Last few weeks to 19th October '14 - scaffolding down, waterproofing, frame approval

Few more things ticked off... certainly not a hive of activity but things continue to progress.  It's been two weeks since the last post.  In that time, we've resolved (we think at least) the fallen tree insurance claim issue and we'll cover that in another post.  We had the exterior almost completely finished and had the interior fit out commence.  We've also been told that insulation starts next week (exciting!), and gyprock gets delivered on 22nd.

The alfresco roof eaves were completed, along with a few other finishes touches on the exterior, and it was great to see the scaffolding come down so that we can properly see what the outside looks like.  It looks like there's just some painting to finish up now on the eaves.

Inside, things are moving on.  It seems the electrical roughing, plumbing, gas and aircon is now all in the walls and roof cavities.  The wet areas have been waterproofed also (we thought when they said waterproofing was scheduled that they meant the exterior / roof area was having something done to it).  The waterproofing seems to consist of a thick rubbery paint and a small lip around the edge of all of the bathrooms, which is obviously designed to prevent water leaking on to the frame if the bathroom floods.  It goes up around 6 inches.

We've largely given up trying to get a basic level of service and information out of the construction office now.  We were told from the start to route all queries through their office, but at the last time of asking for an update, we got next to nothing back from them. We therefore got in touch with our project manager.  He gave a simple short and clear response listing everything that was scheduled for the next few weeks which was great.  He's advised that lock up is pencilled for 4th November.  That will put this stage of the build at a few weeks over plan, but overall we're still within their estimates given the earlier stages completed ahead of guidance.  We still think Feb/Mar '15 is realistic for receipt of the keys.


 

The week that was - to 5th October '14

Few new pics below.  No communication on the fallen tree / insurance claim all week.

You can see in the image of the rear of the house how low the stacker doors to the alfresco area are.  They're low because there are two sliding doors which meet in the corner, and we paid for a variation such that no column was required.  The removal of the column meant we needed a reinforced beam. The beam has caused the height of the doors to be lowered.  A real shame because we paid a fair bit to remove the column in order to open up the room and the low height of the doors closes it in.  They're only around 1.9m high.  This reminded us early concerns around not having 3D plans (and of course not having an architect or a savvy salesperson to consider these issues).  We've updated our general tips blog to cover this.

Pretty good week of progress.  Electrical wiring installed throughout.  The electrician was a good guy.... pretty simple really - he dropped us a text message before arriving, asking if we wanted to meet him and chat through what we had selected so that he had an idea of what we were trying to achieve. He then made a few suggestions on improvements.  He got the job done quickly and we were happy.  We'll use him for some work once the house is released to us.

The tiling on the last few sections of the roof were also completed.  Feels like we're now very close to lock up. 

We had a call from the interior tiling company, advising that our selection for the patio area had been discontinued so we'd have to go back to their store and re-select.  Not the end of the world, but pretty inconvenient given Alkira only use one tiling company and it's a 2 hour drive for us.  Another example of average customer service.  Can't be that hard to pick a couple of tiling companies to source from.  Anyway, on speaking to the tiling people, they advised that Alkira don't order the tiles until they have good visibility on having to install them... that was pleasing to hear whilst being a bit surprising as the gyprock isn't even up inside yet.