Released to Construction

Well I got a phone call this morning from Richard at Statesman, they where missing a signed variation form, and he needed it as soon as possible because they want to release us to construction this Friday !!!

I knew exactly which form it was; the $38,000 footings one!

So as I had to go in to the city today anyways I thought I would drop them off myself. This gave me the chance to talk to Richard and express my concerns about the placement of the sewer line. It goes diagonally across the front of the block, if they do this we won't be able to put in a retaining wall where I want to. So he drew line and said "sewer here" and I signed it. Will wait and see if I get charged a $250 variance for that!

He said they are currently at about 3 weeks til they start once it is released. So if I am really lucky we will get something started by the 7th of September. I go back to work on 14th, so I will be very excited if they start before I go back to work. Thats all I want. He did say they are building them alot faster at the moment also. I wonder what that means :) dare I dream that we might be in by Christmas????

Bathroom tiles

While we where at Hickinbotham freaking out about the footings I took some photos of the selections we made.


Door handles in the bathroom and kitchen.


Floor tiles in the bathroom, laundry and ensuite.


'Feature' wall tile in the ensuite and bathroom. One wall will be this tile the other three walls the white tile. The weird sploches on the tile are the reflections from the overhead lights.


Bathroom wall tile in a display home.




I said to my hubby on the weekend that I wanted to go to the display home again, just to remind myself what all this heartache was about. We went out to Seaford to see a display home that was built using the bricks we have chosen. Sorbetto



We then drove a bit around the Seaford estate area looking for a house that was being built that was the "Adelaide". As luck would have it there was a house for sale that was open, that was the Adelaide !!

We went in for a look. Hubby and I got in to the ensuite shower together. Yep plenty of room in there for the two of use!! That was a big concern to him.....

The kitchen had the pantry that we are having which was good to see. So I felt a little better.

Just have to hope they get building soon!

The MASSIVE footings cost.

So several things I suppose since the last update.

Where to start.....

The first footings report came in at $16,000 with an added $11,500 for soil removal. We where like WTF! So we went in to Hickinbotham/Statesman and talked to the Engineer guy who does all the pricing for them and what not.

He said if we lower the garage by 600mm this will raise the level of the house and the soil removal should drop down to about $2000. So we said "Ok lets do it"

We got a variation cost of $5000 to drop the garage down 600mm, but we figured since we would get $9000 back from the soil removal we would be $4000 in front.

We got the second Engineers report $28000 for footings, and $2800 for soil removal !!!!! !!!!

I can't put in enough !!!! I was depressed, angry, upset, despondant, frustrated you name it I felt it. I almost felt like laughing manically. It couldn't be true could it!!

So we went in to see Tom the engineer at Statesman. He outlined that they had to put mesh in here, had to pour extra cement for the steps in the garage, had to do two concrete pours, one for the top layer and then one for the garage. They had to put in extra mesh around the garage and that because the front of the house is now slightly higher then before there is more fill so they have to put in these 900 deep piers that cost about $1000 each and we need 9 of them!!!

And we still need massive retaining walls around the side and back!

So what retaining walls do the neighbours need? are they up against our block? says she who knows the neighbours are also building with Hickinbotham. Oh they don't need any retaining and there footings are $16,000 total. They have a perfect cut and fill, there house sits pefecting on the block, couldn't have picked a better house design if they tried!!! ARRGGHHH they have a two storey house, seems that we would have been better of building a 'squat' two storey house. So we toyed with this idea for a moment........

Since two storey houses start at around $200k and we would have to sign a new contract and start all over again with council approval etc that wasn't really an option.

So we *sighed* and signed.

I bet you anything they hit rock :(

At least another 7 weeks

I just spoke to a lady at council.
When the report finally comes back from the CFS it will be two weeks before the coucil guy signs off on it. Then it will be sent back to the builder, who has to get a private company to certify it and apply for licenses etc then they send that back to council then council approves it.
She said the quickest all that paper work has ever been done has been 4 weeks. Thats the quickest!!

So at least another week before the CFS has to get there report in, and from talking to the CFS ladies they are going to take there sweet time and not post it till the the day before it is due, then 2 week with council, then another 4 weeks. So 7 more weeks before the builders even get approval.

Then the builders have a 6 week 'good to go', so 13 more weeks before we get our slab. So if we are _lucky_ and I use that word loosely - we will have a slab by the 9th of October. Then if we are really lucky it will only take 6 months to build, but you have to add a month for all the dingdonging around Christmas so maybe May next year we might have the house. MAY, MAY!!
I don't even want to think about it or I might just go postal on someone.

I feel like going postal on the CFS ladies. This one woman is so fricking rude on the phone. So nasty, I ask her how the report is progressing, what it is up to and she is like "We have until the 30th to complete it" that is all she says. She reminds me of our extrememly frustrating and totally incompetent Sales Consultant. I seriously feel like going up to the CFS in Mt Barker and just sitting there with three screaming kids for days on end and asking her how she likes it. I'm sure there offices are bigger then this bloody small rental we are in.

I am restraining myself from going postal over the phone, as I am sure if I do our fire rating will go from Low to HIGH. But how fricking ridiculous is it that we have to have a fire rating at all. There isn't a tree for miles, we are in the middle of a fucking building development. arrghhhh arrggghhhh I just feel like screaming all day long. I think I need to go buy some Rescue Remedy and try to calm down.

Waiting on CFS fire rating

Well we are at a standstill while we wait for the CFS fire rating to be done. I rang the CFS last week and apparantly the one guy who does it is on leave. So two weeks at least before he starts doing them again . Then another 6 weeks or so to go through council. *arrghhhh* if it isn't one hold up it's another.

The council bloke states that we have to have the fire rating done because the small area that we are building in is rated a high fire risk due to the fact that it used to be a reserve/farmland. This rich family in Adelaide about 100 years ago bought up vast tracks of land, and then let them somewhat return to there natural state, they are now slowly selling this land piece by piece and making a killing. So the CFS rated these areas as fire risks, now that we are building they still have that rating and need to be assessed even though every tree within the area has been raised.

We still havn't gotten the second engineers report back, I rang Statesman yesterday, apparantly the external engineer had some big project come in, so they dropped everything to work on that.
Thats what they get for paying them pittance, so now it will be at least two weeks before that comes back.

Now that we are paying interest on the $180k for the land getting things to hurry along is all the more urgent.

The Gold range bricks

We changed our brick selection from Oyster, that we thought was just a bit to dark to Sorbetto, this upgrade cost us $2500. So I hope they look good. If they don't I think I will never hear the end of it from hubby, who wanted to go for the bronze or standard range bricks from Austral called Almond. I just found them too yellow.

Spoke to the Neighbours

Well since we now actually own the land and arn't backing out I thought I would see if I could get in contact with the neighbours and make sure they didn't use the same brick as us. IF I'm paying $2500 extra for a brick them I am not having the two houses next to us using the same brick, thats for sure!!

So the person to the left has bought the block to build a rental property on. He still hasn't decided on a builder but was/is leaning towards the same builder that we are using.

The couple to the right is Scottish, I could barely understand a word they said! They have a girl who is a year younger then my daughter, and a son the same age as mine. She is a nurse and he used to be a police officer. I talked to her about choosing laminates and tiles and where to go. They currently live in the same area that we are building, so hopefully they may keep a bit of an eye on the build for us.

I did however stress to both of them NOT to use the same brick we are ;) But now I am thinking that might backfire and when they go to selections the only name in there brains may be that of my brick :(

Hopefully though since the people to the right are using the same builder as us the builder might be able to come up with something for the retaining wall.