Day 3 - September 30th

Today I met up with our Site Supervisor. I haven't been able to meet him up until this point due to work. The Site Supervisor explained what they have done so far and where they are expecting to get to by next week.

The roll out will be:
1) Today the concrete piers are to be installed. These serve to keep the house from sinking!
2) Tomorrow they are aiming to have this completed, and then they will start to get the plumbing installed and ready for the slab preparation.
3) Depending upon the weather, they may come on site on Saturday to prepare for the slab.
4) They are aiming to be pouring the slab on Tuesday (again..weather permitting). On Tuesday they are also expecting delivery of the house frame, which will be installed over the coming week.

I was a little surprised as he said that we need to arrange the removal of the extra soil that is piled up at the front of the property ideally over the weekend. Looking at the property, I am wondering if we could be adding some of the soil to the side of the land as it doesn't have any soil here and we are probably going to need it here later on after everything is complete?

Now for the pictures....

Note: I have contacted Peter Spence from Redlands Earth Moving (Tradeors Pty Ltd) to move around 10 - 15 sq m of top soil scraped from the site. It will cost around $300 for one truck load (which should hold around 10-12 sq m). Peter Spence is contactable on 07 3206 6100, and is working from Mount Cotton.

He has advised me that he will be able to get one of the trucks to come out around lunchtime to remove the top soil.

Interestingly, the contract states:

"Vegetation scraped from the top of the building pad which is unsuitable for site fill material, will be stockpiled on site for the Owner/s future landscaping needs and/or removal by the Owner/s at own expense."

With all the grass in this soil, it looks like this is what it is, so technically, we do not need to remove it. One thing that may happen anyway, is that we may bring in extra black soil to stop the staining of the concrete, so removing it is probably a good idea for the time being.

  

Day 2 - September 29th

Got home a little earlier today, and visited the property. Today they have added the screening to prevent soil erosion, a portable toilet, another sign as well as starting to lay out the positions for the foundation.

See the photos below.

Day 1 - September 28th

Today I had training on in the city -  a three day course .. So I didn't get to speak to the Site Supervisior..this will happen on Thursday morning instead.

Drove around tonight, very excited to see if they managed to cut the homes platform. It rained a bit today, so I thought perhaps they might not have been able to do this?

Looks like they got in before the rain as it had been cut.. This is the only worth while photos I have..It was simply to dark, and I didn't have my flash camera with me...

Everything is ready....

 On Friday, I received a phone call from our Metricon Site Manager. He has phoned to advise that they have scheduled a start date of Tuesday the 28th of September. A little earlier than I had expected - This is good. This only provides 13 and a half weeks however, until the end of the year, so I am not sure that they can be expected to finish the property before this time.

The building period is set at 180 days from the start date and it must reach practical completion within 180 days of this time. Of note, this time frame also includes allowances for:
* Inclement weather - 10 days
* Weekends, public holidays, rostered days off and other days not generally available for the carrying out of the works - 55 days.

(Of note: the industry shutdown occurs on or about the 22nd of December each year and occurs for 3 weeks - 21 days)

So from what I can tell, this provides the builder with 201 days to complete the home (180 + 21) from the official site start date, Wednesday the 29th of September 2010. This means the home should be completed by Monday the 18th of April 2011 (201 days is actually Sunday the 17th of April). Best case, if they did it in the 14 weeks and didn't take any time off, it would be completed by Wednesday January 5th 2011).

From the work the builders have done at my workplace, I have learnt it is better to take a little longer if they do the job better, than to rush it and have errors all over the place.

So what do we want? Like most, we want it completed in the least amount of time, but not to sacrifice items that could have been done better if a little more time was taken.

Some initial photos...

Our block of land (700m2)

The Neighbours

The property behind us.

The neighbours again

The fence has been added behind our property.

A photo from a distance.

An aerial photograph dated the 11th of September