Still listening to the elevator music

Long time waiting, ugh and i'm not the most patient person. For a house this size i just have to be. After the slab pour we had the regular January, where all tradies go on holidays; then they didn't start back at work until late February; which put jobs back.

Then as i we got our windows delivered on site, the main carpenter broke his arm :(

So we have been endlessly waiting for the backup crew to finish his jobs so they can start on mine. Again with a small builder these thing happen; but its comforting to know they they don't just grab the yellow pages and ring the first chippie listed under "AAA Adelaide Carpenters" -i came up with that, please don't flog me if there is an actual company listed under that!
So we get the same guys to build the house, this week putting up the frame externally and moving walls internally, when we make changes fingers crossed we don't

There has been some good news, we have as mentioned our windows arrived on site; and one word they are huge, tinted and laminated for the front should work out well.

We have also inspected our wall and floor panels, as they have been all completed at Chaplin's just down the road. Its not a great photo but you get the idea, the floor panels are 12mm boards with EPS Followed by another 12mm of MgO, together with regular yellow-tongue and soundstop we are hoping this should really help with the sound transmission through the floor. It was significantly cheaper than concrete floor.

 We have also installed our 22 ton rain water tank; our little supervisor was on site to point and shout orders.

Over the weekends we have been sorting out plans for our verandah, that will go around the northern and eastern side of the house. This area will be a nice large outdoor room with our new bbq (we just won on auction) and an island i am in the process of designing. Along the fence-line we will have 600mm space from the verandah to fill with plants; We drove to The Fern Forest down south for some idea's. They have alot of bamboo + ferns and palms on display together with lots of knowledge for location and planting. We like the clumping bamboo here's some ideas we picked out:

Have been shopping for our dinning room table, and found some very nice tables with insane price tags; this table here is listed at over 5k depending on what wood chosen, again more money but i can dream :)

Also have been working on the plans for digging up the backyard to service all the plumbing we want underground, like the plumbing for tank, bore, garden, spa and aquaponics thats going in. Very rough mud map:

 

Over the last few weeks the slab has been settling in, hairline cracks have appeared, this of course is very normal, especially in the corners. We did however find this in the bathroom, its the mesh just below the surface; a screed and tiles will fix this issue.

During the summer we even managed a couple of days up the river, to this insane view. Hopefully i can update this blog with some more good news this week!

Conslabulations are in order

Was an early start for the boys, at 6am eight of them were on site waiting for the first of many (27x) trucks to bring the wet stuff. Like a military operation it was all very organized and planned out. As an outsider it looked that way, to them it was just another pour :)

We are very happy with the end result; looking forward to the next few weeks watching it cure. looks flat enough to play cricket on!

early start!

  

 

Disability friendly en-suite

Meanwhile as the pour continued on, the wife and i dug and leveled the tank base

adding another 4 dollars to the slab ;)

DONE!

Cloudy with an orange raincoat

Site has been prepped; had a bit of rain today, but it should be clear for tomorrow's pour :) very excited to say the least; years of planning hopes and dreams and to come this far we feel very lucky.

Engineer made the call that we needed double the steel and more piers dug, and it was a frantic dash to find mesh this close to Christmas! fortunately our concrete guy found some and we are in business for a nice slab to sit there and cure over the break.

Plumber of course has been through, everything except for the sewer line has been sorted

Conduit run for shed

and front fence

We have a 22k rain water tank coming and i am preparing the base for it, digging down 300mm to have it sit as the same filled height as the house tank

Steel work arriving on site

Hard working strapping young men from Adelaide at 7am

Cables to be terminated under lower part of staircase

Fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow, bring the grey stuff and lots of it :P

Trenches, without the stalemate

Big day, lots of progress... happy owner :)

Team responsible for the slab was over today, getting trenches dug in time for the pour next week. Its a very exciting time to see ground broken, men at work and heavy equipment being used. OK its just digging up dirt but im super excited...

ill shut up now.. here's the pics!

site graded and flat

taking shape!

yes, i took a picture of the toliet

Plumbing tomorrow!

Flat Block

Has been rather slow since the demo, as it was completed about a week after they started; we now have a flat block ready for cutting :)

Area where garage will be sitting on boundry

We have just been organizing the underground cable runs; and sorting out the rain water system; together with ordering three tanks 2x 1k 1x 22k from maxiplas. The plan is to have the two smaller tanks act as a sump (for ease of cleaning) also feed from the roof and overflow. The larger tank will serve as a reserve and connected together with 32mm pipe. After alot of searching around for fittings and advice i found an irrigation shop in virginia  that has everything.

From the demo our bore's casing has been damaged; would be been when they tried to remove the concrete around it and its snapped the top 150mm off the casing. We are hoping recover it; to use it for the garden.

With a flat block i couldn't resist pacing out the house, and running out some builders string for my shed eventually. Little miss was on site with me as always

Had the dolamite dropped off for the tank base; but they put it in the wrong corner :D

Here's the base from the builder going in, basically little rocks and dirt to level out the block completely; we are going a little higher than what was suggested. Our area is remarkably flat; our streets have alot of spoondrains. So i was concerned for any flooding that could potentially happen, even in boring olde adelaide :)

Its a slow process: dump some dirt/ drive over it/ grade it with bobcat/ check/ check again etc..

 

Fingers crossed we have some trenching sorted this week, as mentioned ive got some power/ cat6/ 25mm + 32mm pvc pipes to run around the block, and i really dont want to dig it all out!