House Setout - Check

I had the house and the garage professionally setout today.  It was quite brisk onsite at 7am when I arrived to brief the contractor.

It's so crucial to get this right so Steve and I felt it should be done by someone with lots of experience. In the end there is so much other stuff going on in our lives that we couldn't have done it ourselves anyway.

The rain is still playing havoc with the schedule. And I may well have to order in more rock for the driveway in order to support the 25 tonne concrete trucks!  The joy (and challenges) of building on acreage.

Tomorrow the plumbers will be starting the slab drainage.  It's still raining so I don't know how they will go back-hoeing the sticky clay soil but I'll definitely find out.

The schedule is tight but if all goes to plan the slab preparation will start next Tuesday Oct 8th and they should be out of there by Tuesday Oct 15th.  I have a couple of days contingency up my sleeve before Harkaway start the framing process on Monday Oct 21st.

All systems go.

The First Cut is the ..... Sweetest!

Hi Everyone
Today there is movement at the farm.  To help things to dry up, our earthworks contractor scrapped the site of the house and garage and also the driveway. It's still quite sticky under all that grass but with the wind, warmer temps and no heavy rain we should be in a good position to have the site works done by the end of the week.

Here is the bobcat working on the driveway:

Below is the work on the site cut:

It is so exciting to get something started.  The plan is for the site levelling to happen by the end of the week and the house set-out will happen next Monday.  I have scheduled the drainage plumbers for next Tuesday, Oct 1st, so I will have to sneak out of the house and visit the farm as Oct 1st is Connor's birthday.  And this year he turns double digits, yes 10!!  I think that means he is officially a 'tween'.  Heaven help me.

Now I have to get on and find a good brickie.  Any recommendations welcome.

cheers Laureen

Rain, Rain Go Away, Come Again in say, 3 weeks??

Well, things have been progressing in start/stop mode. There is a flurry of activity and then a wait.  The latest wait is for the ground to dry up a bit. Well, a lot actually.

When we purchased the land one of the bonuses we saw was that it was flat. (no more retaining walls!!) Pretty flat apart from a gradual fall over the last few acres. That flatness has bitten us in the bum!!  The soil out there is clay. Lots of nutrients and worms in the soil but not really well drained.  In fact if you look across the land you can see reeds growing - that is an indication of how wet it can get. Once I get my gardener's hands on it and lots of compost etc things will improve.  But we have to have a house there first.

Here is a checklist of what has been done since I last reported ages ago back at the beginning of August:

- building approval granted 
- earthwork contractor selected
- concreter selected
- plumber selected 
- electrician selected
- termite-proofing company selected
- house set-out company selected
- building insurance in place
- garage trusses/wall frames/windows ordered
- septic tank ordered and new permit request submitted as we changed systems
- decided on a heat pump HWS rather than evacuated tubes
- painted the front fence near the pillars
- put in a temporary letterbox (we'll move it once the big trucks have been and gone)
- purchased the pendant lights for above the kitchen island bench (they look great) and some other accessories

We have also modified where we will lay the all-weather driveway.  Originally to protect our stone entrance pillars we thought we would get the trucks to use the other gate. However the cost of rock is astronomical! And when you are talking around 100m x 5m wide that is a lot of rock.  So we shall get our 'real' driveway graded and laid with rock.  Once building has been completed we shall have a good base to put a finishing level on.

To help things dry up we spent a couple of weekends hand mowing the driveway and site areas.  Thank goodness is was a self-propelled model but because of the uneven ground it still took lots of hard work.  The mower probably needs a service now, poor thing.
   

The house area after mowing.

Steve preparing to measure the area.

Connor and I tried to dig some holes for our trees but the ground is too heavy.  The blade goes in quite well but trying to lift out a clump of soil was too much.  I need my tractor with the back hoe!!!

The power has been connected to site (lots of helpful discussions with Jemena about which pit to use) and the water is to be connected next week.

At this stage, fingers crossed, the driveway/site cut will happen this coming Thur/Fri 26 & 27 Sep.  But, and it's a big but, it all depends on the level of precipitation.  I need a week of warm days, some wind and no big dumps of rain. Then I need 2 weeks to get the drains, electrical conduit and slab in place.  After that I won't mind the rain so much although it will be a great day when the roof is on!! Harkaway have put us down for the framers to do our job on Steve's birthday Oct 14th. That would be a nice combination. But if we miss this date we could have to wait up to another 4 weeks to get the framers allocated again.  So fingers, and toes, crossed please.

I am going to try and get into a routine that I blog every day, pretty much.  There is so much going on if I don't record it everyday it just gets lost.

Next time I will share some of the architectural drawings.

cheers Laureen