Facias and gutters

Tuesday 19 November 2013

On Tuesday the facias and gutters went up! I had been dying to go out and look at the house all week, but couldn't get out their until Thursday! The facia and gutters looked great. 

The roof was due to start on Thursday all pending weather... When I woke on Thursday it was a clear sunny sky! I thought for sure the roofer's would be there. But to my disappointment they weren't! The scaffolding was up ready to go and all the materials on site. Friday was predicted to be rain and storms so I didn't expect anything to start on Friday. I also know it takes two days to put the roof on so didn't think they'd start and leave it over the weekend.

I called the SS on Friday morning to get a  new time for when the roof would be started. It was pouring rain so I knew it wouldn't happen today.  I have a few extra whirly birds I want installed so it is important to catch them on site. The SS said they were on site today and doing the roof as we speak! I was shocked!! 

I bolted in the car and raced down to see the guys. There were 3 young men working on the roof putting the beams across for the colourbond sheets to screw into. I asked one of then if they could put in a few more whirly birds for me in lieu of cash or beer..... He said no worries, we'll take the beer! Sweet! It was too easy! So I left them with 3 whirly birds and 2 cases of beer! 

About 2:30pm this arvo we received some torrential rain!! Probably the heaviest rain I've seen in a long time! I wonder how far the guys got with the roof...... I think my insulation is going to be soaked :-/

Happy new eaves!

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Today was the day! I waited and waited, checking my email constantly to see if the quote for the eaves had been sent through. I held off until 3pm and hadn't heard anything so I sent the construction manager an email. Sure enough, by 2:30pm I had recieved an email with the quote! It came back 1.5k less than what we were prepared to pay.  I was pretty stoked, but also saw, included in the quote was the MJH admin fee of 1k. So really the eaves will only cost 2.5k!

I thought I would try and get the admin fee waved, due to the circumstances of no one explaining our plans thoroughly. I spoke with yet another manager who wouldn't budge on the admin fee, stating I was lucky that they are making a change to the plans during construction. I was so happy that we are getting the eaves fixed that I didnt want to push the issue further. I informed the SS, and he was completely unaware that I was still disputing the eaves. He had already ordered our roof, gutters/facia which is due to be installed on wednesday. He was able to cancel the order, thankfully! So now we have to wait for the plans to go through the appropriate peaople, council, etc. I also received a copy of the amended plans showing the eaves all the way around the garage. At least that happened quickly. I just hope the rest of the paperwork goes quickly so we can get our roof on. All in all, we are very happy and I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders!

Foil flapping frantically

Sunday 3rd November 2013

We went down to see the house a few times this week, mainly to ensure our foil wrap was still attached to the house! We have had some strong winds and sure enough, the foil wrap had pulled through the tech screws and was now flapping madly in the wind. It started off with just one side coming loose, but now all the left hand side and back of the house had fallen down. I know the builders cant help the weather elements, but I had contacted the SS to let him know it had fallen down a week ago and he informed me that it would be tacked back up. When I last saw the brickies (friday morning) they said they would tack it up. But after seeing it today, it certainly hadn't been tacked up, and no more bricks had been laid! I expected to see the left hand side finished off with the bricks, but it seemed as though the brickies just left at 9am when we left. I couldnt believe that nothing else had been done! So now my foil wrap will flap around and tear some more! Not pleasing!

I still hadnt heard back from the construction manger regarding the quote on the eaves by Friday arvo either. I contacted him and he advised he' ll have the quote ready by Tuesdays or Wednesday. So we wait again..... there has not been much good news at all the last two weeks! We went from a high to now a low.... I just hope things start to pick up again and some positive, happy news comes our way!

On a side note, we have managed to pick out two lounges we really like from king furniture (who wouln't find anything nice there)! We have placed our deposit down on the strata and king cloud. Here are some of the pics.

Not happy Jan!

Wednesday 30th October 2013

I waited all day,  checking my phone every 30 minutes in case I missed the call. I hadnt heard anything,  so I contacted the CLO at 1pm, only to get her message box. Anticipation followed by dissappointment! I went back out to the house and saw the foil wrap had been completed, and the brickies had started. Some positive news! It appeared that the brickies had only started on the Tuesday and they didnt get very far..... I think there is only 1 guy doing it. I contafted the CLO a few more times, but to no avail.

We went home and I was having a shower when my partner started yelling at me to get out. In shear panic, thinking that someone was hurt or something was seriously wrong, I flew out of the shower dripping wet, only to have the phone thrown at me and my partner yelling, " its Suzanne, its Suzanne (CLO)". I answered the call to recieve the verdict of our eaves. The CLO said, "the manager has decided that they will not add the eave as you are too far in now". A part of my heart sunk, only to then instantly feel anger and outrage. I asked what the problem was and why it couldnt be done. The CLO stuttered and hesitantly said it would take too long and cost too much, as plans need to be redrawn and submitted back into council. I knew she was only the messanger and I didnt want to 'shoot" her so to speak, so I requested the managers details and I would follow up the lack of reasons with him. Given the CLO had contacted me late in the afternoon,  I had to wait until tomorrow to contact the manager.

Thurdsay 31st October
I contacted the manager first thing  and informed him that I wanted further information about why the eaves could not be done. He went on to say that its not that it cant be done, it can be, it's just that it will cost you time and I dont think you realise how much it will cost. I was offended by this response, and informed him that noone had even given me a rough cost to fix it. I felt like they had judged me and formed the opinion that I would not be able to afford it. When in fact my partner and I had discussed we would be prepared to pay 5k to add the eaves. We thought what's 5k compared to the rest of the money we have  spent and we want to be happy with the appearance of our house, given we'll be in it for the next 30 years. I continued to inform the manager that I would like a quote and we are prepared to wait the necessary time to have it fixed. I also expressed my concern that noone had gone through our plans with us, and for first home builders, looking at a house plan makes no sense. We would have appreciated it, if someone had pointed out certain things such as the eaves. At that early stage in our build, we didnt even know the dotted line was the eave. I think I did a good job emphasizing how much we want the eave added. At the end of the  conversation, I was informed that the manger would quote up the cost and get back to me. I was satisfied that I had gone from a straight out "NO" to now a quote. There may be light at the end of the tunnel after all.

Still waiting on the verdict of our eaves

Monday 28th October 2013

I contacted the SS at 7:45am, the lack of eave over the garage has been playing on my mind all weekend! However he didnt answer. I tried a few more times during the day, but still no answer and no return call :(. So Mum and I went out to the house after lunch, expecting to see our foil wrap done and maybe even be lucky enough to meet the SS and discuss the lack of eaves! Nothing further had been done with the foil wrap, it was no more complete than how it was left on Friday. Bit disappointing. On the other hand our corner windows had now been installed! Hopefully the foil wrap was done after we left.

The Ss wasnt there so I rang him again. This time I got through and discussed with him my issues with the garage eave. At the start of the conversation he practically stated that it would be a nightmare to do and does not think i'll be able to do get it fixed. I was frustrated and stressed how much I wanted my dream home to look perfect and without eaves on the garage, it would not be perfect! Towards the end of the conversation the SS said there is nothing I cant fix, but its up to MJH if they will allow you to change it now. I had a glimpse of hope that perhaps its not too late to fix it, given the roof had not be instslled.

I contacted the CLO and raised my issue. She advised that she would need to speak with the SS and construction manager and that it would be up to them if it can be fixed. She then said, "but I dont like your chances" . I was told the ss and the construction mgr would meet on wednesday and I would have an answer by then. I really didnt know what the big deal was about adding the eaves. The roof wasnt on and it was a simple fix. 45cm more of steel needed to be added, how hard could it be!  Sn now I wait another two days for an answer.....

No eaves!!!!

Saturday 26 October 2013

So after hearing all the good news about the progress yesterday, mum, dad, felicity, and I, oh and our boarder collie dog Joey visited the house! Upon arrival we could see that the house had been foil wrapped around the bottom half of the frame. I was quite impressed by the thick material used and also the attention to detail. Where the foil was cut to go around gas pipes, it had firmly been taped and screwed back together. It was a very neat job! We also got a better look at all the plumbing which had been finished off. It all looked great and in the right locations, expept our back tap is leaking.

I was showing dad the media room when he said to me, "you don't have eave's over your garage"! I looked up and saw that the frame was defiantly shorter around the garage and definitely appeared to have no eave's. I was gutted! I hate houses with no eave's! Why didn't it have eave's? I thought it did! I quickly pulled out my plans to check and there were no eaves drawn in around the garage! I was so cranky with myself that I hadn't pick this up!! I must have looked over our plans 100 times and didn't pick up on this! Once again it was due to the type of facade chosen! I just wish MJH would advise of the changes caused from certain facades! 

I ran up the road to look at the other MJH houses being built. All of them have eaves around their garages! Mine was the only one that didn't :( I'm so disappointed! On the drive out, I saw a tradie working on an MJH frame. I stopped and spoke to him about whether it is possible to get eaves this far down the track. He said you need to run in by your SS, but it can be done as an extra peice of steel slides over the frame already there and screws into it! 

I really hope we can do this! First thing on Monday morning, I'm going to call the SS and ask if this can be done. I guess if it can be, I'll be hit with the $1000 admin fee for changing something as well as the addition costs in materials! But I really need the eaves over the garage! So spewing I didn't pick up on this! 

On a happier note, our bricks and sand were delivered. Our brick colour looks great, just as we remember it being. Funnily enough, every other house in our precinct has chosen a dark brick except for our neighbors and us, who went for the light brick!! Lol. Here are some pics from today. 

No eves!! :(

No afternoon siesta!

Friday 25 October 2013

So today I expected to see the roof trusses completely finished. So mum and I went for a drive out in the morning. I was surprised to see not only were the roof trusses finished, but the windows, sliding doors and plumbing were all done as well! It looked great! We have chosen white window frames which mum thought were quite bright, but I love that they look so crisp and fresh! The big corner windows for the front of the house were not yet in. This then bought my attention to the media room, which is our front room. Where I thought out tv was going, (right hand wall) there were now 3 small windows up high. Surely our tv could not go under the windows as it would sit too low! I also couldn't make out where our tv recess was going??? This had me in a bit of a bother. :/ There were no tradies on sight nor on any other site either? They must have had a day off from Bingara. So we left to go back home.

I wanted to get an indication on whether our roof will go on next or the bricks and also ask about the media room? I rang the SS in the arvo and asked about the media room. He informed me that due to my facade having corner windows a recess cannot fit in the media room. He also said the tv would go on the left hand wall (backs onto entry recess). It now feels a little back to front (according to my feng shui). But I wasn't too bothered by nott having a recess, at least it won't matter what size tv we get now. Perhaps it would have been nice of MJH to point this fact our during one of our meetings tho. We also realized that we may have to place wooden boards in the frame where we want to hang heavy items, such as the tv, so that the screws have something to bite into. I just don't think the screws will bite into the the thin steel frame very well. The SS said he would give permission for me to go on site and do just that! 

I also enquired about the progress. To my utmost surprise yet again, he said the house is already half foil wrapped and the bricks have been delivered ready to start on Tuesday! What tha!! That wasn't all there this morning! I'm was thinking that the SS may have my house confused with someone else's, but he assured me that the tradies arrived after lunch! He said we were lucky as a bricky had just come back from leave and so he placed him straight onto my house! You little beauty!! We may now get ahead of the MJH behind us which started before us :) I was just dying to get back out there now and have a look! 

Here are some pics of the windows and sliding doors

Frames up!

Monday 21st October 2013

Again the bush fires have been horrendous with Wilton being included in the 'at threat' suburbs. I hadn't heard from the new SS yet, so I contacted the CLO to get a rough idea of when the frame might go up. I was conscious that the fires would delay things, as Wilton was covered by a thick blanket of smoke. I was provided with the new SS's phone number and gave him a call. To my utmost shock, the SS said the frame was up! I contacted him at 11:30am and the frame was already up! Unbelievable! 

We attempted to get out to the block about 4pm but could not get through due to road closures. We came back a few hours later and the road was open. We were so surprised to see the roof trusses were up as well! After looking just at the slab and thinking it looked quite small, the frame really changed our opinions. Our bedroom looked so big and we can't wait to use our WIR's! There were still a few peices of the frame that needed to be put up and then it's straight into plumbing, bricks and roof!! Bring it on! 

Delivery of frame vs bush fires

18 October 3013

So the frame is due to be delivered to my block today, however we have experienced some terrible bush fires down in the southern highlands, including bush along Picton Road which is the only road to access my estate. I have been on the RFS website and Picton Road has been closed for most of the day. It appeared that the road closure was just after the turn off into Bingara, so Felicity, dad and I drove the back roads to avoid a traffic jam on the Hume Highway.

It was a very scary feeling driving out along Morton Park Drive. There were huge smoke clouds only a few kilometers in front of us. The sky was glowing orange and it appeared we were heading right towards the fire. It was now, it really hit me, that these fires were so close to our estate. We made it out onto Picton Road, and to our block. I was estatic! Our frame had been delivered!! There is was, beautiful pieces of blue steel, waiting to be put up! We also inspected the slab and saw the kordon termite barrier had also been put around the edges of the slab. Also, to our surprise, our site had been leveled around our slab. I didn't expect MJH to do that! Our huge pile of dirt out the front had been evenly spread around the back yard, which now battered down nicely to the slab! Whilst looking at the slab we also noticed that one of the corners on our slab in the alfresco had been broken off. It must have happened when they leveled the dirt around the block. We will have to get that fixed! All in all, we were so pleased everything was still on schedule!

Slab day

10 October 2013

Today was the day our slab got poured! I wasn't able to see the slab (actually i still haven't seen it) as I was away at Bathurst with work. I knew it was going to be a stinking hot day in Sydney, temps were estimated to peak at 37 degrees! I was a little worried, as i can only imagine how difficult pouring a slab would be, let alone in those hot temps. I was concerned that they may not pour as the concrete may set too quickly.

I gave my SS a call about 12pm to ask if it was still going to get poured. He told me it was already done, they did it nice and early and also put a certain compound in the mixture to stop it setting to quickly and cracking. I was so excited! I wish I was at home to see it!. I told Felicity it had been poured and she went straight out to the block after work. She said it looked great, and nice and smooth. She took plenty of pics and sent them to me. Its getting more and more exciting as each stage progresses. I was informed by the SS that the frame would be delivered exactly one week from now, being next Thursday.  I wonder if they will also start to put it up on Thursday. I hope so! :)

Plumbing

30 September 2013

We were in full swing now! The plumbers arrived on site 6 days after excavating. I was surprised by how far they had to dig down for the plumbing! My once smooth, level block, was now all dug up again! We were yet again blessed by the universe as no rock was hit during the plumbing phase. The tradies said we were very lucky as they hit rock on the neighbour's block behind us. As far as I could tell, the plumbing all looked good.

Next thing to happen was the peiring on 3rd October 2013. I had worked night shift the night before, but was too excited not to watch the peiring. So after a few hours sleep I was back down at the block. The drilling rig was pretty cool to watch, but after the first few holes I was starting to get pretty tired. It turned out they drilled 38 holes, and I watched all this take place over 5 hours standing in the sun. Needless to say I got a suntan. It was particularly important that I was out there, as our contract only allowed for 50 lineal meters of peiring and anything over that would incur extra cost. After the peirs were all drilled, I went on site with the tradey and we measured the peirs together. It turned out that we went over our quoted amount by 12.3 lineal meters. This costed an extra $1k, but it was better to have sturdy peirs as that's what holds up our house! We had been pretty lucky so far with the excavating, that the extra cost didn't worry us. Had we have hit rock, we could have been up for thousands extra.

Turning soil

24th September 2013

On 22nd September I received a phone call from the SS informing me that excavation would occur on 24th September. He also stated that we would have about 30 tonne of excess soil on our block after the cut and fill to get rid of.! I was shocked by this as our land is relatively flat, being retained already by the developer. I had forgotten that the contract stated that excess soil is to be removed by the owner. I guess I didn't think too much about it previously as I didn't think we would have any excess. The SS said the grass had grown a lot and mowing it might help.

So up I ran to the back shed and pulled out our lawn mower and my dads lawn mower. We loaded them in the back of days Nissan and drove down to the block. We mowed the entire 560sqm. It looked superb after it had been mowed, and was the neatest block in the street!

On 24th I went out and watched the excavation. I had arranged for a local company to take away the excess soil which was a lot cheaper than what MJH would do it for. It turned out that our mowing really helped and only 1 truck load was required to be taken away, which was 13 tonne. We were stoked as it only costs $220. It took 1 hour for our block to be excavated. I thought that was very quick. We didn't hit any rock to our relief as that would again be extra. The universe was on our side :)

Red Pegs

20 September 2013

As we counted down week after week we had not heard when progress on our build would start. After the 4th week I began to look back through the contract to see if we get paid by the builder for holding us up. Funnily enough, there are no fees for the builder for holding up the customer, only fees for the customer holding up the builder, ironic. The 20th September would see the 20th working day since being placed on the construction list. I hadnt heard anything, so went for a drive out to the block, and to my surprise we had 4 red pegs in the corners of our block! YES  we had started!, I've never been so happy to see red piece of wood before. Surely enough, later that day I recieved a text message from MJH to inform me they had started.

Council Approval

6th August 2013

We were so happy to hear of our plans being approved by council on 6th August, it only took 3 weeks. We were stoked and also relieved at the same time as our plans needed to be approved by 8th August (only 2 days grace) before were went over our 150 days of the contract price. If we went over this, we would then have to pay a fine to MJH. Thank god we got it approved in the nick of time.

Then we were told all we needed is the construction certificate and we would be placed on the construction list! I contacted the bank frantically trying to get our construction certificate. It took about a week to come through.  so now I thought, thats it were done! I contacted the CLO, to confirm all this and she advised that they had already had the construction certificate and it was the loan approval document they had been waiting on for the last week. I was fuming! I had already provided the loan approval document months ago as I had had it since February. The whole time I was talking to the CLO and referring to the 'construction certificate', she never once corrected me to inform me it was the 'loan approval' they needed. When I challenged her on this, she simply stated, ' Oh I just thought you were calling it the wrong thing'. I was calling it the 'construction certificate' because thats what you told me. Again, my partner was livid and telling me that I was being played! I was quite upset that we had just lost another week, but we were so close now I didn't want to kick up a fuss and have things delayed further. Within 2 minutes I sent through the loan approval document, and voila`, we were placed on the construction list! I was so excited, and then found out that the construction list meant MJH had 20 working days (4 weeks) to commence, all of which would be used :(

Electrical appointment

22nd July 2013

So far from 3rd May until 22 July, not much progress occurred in the paperwork side of things. Our land did, however get registered on 21st May and after 2 stressful weeks we managed to settle on time! This enabled us to receive a 10k cash back that was promoted by the developer. We were very happy. It was all thanks to my excellent conveyancer and no help of the bank that enabled us to settle on time.

However, the paperwork side of things continued to drag along. There were some slight communication problems with our CLO. Originally we had been told that our plans would be approved by housing code (comply and development), however because we were affected by bushfire, housing code required a Bal certificate. So MJH sent out a variation with a fee of $750 just for this certificate. I thought this fee was ludicrous,  and contacted the council who were able to do the exact certificate for $350. So I paid my fee and awaited for the certificate. A week and a half went by and I had not heard anything from MJH, my frustration got the better of me and I contacted them once again to get an update. During this conversation the CLO happened to mention that I am no longer getting plans approved by housing code, but rather the council, who don't need the Bal certificate. I was fuming as no one informed me of this change, after I had told MJH I have arranged to get the Bal certificate. So now I had paid for a certificate that I did not require. I quickly contacted council and luckily enough they hadn't started the certificate and I was able to get a refund. Thanks MJH!

Throughout this process I was trying to remain positive. I didnt have any other building experience to compare our experience with, so I went along with it all and didn't kick up a fuss. Meanwhile my partner was livid, and was convinced we were being stuffed around on purpose given our young ages, 1st home builders and both being female.

Eventually we received an invitation to attend our electrical appointment, which occurred on 22 July. The excitement started to kick in now as we began to progress through the paper work. I attended the appointment and knew we didn't need to spend too much,  due to my brother being an electrician. Things like down lights, extra power points, fancy lights, fans, and ducted air, we had planned to do after hand over. So the appointment was very quick and cheap, only costing us $85 for upgraded power points on our glass splash back. We were then told that plans would be submitted to council and upon being approved our build would commence! Yahoo! So close to starting!

Exchange of contract

3rd May 2013

On 3rd May 2013, we officially exchanged contracts. I attended MJH head office and signed several pages, legally binding us to the the Havana 3. I was a little nervous as it was explained that any extra changes would now incur admin fees of $1000 per change! Yikes! I hope we got everything right! For first home builders, it was at this stage a bit daunting as no one really sat down with us to explain what we should think about to make sure our house was perfect.

We then received our drafts with all the sides and elevations of the house. I must have looked at these plans a hundred times and even then it wasn't until the 110th time I found little things that I though would be better if changed. For example the location of the external gas point in the alfresco, the location of our external water taps, a recess near the bathroom that would better as a linen cupboard, etc. Our CLO said that small changes would be fine and would not incur additional fees, so i raised these points with her and they were happy to change them without any extra cost! Over the next 5 weeks, we had several tender variations going back and forth, including a mistake on placing the house within the correct measurements of the building envelope. Our water and electrical connections were first drawn up on the wrong side of the house, so another tender needed to be sent to have plans changed. We also received a credit back for our slab as we were down graded to M class! Woo hoo, that saved us 3.5k! This part in our whole process seemed to take the longest, as each time a new variation needed to be written it would take 1.5weeks to have it sent out to me and have it corrected. Things were starting to get frustrating as time was ticking on by. We were very conscious of the possibility of incurring fines for building late, if we did not have everything sorted, done, dusted and approved by all the powers that be by early August!

Colours Appointment

22 April 2013 - colours Appointment

We received a letter inviting us to take part in our preliminary colours selection on 10 April 2013. I was so excited to get to this point. I had heard how great MJH are at the colours studio and how proficient everything is. As this was just a preliminary appointment we did not have to choose any colours, but received a large folder containing all the colours and price guide to look through. We were informed our actual colors appointment would take place on 22 April. So over the next few days, we spent many hours at Bunnings and online stores, working out what things we could do ourselves later on to save money. By the time the 22nd rolled around we were very ready and knew exactly what we wanted.

I told my partner, Felicity, that she had to get the day off work for this! So on 22 May 2013, we attended MJH head office again to select our colours. The interior designer that we had, was superb. She knew exactly what matched with what and it seemed like we were flying through our selections. We decided to leave out floorings, driveway and fly screens in order to save money after hand over. There were a lot of extras to choose from and initially we said yes to everything we liked, with a  plan to delete the unnecessary items to reduce the cost. This was a must, as we quickly racked up a cost of 22k, after only having a budget of about 10k. So out came the red pen and we deleted the items we could live with out. We then brought our total down to a more manageable figure! After 4 hours in the colour studio we were very happy with our colours, and also happy that we both shared a very similar taste! It could have gotten pretty crazy if two girls didn't agree on a colour! Thankfully we both have very neutral taste.

Choosing our House

16th March 2013

Since placing a deposit on the land (18 February 2013), the land was then registered on 20th May, and settled on 4 June 2013. In this time we had been very busy walking through numerous display homes in search of our dream home!. Upon walking through Mcdonald Jones display homes, we knew instantly that this is what we wanted! After meeting with the sales rep, and going through house designs we eventually decided to build the Havana 3.

On 16 March 2013 we signed our preliminary contract and paid our $3000.