Retaining walls, excavation and piping...

With mum and dads help we completed the retaining walls and handed the block back to the builders. Not a bad job if I do say so myself! 

The builders then needed to fill the block with 335mm as they had initially cut it wrong! 

This week saw the piping completed and getting ready for the slab to be poured. 

Though I'm guessing this wasn't supposed to happen... 

Next we will see the slab being poured and the frame up by Christmas...

Retaining continues...

Went back to the block today to continue  with our retaining walls, only to find out post holes filled with water from the recent rain. 

With the assistance of a water pump we finally got underway around lunch time. Unfortunately I missed getting a video of Jay trying to clear a blockage in the pump without turning the drive unit motor off... An upside to my day :) 

Starting the retaining walls

Today we started our retaining walls by digging 12 x 1.2m holes in order to stand a 2.4m post in it. Thank god for dingos!!! Too bad about the weather! 12 holes to go! 

We hit quite a bit of rock which delayed us, however on average we got one hole every 15-20 mins. Unfortunately we had a set back with thunder storms and rain this morning, hopefully tomorrow will be better. 

Fill Removal

Today saw the bulk of our excess fill removed. Due to the changes in the amount MJH have requested to complete another site survey to ensure it has been cut properly. This will occur on Thursday, hopefully with a result by Friday afternoon as we are planning on completing our required retaining walls on the weekend. We shall see how that goes! Once the retaining walls are done, we will organize for the removal of the rest of the excess fill. 

Excavations

It took almost 6 months to get through council and we had a lot of issues, however at the end of August we finally got notification that it was complete. 

Our block was pegged out on the 16th of September, with excavations supposed to begin the following week. Issues occurred whereby our 'lovely' neighbors had placed their bricks and sand on our block, which delayed our excavations by a week - like we needed any more delays. 

Excavations occurred on Friday the 23rd of September, and the approx 175 tonne of fill to be removed was actually found to be around 750 tonne. This means our removal cost climbs from $1100 to $15000. A huge difference, and some more unwelcome delays. 

The site has been handed back to us for the removal of fill, and construction of retaining walls. These were supposed to be 20m on the left side and 27m on the right side. We marked it all out over the weekend and from what we can tell it should be 16m on the left, and 12.5m on the right. A large difference to what MJH had in the contract. 

Waiting for council

Well, we have now completed our electrical selections, and have signed off on our loan paperwork with NAB. Now all we need is for council to approve everything. It has been with them since 10 April 2015 and we're still waiting. Today they came back to identify 'missing' parts of the application, all of which was already given to them. Due to these requirements they have changed our predicted date of approval to sometime in July. What a joke. Hopefully Lake Macquarie surprise us and approve it all earlier than that. Unfortunately, what they don't realize, is that we will be missing out on a number of financial benefits if they with hold out approval for that long! 

Oh well, time will tell. 

Selections day

Today we did our selections. This is what we came up with: 

 External bricks - Austral Urban Chiffon

Roof - colour bond 'monument'

Fascias and gutters - colour bond 'surf mist' 

External doors, windows and eaves - 'surf mist' 

Garage - 'monument' ranch style

Bathroom windows - clear glass to be dressed with plantation shutters in white

Front door - Hume nex 35 with clear glass 

Stainless flyscreens to all windows

Doors - diamond safety screen to sliding 

External - governor handles with dead locks 

Internal: 

Doors - Hume alpine doors

Cavity door - Lin10 with clear glass 

Skirting & architraves - Taubmans illusive white

Bathrooms & laundry 

300x300 solar Nero 30 floor tiles

300x600 solar Nero wall tiles 

Ceasarstone ice snow bench

Polytec char oak vanity

Kitchen 

3 drawer sets

1 bin drawer

Ceasarstone 20mm benchtop

Classic white matte cabinets

Splash back - handcrafted 'manual marina' 75x150 tile 

Smug appliances including 900mm freestanding oven/cooktop

Ducted range hood 

Paint

Taubmans 'marble mist' - walls

Taubmans 'illusive white' architraves, skirting & cornices 

Flooring

Gerfloor creation clic 'wild oak' to all living areas, kitchen and halls

Red book 'elsden' midnight to all bedrooms and home theatre

Consolidated tender

We finally received our consolidated tender, bush fire report, soil report and siting. We were glad to find no surprises so signed off on it. 

Now we wait for our plans to be drawn up (meeting on the 23rd Feb), and our colour selections (3rd of March)... Then we will finally be underway!