and also the day before the extension on our block finance ran out), we tried contacting Keystart and asking them what's going on, in a day or so they got back to us and said,
"Oh actually, you know how we originally told you that the maximum property value and loan amount couldn't exceed $500,000, and then after 2 months of waiting we told you that the maximum loan amount had been reduced to $412,000? Well we've now decided that the maximum property value can't exceed $412,000 either. We know that you've already planned your whole house out, signed the contracts and based your whole budget on the original $500,000, but oh well."
That's paraphrased, they probably cared a lot less than what I made them out to seem there, but you get the point. Our finance broker was frustrated to no end, and I tell you, that man has earned 10 times his commission on this job. He'd had his state manager onto Keystart and done everything he could do, but to no avail. He advised us that our options were basically;
a)Apply with a bank. (Which would obviously take months and we would undoubtedly lose the block)
b)Take it to some commissioner person and complain.(Which again would take months and we'd lose the block) or
c) Try and reduce the house value to get below the $412,000 mark and supply Keystart with the new contract.
Seeing as we really didn't have a choice, we went with c) and with collaboration with RedInk were able to achieve this. I won't go into the details, but it worked out OK in the end. Keystart also assured us that should we supply them with a revised contract then everything was ready to go and it would be a matter of days until we got the money. So with this relatively good news in mind and a light at the seemingly never ending tunnel, we got to work.

We managed to get an extension on the block finance for another 2 weeks(Time Conti have been extremely understanding with us). The only thing RedInk required from us for the revised contract was a FHOG(First Home Owners Grant) approval form, which of course Keystart has to give us. After a week of waiting, Keystart informed us that they couldn't give us the approval form until they got the new contract. Of course, we couldn't get the new contract until we had the approval form, but Keystart cares not. After our finance broker ensured RedInk we will be approved for the FHOG they took his word and re-did the contract that day and then we gave it straight to Keystart.
Because of Keystart's delay in not giving us the FHOG approval form, there were only a few days remaining until the block finance was due again, but Keystart had assured us everything was ready to go so we weren't too concerned.

Jump forward to the day after finance was due for the block, our finance broker asked Keystart if there was any news and if they could put the job forward as urgent. Keystart informed us that because they'd only just received the forms it couldn't be set as urgent and it'd probably be another 5 days or so(Apparently, for something to be set to urgent status, it has to sit there for a week or so first. Never mind that the only reason new forms were required was because of Keystart in the first place). So anyway, once again I informed TimeConti that Keystart hate us and I'm sorry and could we please have a further extension, and once again they very kindly agreed and gave us another 2 week extension.

That was the end of last week, now we're catching up to the current time, I got home tonight to find an email from our finance broker saying that Keystart is now asking for proof that Ash's credit card is cancelled. Now, I agree that this is an entirely logical and fair thing for a lender to ask for, however, when we were given our pre-approval it came with a list of questions and documentation requirements querying such things as certain transactions that were made, pay slips etc. This is something that should have been asked then, asking it now just seems like they are trying to screw us over, trying to hold things up as long as possible.
I wish, if they really aren't going to give us the money, they would just tell us instead of getting us to jump through hoops making me go half way insane and then have it all be for nothing. It really feels like they're just doing this for fun now, and the worst of it is, we can't do anything about it.

However, if there is one thing that this whole extended process has taught me, it's that you have to just accept it, look at all the options open to you and do what you can. In this particular instance, it's get everything they require as quickly as possible, unfortunately there is no arguing with Keystart, they don't care, they're not trying to make money, if you take your business elsewhere it just means less work for them. Ironically, because they're set up to help people, that's what they do least.

Looking to the future, should all the stars align and buddah smile upon us, Ash will be able to get some kind of proof that she doesn't have a credit card any more first thing tomorrow morning and we can forward that to Keystart. Keystart will then be satisfied, finish processing our application and then we can finally arrange settlement for our block by this Friday, which is when our extension runs out.

I'll leave it on that slightly positive note and with the promise that I will update more regularly in the future. If you made it this far, thank you for reading and feel free to leave comments about anything, all you have to do is click the "0 comments" text just under this.

First Post - Let's see how this goes.

Ok, well, Hi.
I've decided that progress with our house has reached a point where it's just about worthwhile having some photos and ramblings which we can direct friends and family members and whoever might be interested to come and have a look.


So, let me explain where we've come from and where we're at right now:
It all started at the end of January, we decided that with the First Home Owners Grant Boost coming to an end in 6 months time, it was a good time to look into building a house. We both liked the Guildford area and had seen a new estate that looked promising, we went and had a look and both felt it was perfect, we didn't really bother looking elsewhere too much, Waterhall in South Guildford suited all our requirements perfectly. We registered our interest in one particular block and started looking through display homes, something that became somewhat of a routine over the following month.

After a few disappointments and frustrations, we found the Evolution 3000 by RedInk. After a few modifications, we were happy and around the end of February we signed a preliminary contract to build our house, we also made an offer on the block which was accepted the following day. Both of these were pending finance which we applied for around the same time.

Had we known that when you put an application in you just apply for the maximum amount you can borrow, we would have put our application in when we started looking. We didn't though and it turned out that lots of other people thought buying/building a house now was a good idea. As a result, loan pre-approval times became 3 to 4 times longer than usual. It took about 2 months for our pre-approval to come through, when it finally we did, we sent a copy to RedInk and the next step began.

After a week or so we were told our house was being rushed through, I guess because it had been in the system for so long, so we went and signed a few documents to give to our lender so we could get our finance finalised. We also went down to the block and discovered holes had been drilled for the soil tests, the first actual change in the block since we first saw it. Since then we've booked pre-start for the 9th of June, given all the relevant documents to our lender and made gas and electricity accounts.

Around the time we decided on the house, we went to Midland Brick at Home Base Expo and picked our bricks, pavers, roof, gutters etc. We have also picked all of our tiles and plan to go and check out the place that all the basins, taps, sinks etc. come from in the next week or so.


So things seem to be actually happening now, according to the contract, construction on the house must start by the 29th of June and be completed 250 days from construction commencement, which is the 6th of March. I'll try and update this regularly and hopefully provide pictures as well.

For now, here are some pictures of the block and our tile and laminate choices.

Ash and I on our block


How exciting, a hole on our block. This is from the soil tests.


These are the tiles and laminates for the bathroom, toilet and laundry. The small tiles on the left are the feature tiles, ivory for the walls, chocolate for the floor, mocha for the cupboards and a whitish colour for the bench top.


Kitchen: Mocha for the lower cupboards, white with a hint of brown for the upper cupboards and the lower drawers, green tea Essa stone for the bench tops.


Ensuite: Same Ivory tiles as the bathroom, something with some texture for the floors, a dark woodgrain for the cupboards, a whitish for the bench top. The feature tile is just below.


Feature tile for the ensuite, these are 50mm square, there will be a strip of these running down the shower and also a strip under the mirror. We're doing the same sort of thing in the bathroom with it's feature tile.


That's it for now, I'll try and get a floor plan and a few other things up later on. The next few days are a long weekend in Margaret River for Ash and I to celebrate our 2 year anniversary which is on the 3rd, it's amazing how things can change so much in 2 years time(and to prevent me getting in trouble I'll just clarify that I mean change for the better :) )