We have wood !! Pre fabricated Frames delivered today.

Well done Ashford Homes !! - They have been on the ball with their organisation of each stage so far.
The pre-fabicated timber frames delivered when they indicated they would be. Now lets see a carpenter or two to get them vertical and nailed together.

Windows delivered...Slab looking good.

They tell me a slow cure is a good cure, the slab is looking good, gone from dark to a light colour over the past few days.  On Wednesday the Windows were delivered, looking good, a little rain about but clearing for the Easter weekend. CR from Ashford Homes tell me the Frame is being delivered next wednesday after Easter, looking forward to this next milestone.  Happy easter to all.
Windows Pic's

A SLAB is born. Something concrete at last !!

It seems like the past month has gone slow waiting for something real to take place, it finally did on Friday 15/4.
It all is very real now, a huge concrete slab area on which the house can now grow upwards.
After a slow start to the day, concrete pump at 8am, Inspector at 9.30am and truck after truck full of concrete arriving for the bast part of the day, our slab is now there and touchable. With Easter around the corner, 1+ week of cure time should make it solid.

Plumbing Sorted - just in time.!!

Phew, it took several phone calls and a fax and finally Ashford sent the plumber to fix up his mistake.
Luckily the rain delayed the slab pour for a few days.
Now with the plumbing correct within the slab, we should be able to pour on Friday 15/5 , hey that's tomorrow !! so exciting. The house will have some real shape at last, even if it's only at ground level.
I ran into the owner of the concreting company who was looking at the final layout of the steelwork, he was waiting for the Building Inspector "D" to arrive. Hopefully to approve the steel.

Pic's of the completed Slab, boxed up and ready to go.

1st Real Drama to sort out quickly.

After some good progress, all was looking good.  I thought I should check the plumbing against the plans, oops, someone has stuffed up. ! !  Where the Powder room is located there should be 1 x waste for the Vanity unit and 1 x waste for the toilet....looks like the toilet waste is there in the correct spot - BUT the vanity waste is nowhere to be found.  There is also another pipe up into the WIR of the BED 4 ??  should not be there.

The Drama is that the Polystyrofoam blocks and steelwork has mostly been laid and the slab boxed up ready for a concrete pour on Tuesday ( last word I had from Ashford Homes ). They better not do that till the plumbing is fixed.  Not sure what plans the plumber was working to. CR from Ashford homes told me the plumber was fixing this up on Friday - clearly not done.

During the week - slab area cleared- base material spread out - still have not fixed the plumbing Pwdr room

Some Photo's from Saturday - before the rain set in.

Pipe sticking up in the area where WIR for Bed 4 is to go.

Slab Pier's now done

A fine Wednesday in Melbourne town.
We have piers !! for the slab footings where the fill was leveled out on the RHS ( east side ) of the block.
The holes for the retaining wall posts are also done, ready for the posts to be concreted in tomorrow ?
Looking good for the Slab box up later this week and a pour on Monday as planned.

Todays Pic's

 Post hole for retaining wall

A week of progress

Seems like the last week went so fast - we have more progress on the plumbing rough in - storm water and Agi drains behind the retaining wall are now setup. Mostly very good they way they are laid.....2 issues to resolve.
The final discharge point was not found by the plumber........they have just finished the pipes off at the property line, I can tell them the discharge point is about 5m to the west going off the old site photo's and the old bit of PVC out of the ground. Also one of  storm water points is currently in the middle of the entrance to the garage, needs to be around 2.5m to the east to line up with the garage wall.........have to tell them about that one.

B from Ashford homes, mentioned last week the slab should get built this week coming...looking forward to this milestone.

Where they finished the SW incorrect....The real discharge point is under the cage somewhere.

Sewer Plumbing rough-in.

A Fine Melbourne day today, 4pm visited the site, more activity on the Sewer plumbing - looks OK, all conduits in and connected to the main sewer line which runs at the rear of the block around 3m below surface level.
They have exposed the pre run telecommunications conduits at the front of the block, ready to trench this to the front LH corner of the house. Looks like the position marks are there for the retaining wall posts to be fitted as well which lines up with the discussion I had with the construction manager CR .

Progress on the electrical issue from the other day, the electrician finally rang me today, he agreed that the max load would be around 94A....lines up with my calculated amount of 95.6A.  He suggested the supply might be undersized, the cable would be OK, but the main c/breaker would not. There seems to be a communications breakdown between the builder and the contracted sparky who puts the application into the supply authority, no details of the house load were passed on - something they should take up to avoid future problems like this.
With that all sorted, looks like a 3phase supply should be installed.  Now for the extra cost - see what they quote for this variation.  Here is my summary for the trade prices for the upgrade :-
No extra for running the cables as they would have had to run the correct one the first time.
No extra for digging a trench " ditto as above"
Extra $15 per meter for 10m run ( approx) for the upgraded cable from single phase to 3 phase.
Extra $200 to install a 3phase comb in the switchboard
Extra $80 on the Supply authority truck appointment.
and of course the 20% margin the builder puts on top of this pricing.

Pic's from today