And a bit more today...

After the tiles of the roof were successfully removed and salvaged yesterday, the demolition company followed up today with the removal of the eaves of the house and any other concrete sheeting that was discovered inside, as this material contains asbestos. So with the asbestos now safely removed from the house (and a nice orange mesh fence in front of our property), the house is now ready for full demolition. The next time we snap some shots of the property, it should be a nice empty dirt lot! We're hoping that will happen before the weekend is over and then we can turn the process over to Henley!

Slowly, but surely...

It wasn't Tuesday as we had hoped, but Wednesday is close enough! The 'tile guys' showed up today to remove and salvage the terracotta tiles from the roof! So, piece by piece the house is beginning to disappear. We are hoping that the demolition company will show up in the next day or two to remove the eaves of the house and any other concrete sheeting that contains asbestos and after that, it's a quick knock down and clean up job and over to Henley! Oh, and the underground power pit has been installed!

Weekly Update - Not much to see, but......

...some stuff to report!

Progress wise, it would seem to be a bit of a slow week. However, much was accomplished despite nothing (physically) happening with the house.

First of all, it's time to take a moment to recognize some of the people who have helped significantly in helping to make our 'dream home' more of a reality. We would like to thank most of our neighbors; Tom & Faye, Ron, John & Lynn and most of all Murray & Jane for being supportive and helpful in signing letters allowing us to move the 'setback' of the house closer to the street. Additional thanks are necessary for Murray & Jane (our next door neighbors for our first 3 years and still the owners of the house next door). Thanks for signing a letter to allow us to put in more attractive and clearer windows on the second storey, so we will have a much better view of the world around us! Of course this subject to the approval form council, but with their letter, we're likely to get it through, so THANKS!

Murray and Jane's generosity is part of this update. To back track a little, due to some relatively recent council restrictions, when you build a two storey house that overlooks your neighbors on either side and into what are classified as 'habitable areas' (i.e. living spaces in the house), the windows you put in MUST BE frosted from the bottom to nearly the top, with only a clear strip at the top to see out of. This was instituted to protect the privacy of the neighbors so that people weren't able to look into private living spaces with ease. The problem with these windows (aside from being more expensive than the 'normal' windows included with your home), is that they cut down on light entering the room, and significantly lower (or in most cases) eliminate the ability to see out of them, ruining the 'view' most people expect to gain when building a two storey house. So, with Murray & Jane's help, we have asked the council for permission to install 'regular' windows on the Western side of the house for the upstairs TV area and one of the bedrooms. We're hoping to have council approval by the middle or end of this coming week.

Also this week, we spoke to our demolition company to find out when the work might get completed and we could notify Henley. They have said that they are waiting on the availability of their Tile & Roof person to come and remove the tiles and the roof trusses from the house. This is due to take place Tuesday or Wednesday (either the 29Th or 30Th of May) and then the Demo company will follow up (hopefully right away) and remove the eaves of the house and any other areas that contain asbestos. After that, all that is left is a 'knockdown & clean up job' where they knockdown the house and shed, remove any and all concrete, tree's, bushes etc. and pretty much leave you with a dirt lot! We are hoping this will be complete by the end of next week so that we'll stay pretty much on or slightly ahead of schedule and can get to the building phase!

We also checked on the installation of the Power Pit which should be taking place soon and were told that the installation work should be done in the next week or two. This should be a busy week of demolition, council (hopefully) approvals, potential power pits and other general updates. We'll keep ya posted!

DEMOLITION HAS BEGUN!!!

So, we had been told by our 'Demo Guy' that he would be getting started on Saturday. As we are curious creatures, we packed the boys into the car, drove our 1/2 mile down the road and began celebrating in the car as we pulled into the driveway and could see significant work had been done already, and this was only day 1 of demolition! We're hoping this process will be completed in about 1 - 1/2 weeks! Apparently, they did as much of the 'salvage' work as they could today, taking floor boards, oven, cooling and heating systems, basins, etc. The next step is to remove the roof tiles (and/or roof itself) and the eave's of the house (which contain asbestos), before knocking down the house completely. This part takes the most care and time for obvious reasons, but the actual knockdown once the eave's are removed, should only take about 1/2 a day!

The only other bit of news to update is that we received our Council 'full' approval for the garage to be built over the easement. This is the final piece of paperwork on our end needed so Henley can now apply for the building permit. I will update the blog again when we know that the building permit has been obtained and throughout the demolition process as well.

Here's some pictures of Saturday's work, with hopefully more to come very soon!

Bye, Bye House...

This is an 'in between' post signifying the transition from the Old House to the New House. We'll do a 'side by side' comparison once 'The Dream' has been completed, but for now, here are a few bitter sweet shots (inside & out) of the old place.

Picture's from Moving Day

Here are some snaps from moving day. Many thanks to the great "Waz" for helping me get the big stuff over from point 'A' to point 'B'! Couldn't have done it without ya, Wazza! A couple of the pic's are the 'moving boys' showing how strong they were that day and flashing the raw muscle power for all you ladies out there. We were missing one 'moving boy' that day because he was busy with his "harem" of 1st grade classmates next door! Next couple of pic's are of the family (minus said 'harem' boy) and the mighty 2 year old and I taking the last load out of the old house!

Only Update is that we are now ready to be demolished. Called the 'demo guy' the other day to inform him we were 'ready to go' as this is what he had said to do all along, telling me "just let us know when you'll be ready and we'll pretty much be ready to go right away..." Then of course he says that he's got 3 other places in front of ours to go and we'll be 3 weeks away! So, I called in the heavy artillery and had the wife tell him what was up and how it was really going to be! She told him that it would cost us too much money on a daily basis not to get started right away, so he 'suddenly' had a mate that he works with that could get started on it as he's looking for work at the moment. Before he was 'motivated' to tell her that though, his initial response was "Oh, so...are you in a hurry, are ya?" Ummmm yeah, we're building a home and we'd rather not just take our time! So, he's got a couple of days to get his act together. Otherwise, we'll pull the plug and get someone in who can do it right away. Hopefully he'll come through. Probably GREAT at demolition, good at what he does, etc. just not the best communicator or 'people person' in the business, but we'll see how it goes.

Multiple Updates!

This is a quick note to update you on how we have been doing with 'The Move' and latest news on the house.

We have officially moved! We are in to our 'cozy' little 3-bedroom unit/condo with a lot of things in various storage locations and boxes and chaos everywhere, but we're in! The next few weeks will be sorting and putting everything in it's place. I have moving day pic's to update once we get the Internet going again. Phone was switched off at the old place and due to be switched on at the new place last Friday (04/05), but in typical Monopolistic, take our time, Telstra fashion, there was a fault in the line (discovered early Friday) which was fixed at 7:30 AM on Monday morning, so no phone or Internet for the weekend. This exact same thing happened when we moved from our previous appartment to the house we are now demolishing and I expect will happen again when we move to the new house. Anyway, enough Telstra bashing.

As I write this, everything seems to be coming together today! The other half went by the place to grab the last of our 'stuff' and was pleasantly surprised to see the Gas & Electric company doing the abolishments that are necessary before we can start demolition! We had worried that this could take up to 20 days from when the order was placed (yesterday), but will be completed today! We also received in the mail our permission from the local council to build our garage over our easement on the eastern boundry of our property, which was the final piece of 'approval' we needed before moving forward. Also in the mailbox was the contract from the power company to install the power pit, which needs to be done prior to Henley coming in to pour the slab and build the house, and this was a welcomed surprise because the cost was about $300 less than we'd been anticipating, coming in at around $850 when we had been quoted around $1100!

That's all for now, but continue to watch this space as once we're back online (TELSTRA!!!!), there will be plenty of visual photo's to accompany all the soon to come updates!

Keys to the New Joint

Picked up the keys to the 'new' rental property and began the laborious process of moving today. Actually, we had a pretty good head start by packing and storing several selected items at the in-laws place, but actually moved a couple of carloads of 'stuff' over there today.

Oh yes, one side not I forgot to mention in the previous post...
We had applied for and received permission to build our garage over the 6 ft. easement on the Eastern Boundary of our property from the local water authority, however we still needed to apply and receive permission from the local council as well. I was told (or recall being told that Henley would do this during the building permit stage and didn't think I needed to worry about it). Turns out it was something we needed to do, so I quickly downloaded the application form, provided all the paperwork for the application and dropped it off at the council. We should have an answer within two weeks and it's highly unlikely that they will deny us the permission, so it's not a worry, just an oversight that has been taken care of.

Anyway, on to the new place. After the wife had an 'interesting' issue with the garage door, we went back last night and solved the problem and I think the reality of our situation is beginning to sink in. This is really starting to happen! Extremely exciting and a bit daunting at the same time. I'll update the blog again this weekend to let you know how smoothly (fingers crossed), the transition with diconnections and connections actually goes!

Signed Our Lives Away!

Well, we did it. We signed our lives away and the game is truly on! Our contract appointment was yesterday (April 30th) and we met with Melanie, who won some big points back and went from "Little Miss Uselss" to "Little Miss Helpful" which was nice to see. Becuase we had her express post the contract to us, we had time over the weekend to read and review it, which allowed us to go in prepared with a few (but not many) questions. We went over the details with Melanie and she answered our questions pretty satisfactorily, with one item she was going to check up on and get back to us. We have come to the conclusion that she is probably snowed under with several clients at the moment and if you want something to happen or you want to be in the 'front of the line,' you probably need to hound her a bit to get things done for you. She admitted this somewhat, so now we know how to play it and are hopeful everything from here on out will be done in a timely manner with as little 'surpirses' as possible.
The contract was pretty well laid out and the explanations for everything in it was pretty clear and concise. The questions/requests were:
1. Adjustment of the incorrectly stated deposit amount and subsequent deposit payments. This was done right away, no issues.
2. Deletion of the price of the riser pipe and retaining wall from the tender price as it had been deleted on our final drawings by the engineer's report. It was explained that this price deletion will come out later, when we pay the next deposit.
3. Recommendation of an "H Class" slab (foundation) despite the original tender suggestion of an "M Class" slab. Melanie did not realize the change had been made and was going to check on that one for us and get back to us. More on this one later!
4. The language in the contract states that we need to provide Henley with written documentation that the house has been demolished, trees and plants removed, old footings removed etc. Melanie said that if I can provide that when I get it, but that if I just inform her that the house is gone and the lot is clear, she'll order the second soil test that day, which will take about a week to have done and then (possibly) another week before any alterations from an engineering perspective that need to be made given the results of the 2nd test.
5. My final question was if the TV points & coax cable could be taken off of the plans and refunded if I had my personal 'smart wire' electrician wire the house? She answered that today stating that a certain clause in the contract specify exaclty what Henley require to happen there.

Melanie then informed us that an arborist report was recommended and would be ordered and carried out by Henley at no further cost to us, which was fine. Mainly it had to do with some large trees on an ajoining property, which (oddly enough) were recently removed! So, we are guessing that the concern of these trees and their roots will not be an issue nor affect our slab design.

She came back to us today regarding the slab classification change and her answer was: "The soil report has been revised since being first obtained, therefore the recommendations have changed, and we are now designing the slab as a class P."

My answer to this was:
The answer you provided below re: the soil revision does, (I’m sure you knew this was coming) pose a couple more questions.

1. Will the revised slab design affect the site costs that we signed at tender and what will those costs be (if known)?
2. Why is the design of the slab a ‘Class P’ when a ‘Class H’ was recommended on the Engineers report? (Realizing that on the report the soil was classed as ‘P’ due to trees, which of course will be removed entirely when we begin demolition).
3. Is there a potential for all of this (slab, soil and class design) to change again after the second soil test is completed and analyzed?

I didn't hear back today, but will update you as to the answer to these intriguing questions as soon as Melanie gets back to me, so watch this space!