Independent Inspection - Pre PCI

We had the II completed yesterday by New Homes Inspections - gee they know their stuff, overall pretty happy.  Shall wait till we have the full PCI with SS this Thursday.

I did find this though and was surprised it was installed - Rangehood!:
(mental note to others - ensure that your rangehoods are ducted to an external vent if detailed on the plans - we don't have external vent as yet!)

Close up photo of under cupboard lights.  I know some people find these ugly.  I actually like them.  I also like the fact that they don't take up all the space in the bottom of the overhead cupboards.

Stairs now varnished and handrail installed - didn't know we were getting that!  Better than having dirty hand prints up the wall!

Vanity Basins
The Basin on the left is the Valentino Stepped Vessel (Lifestyle).  Long story cut short - apparently out of stock, but 3 managed to arrive and not 4.  Confusion on which basins we were having.  So now have the Caroma Basin installed in Powder Room.
Which basin do you like? 

My Bath - well the view from my bath - can't wait to use it!

Week 15 - Exterior Action this Week...

The exterior taking shape this week....

Roofing on garage and alfresco and rendering done.

Main render - Dulux Stepney
Feature render - Monument

Had Fixing Inspection this week also, so had a good look around inside......

Surprise, it comes with a cutlery draw!

After reading the plans a million times, I missed that the
Top LHS cupboard is 350mm and the rest 400mm!  Annoying!

Guest Ensuite - where the crack is, shows
where the screw went through a water pipe!

Showing the laminate - little difficult to see though.

Dodgy join in the laundry laminate bench top of 3680mm.
Guessing that perhaps 3600mm is the longest width!!!
Join is UGLY and just inside the door!

Laundry Chute

Laundry Chute Open

Master Ensuite - we went with 1 basin only and changed
second set of cupboards to draws

Half Way There.......Week 11 !!!

Well I can't believe it and must say, a tad excited!  I met the SS a week ago on site to discuss a couple of things.  I asked how long did he think until we would be finished???
Remembering - Our Contract states a build time of 280 days + 28 days for Christmas period = 44 weeks.
At the time of my discussion with SS we are up to Week 10.  He replies that we are pretty much half way there, so probably around 10 weeks to go.  Me gobsmacked!
I knew that they were well advanced, hubby and I couldn't work out how on earth it could take till Jan/Feb 2014 with where we are up to.
So, that 10 weeks takes us to early September (which would equate to around 22 week build time).  I don't mind if it is even October, this is well before Christmas with time to get settled in.  Not holding my breath just yet though.

Must get onto some other quotes now such as fences, driveways and pool fencing!

Lock-Up Independent Inspection
Nothing to report other than the obvious things missing - windows, bi-folds, alfresco roof and garage roof.  So a good job being done.



So where are we up to.........

Eaves
The Eaves have now been painted.














Missing Window and Rendering
The missing window has been installed and thus the Hebel that goes around it.  This area now needs to be rendered.  I am sure that this will happen early this coming week as the SS wants the scaffolding down asap (actually last week!)

I noticed that there is a chip in the render around one of the top storey facade windows.  I will have to make sure I find the Renderers on site this week and ask them to fix it if they haven't noticed.  Stands out though!  You can see it in this picture here.










Back Bi-Fold
Still missing.  Was told that this would be installed this last week, but not there.  It really needs to be on before they plaster!

Insulation
All the Insulation has been installed.  Glad I was there though.  Happened to ask "What does the sound insulation look like?".  Dumb look from installer stating that there wasn't any sound insulation on this order.  I confirmed that there should be.  Anyway, after them chasing it up, it was missed off the order and is now installed around our Media/Playroom.

Extra Insulation in roof.

Sound Insulation is Grey

Electricals
Electricians did come back and move junction boxes that we had at the back of the house and insert a separate circuit that we added as a PCV.  These junction boxes are for the pool electricals.  One of the junction boxes was going to end up way up high at lighting height, however I asked for it to be put down low as otherwise we would have to cover wiring all the way up the wall.  One of the junction boxes is linked up to an internal light switch to turn on the pool lights.  The other junction box will hook up wiring to the pool equipment after handover.

Plaster
All the plaster and cornices have now been delivered and this is the next step internally.  Am guessing that the staircase can't be far away either...

Frame Stage Independent Inspection

Saturday Morning opened my letterbox and found invoice for "Frame Stage Complete", posted on Weds prior to this.  Ooops, this really eats into the 7 day payment terms and dealing with the bank.  Emailed accounts at PD asking if they could please email invoice in future as they did the first one.

Suddenly occurred to me that I should be arranging for the Frame to be inspected prior to being wrapped up for the Hebel.  So got onto this on Monday.  However as I knew there was an error on our plans at the back of the garage where it joins the house - it is supposed to have a double stud wall to support the garage roof trusses, I needed to get the altered plans from PD and also the Building Variation for this.  Took till Tuesday for me to get the BV, then apparently my BC had to get the Drafting Team to change the plans.  Strange as I know the Carpenter informed them back on 10 May of this error!!!!!!  After a little harassing, BC managed to get me the plans (not the actual framing plans though) on the Weds morning.  This was in time for the Frame Independent Inspection on the Weds afternoon.  I had delayed this inspection a day, however I shouldn't have, as the double stud wall hadn't even been built yet!

The inspection went well.  

They re-looked at the issues from the Slab Inspection:

• Concrete rebate needed to back bi-fold door - been corrected
• Slab is level and should be sloping on southern side of Alfresco - needs to be corrected still.  SS asked what we are doing to this area post handover, but we don't know yet.  I do want this slab fixed.

Frame Inspection - Very good overall, mainly things still to do:

• Garage Roof Trusses not yet completed
• Alfresco Roof Trusses not yet completed
• Back Bi-fold to be installed
• 2nd Storey windows to be installed
• Side flashing to the front entry both sides of door frame to be installed

Inspector's Photos:

Concrete rebated ready for Bi-Fold Doors

Alfresco - it is the area above the drain pipe in the middle
 that isn't sloping towards the drain.

2nd Storey Windows

1st Independent Inspection - Slab

We noted once the slab was poured that it was missing the rebate for the bi-fold door.  Quick chat with the SS and he said this can be easily fixed with some cutting into the concrete.  Just shows you though, doesn't matter how much I checked the plans over and over, this is one thing that I didn't look for.  It is noted on the floorplans and elevation that the bi-fold is rebated into the slab, however this wasn't transferred over to the concrete slab engineering plan!

Anyway, easy fix, so happy with that.

We had our independent inspection come through and he was pretty happy, the only other issue was that for our grand alfresco, one side of the slab is flat and not sloping towards the drain.  You can see below in the photo just at the right hand side where the pool of water is.  SS also happy to follow up on this item.