It's all pipes!

ELAINE: Why couldn't you just wait?
GEORGE: I was there! I saw a drain!
ELAINE: Since when is a drain a toilet?!
GEORGE: It's all pipes! What's the difference?!
ELAINE: Different pipes go to different places! You're gonna mix 'em up!

Last week the plumbers came and installed the sewer and storm water pipes. We had a call from the SS in the morning regarding the zone we marked out for a pool. The plumbers needed guidance on where to lay the sewer pipe so they didn't interfere with our plans. It turns out that we were home on the day and could go and double check before any digging happened. I was pretty happy with the great service from both our SS and the plumbers for actually asking us!

The sewer connection point was right on the corner of the pool zone and the plumber was good enough to run the pipes wide so we would have more room to play with in future. Before I could ask, he suggested I take some photos for future reference - knowing the location/depth of the plumbing will be handy when it comes to doing the landscaping.

They came painted some green and some orange. I guess that's so the sewer doesn't end up connected to the water tank. Different pipes go to different places:

This coming week the frames will be delivered. Yay!

Slabbed

I think urbandictionary sums it up best.

slab

 A 24-pack of beer, in cans or bottles or varying sizes (throw-downs, stubbies, cannies, longies), also see carton.

"Wanna go halves in a slab o' New?"
"F****n oath it's beer o'clock" 

Over the course of last week something actually happened. We got slabbed! A slab of concrete though, not beer.

I was sick on Monday, so took the day off work to recover. After dropping the kids off at school in the morning I drove past the block before heading home. Totally unannounced and totally unexpected..... some actual construction work had started! After 18 months of sales, tender and admin process there were finally people onsite with machinery. I had a chat with one of the guys and he ran me through what was happening that week.

Monday 16th - piering:

Tuesday 17th - plumbing. No photos!

Wednesday 18th - waffle pods and steel:

Friday 20th - concrete poured:

The end result:

 

A crap load of dirt

The block has a funny fall to it where the middle is lower than the front and back. It's next to a river so may have something to do with floods years and years ago. Neighbouring houses have the same issue. To comply with Penrith council's flood regulations, and so our house doesn't look like it's sitting in a hole, we had to bring the ground level up so that the house's finished floor level (FFL) was at least 0.5m above the natural ground level above the kerb.

Bringing the ground level higher meant importing about 300 tons of dirt to sit the slab on. Some might say this is a crap load of dirt. The fill that was brought on site consisted of mostly clay and a site scrape from a finished build complete with building waste including broken pipes etc. Like I said, literally a "crap" load of dirt. Our SS claims that some of the building waste was cleaned up, but I wasn't around when it was compacted so can't verify that. I'm still quite pissed off about the quality of the fill as it's nothing like the natural soil that is on site. Why did we bother having to pay for soil tests if the builder is going to dump any old low quality fill on our site?

Anyway, we let this one slide a bit because we were already broken from waiting so long for anything to happen with the build. I figure we'll cover most of the crappy clay fill with hard surfaces so hopefully it won't be a problem in the future.

You can see the difference in types of dirt:

In better light, check out the difference between our dark, rich soil at the bottom of the picture compared to what can only be described as piles of broken clay ashtrays brought on site:

Compacted to the right levels it looks OK in dry weather. In the rain, it's stickier than Rolf Harris at a Wiggles concert. Just looking at it the wrong way results in dirty shoes that are impossible to clean.

The compacted "crap" load:

This process took about three or four weeks to complete (mid-May to early-June).

Plans (Updated)

Edit: Plans updated with construction drawings

We've slightly modified the original Majestic 45 design by swapping the home theatre and office locations, making the garage wider (the house is 46 squares now), increasing ceiling heights and changing window sizes. Other than that, everything else is all internal cosmetic changes e.g., fitting out the butlers pantry, fireplace, higher doors etc.

We searched for a long time to find a layout that suits our needs. We needed big rooms for the kids (these are 4m x 4m plus WIR), lots of storage, a garage on the left hand side of the house and outdoor entertaining on the right side.

Ground floor plan:

First floor plan:

Hello World

Here's the story of a lovely lady, Who was bringing up three very lovely girls. All of them had hair of gold, like their mother, The youngest one in curls. 

Wait! Wrong story, although I always loved the Brady bunch house as a kid.

This story starts in late 2012 with my wife and I buying an old house, knocking it down in January 2014 and finally starting a rebuild in May/June 2014. Some other stuff happened in between these events, like the tender and painfully slow admin process, but I'll get to that later.

We started with this:

Did this to it:

And have started building this in its place:

I've found following other people's build blogs very informative and so hope to impart some of my own experiences throughout the build. At the very least, it might be entertainment for others using our builder - they will have lots of spare time during the admin process and will need something to do while they wait.