Day 212 - House officially complete

The house is now complete, but we will not move in for a few more weeks while we work to stabilise the mud pit the house is built on.
Progress has started with the driveway and decking at the back of the garage, but we still need a few more retaining walls, decking out the back, some grass, landscaping, and plants.

Day 201 - Floors going in - just about complete

Bamboo floors looking good

Day 157 - Fixing completed

Painting should be finished on Monday, sparkies have dug holes in the plaster, made somewhat more difficult by the plasters it would seem

Day 150 - skirting boards in upstairs

Plaster false walls added under stairsand extra bulkheads above cabinets. 

Floors leveled and skirting installed. 

Latches being added to doors

And balcony ready for tiles

Day 146- Roof looking complete, stairs complete, balcony ready for tiles, as are the benches

Day 142 - Plaster complete

I was going to give them a blast, but they did finish it in the end.

Day 135 - Plaster hung and in the process of being sealed

Our SS reports all items mentioned in the report have been rectified, and that the ones I thought hadn't been done, will be done - it was just a timing issue to do it at the right time. 

While this has all been happening we have had a little R&R in the Australian outback, with plenty of Roos and Emus to keep us all on our toes, and to take us away from the house while the plaster and rectifications were done.

Day 129 - Pre-Plaster Report received

Money well spent!
The report was emailed to me late last night, but I didn't see it until today.

CG were keen to see it so I sent them a copy once I had read it.

As others have sais, the NHI report is very clear, detailed and references the specific Australian Standard Building codes.

The inspector found quite a few shortcomings, many but not all, introduced since the last inspection.  Types of things found related largely to changes that plumbers and others had introduced that would have had long term impacts to the house, such as possibly creaking floors due to cut timber supports allowing too much movement between struts, lack of noggins in some of the woodwork, that would have resulted in difficulty getting the plaster up (and to have it stay without issue), and a number of technical matters.

Pretty impressive report, and CG naturally offered to jump right on it, rescheduled the work for next week, so as to address the raised issues.  CG have always told me that they value additional private inspections, they do multiple levels of inspection themselves, but they value "a fresh set of eyes", and seem to truly want to deliver a product of the highest order.  I really cant imagine there are too many builders where the site supervisor is allowed to just make this call, and action it.

I am blown away, of all the normal worries of a small family, I am delighted to report that the house build itself seems to be the least, which is not what I expected when I started this journey.

Day 126 - House Inspection booked - pre-plaster

I have to admit I um'd and ah'd about the need for an inspection, after the last inspection found nothing but work to complement, but in the end as I had to sign off acceptance of this stage to the bank, I thought I would have an inspection and perhaps use a different mob than the last one.  So I organised NHI, and they impressed me from the word go.

The first thing to impress me was the callback after the booking, the lovely lady who took the booking apparently discussed the job with a director, and they decided that they needed to inform me of two facts, first that they have done some paid work for CG, and second that the inspector that they are sending would have no relationship with that previous, and fairly minor it would seem, work.  While I already knew that NHI had been employed by CG in past, that was the rationale for not using them on my first inspection, it was refreshing and very reassuring that they would go to the trouble of making a second call to volunteer such information to me.

No inspection done yet, but I was happily impressed already.

Day 125 - at Lockup

All missing Hebel now installed, all external facing doors and windows in place, and a fetching pink damp proof layer applied at the bottom of the walls

Day 120 - Garage roof complete

In two hours this morning the roof was put up and all the scaffolding removed

Day 119 - Ready to tile garage roof

Roof trusses have been built, tiles delivered, scaffold erected - only thing missing is someone to place the tiles on the roof - hopefully tomorrow.

Quad has been nailed to the eaves, and work has commenced on connecting the downpipes to the roof.  Lockup must be close

Day 116 - Upstairs Hebel Rendering completed

One day blue board

 

the next its rendered with the Hebel.

 Progress is has been good, Hebel is all done and the rendering will be done sporadically until complete, starting at the balcony and working forward and down as other construction completes

Day 90 - Hebel continues, almost all ground floor windows installed

Great progress occurring this week, looking forward to catching up with DL now that he is back. Carpenter has just about completed his work downstairs, glass people have been around and put in almost all the missing ground floor windows.  Looks like lockup by the end of the week.

Day 84 - Work has recommenced preparing frame for the Hebal

Ground floor of house has been wrapped, and hebal has arrived just need to understand if there is a downside to areas not wrapped, such as where the remaining scaffold is still in place. Will do some research. 

Day 82 - Scaffold has come down, now the insulation and hebal can go up, and the roofing can be finalised

No other action though.

Promised solar panels not installed, and unlikely to be now due to the scaffolds being down - until the wall scaffolds reach the roof again). 

The rain may be keeping everyone away - from my place, and two other CG builds in the area that I can see (2 builds within 500 metres of our temp accommodation)

Day 81 - Still no action

Delays ongoing! Installation of the hebal was supposed to start a week ago, then it was promised to start last Friday. So far it seems that the insulated hot water pipes to the solar heater have been installed, but not the solar heating panel. 

Still the winter morning view from the balcony is refreshing

Day 62 - Tile roof complete

Saturday 27th April extra safety platforms went up around the house
Monday 29th colour bond rear roof and all gutters installed
Tuesday 30th all roof tiles on, and heating and cooling ducts started to be installed

Day 49 - Roof trusses arrive and go up

We now have the skeleton of a house, balcony is almost complete, steel frames seem complete, rear trusses are up, main house trusses are up and as of last night we are only missing the trusses over the master bedroom and the garage.

Drive by in the morning on the way to work of the trusses being delivered, most of which were installed by the time I had a look in on my way home from work (below)

This is a view of the flat roof trusses from the dining room, and the balcony trusses behind over the kitchen

Getting dark early, but this is the roof trusses over the rear balcony.

Day 46 - Framing continues

Framing continues at a great pace,  posi-struts divide the ground and first floor at the front of the house.

Posi-struts

 and standard struts are used in the rear, we would have preferred posi-structs throughout for more flexibility, as we have a flat roof at the rear, but alas I didn't think it through and the option was not raised.

Half of the upstairs balcony built - with standard struts

First floor coming along nicely

This is the view from the stair cavity towards the front of the house, with the linen cupboard on the left and the bathroom on the right and the boys bedrooms on the left and right towards the front.

 and the view from the rear is not too bad