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 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

Day 42 - The house starts to take shape

Steel Girders are up, balcony is taking shape, my study is being formed, and the feel of the 8'6" hallway coming through to the 10' ceiling in the living area is becoming apparent.

Day 40 - Ground floor frame just about done

Great progress continues to be made

Day 36 - Framing starts

Framing work has commenced

Good tip I got today, was to start thinking of where your towel rails and other devices that will need to hang off the walls go, and to make sure the framers put some timber (noggins) in those places so you have something to screw those things to. Obvious things are wall mount tv's, towel rails and curtains.