Day 37: Slab preparation complete

Its slab time!!!! Yes, that’s right everything is ready and waiting for the slab pour which will hopefully take place tomorrow. We had a lot of fun looking at all the prep work for the slab and working out which room would be were. We also realised just how bloody big our house is going to be and how much work we will have to do to the backyard so we can make the space functional for the kids (and us). That said, we are sooooo excited to be at this point. We can’t believe how quick things move now that the whole process is underway. All the boxing for the slab was done in one day – phew!!!

We tossed a gold coin into the slab area for good luck, lets hope we have good weather tomorrow and can show you some new pics of our slab.

View from the rear of the block.  The house area looks huge!!

Closeup of the slab area shows polystyrene (Expanded Polystyrene to be precise) used for the waffle pods.  The polystyrene is a great insulator, reducing heat transfer through the floor.

Close up of the waffle pods from the front

Outdoor room

The following image shows the main plumbing pipes into the ground floor of the house.  The close ones seem to be the ground floor powder room and laundry.  The one further back in the photo more towards the centre is the kitchen island bench.

When we arrived at the site, our front fence had a serious lean on it and had to be braced up by some wood.  The falling fence destroyed our letterbox.  We had to go to Bunnings and spent $21 to get a replacement.

Our cyclone fence needs fixing

Our recycling bin looks a bit squashed from the recent site works.  Now who is going to replace this?

Our poor bin 😦

A gold coin for good luck

C&K

Day 32: We have been pegged

Drove past the block after work today and saw the property pegged to outline the slab position.  Other than that no other visible progress.

C&K

Day 17: More digging

During the week we noticed new site markers were on the footpath which we suspect were from the site surveyors completing another site survey.  Yesterday morning (Saturday) we drove past the block to see trucks and a digger on site doing more work on our block.

We are now getting a better idea of how the house will sit on the block. While we always knew that there would be a deep cut on the block, seeing it now has made us start to think about the degree of landscaping and additional retaining walls we will need. At the moment we are struggling to get our head around what exactly we will do to transform the great big slope at the back of the block into a functional backyard for our kids. Another research project is underway.

Also earlier in the week, Alice introduced herself as our new Customer Service Coordinator (CSC).

Digger in action

You can see we will have a deep cut towards the back

C&K

Day 1: Site re(start) 9.11.2012

After what feels like an eternity we finally commenced on site today. As I (Kristen) was driving past the block this morning I had an overwhelming sense of emotion at the thought that our house has started. All of the months of waiting, delays, unforeseen problems are now behind us (we hope). To see action on the block was so exciting and we can finally go to the first construction stage of our home project – the base stage. woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!

C&K

Still waiting for site start

It’s been 5 weeks since our last entry. Thanks to everyone who has reached out to us to see how we are going.  Unfortunately, the weeks are passing by and site works are still at a standstill.  The issue of the drainage pipe that was not identified as an easement earlier is still being sorted out by the builder with the council.  We met with Metricon over a month ago to discuss the options moving forward and this week we were advised that the engineering plans have been redone to cater for the pipe.  We are now waiting on Metricon to schedule a meeting with the council to discuss the revised plans.

The waiting game over the last five weeks has been mentally exhausting. The elation we felt when we knew that site works had started was very quickly replaced by disappointment and frustration. We knew sorting out the pipe would take some time and we knew we would have to be patient. Despite our efforts, our frustration has grown with each passing week. We know Metricon have been doing a lot of work behind the scene to deal with the council who have been nothing but trouble. While we don’t doubt how much work has been done to progress things with the council, one thing that would have helped is more regular communication and updates on progress. This would have done a lot to quell our frustration over the last few weeks. Its the not knowing that creates the anxiety and allows the frustration to build. When we have had an update it has been comforting and has helped us feel informed.

On good news, upon further investigation the debris left behind by the demolisher isn’t as bad as first thought and that Metricon can take care of it and continue the site cut once the pipe issue has been resolved. Yay!!

Our Metricon CSC, Megan advised us she will call us on Monday to provide an update.  We are hoping for good news that a meeting with the council has been scheduled and not far off. Fingers crossed we will be back on track again soon. 🙂

C&K

Start and Stop

It was exciting to see some work start on our block late last week with the site scrape. Unfortunately work stopped pretty much as soon as it started and things are now on hold.  Today we met our Customer Support Manager, Nick and our two CSCs, Megan and Karen at our block to discuss a couple of the issues that have halted work.

The first issue is some significant amount of building material buried in the soil as a result of the demolition works by VicWide Demolition which we were not aware of (and are really not happy about).   The second issue is a drainage pipe that was not identified as an easement earlier but now warrants further investigation to see how close we can build to it.

Both issues are now being followed by Metricon.  We are hopeful that the problems will only mean an approximate two week delay in proceedings.

C&K