The Building of Our New Home

Yes, the pegs were in last Friday!!! After dropping Carrie off at the airport, I took a drive down on Sat morning with my cousin to take a look and had some pictures taken. I yet to upload them here but will do so soon. Bumped into my builder there at the site. He mentioned that there is some problems with the estate regarding the boundary setbacks and therefore he was there to see it would cause too much of a problem.

Changes in Estate Design Requirements Boundary Setbacks
The estate setback requirements have changed. One can no longer have the garage wall to be at the edge of the adjoining property. There must be a minimum setback of 1m from the side fence boundary.

Original Plans

My original drawing plans had the garage touching the left side of the fence and a 1.68m gap on the right. Now that the estate requires us to have a minimum of 1m from each side, the builder has to take in close to 0.4m from the garage. This is after shifting the whole house to the right by 0.6m. I wouldn't want to take out any floor area from the Master and Living rooms side. Also, we have to move the house forward by 0.4m to meet the front setback requirement as well.

Final Engineering Drawings for Estate Approvals
Here are the final engineering drawings for the estate's approval.

Engineering Floor Plan with Dimensions

N/S/E/W Elevations

Roof 25deg Pitch & Rainwater Tank

Estate Requirement

Window Schedule

Note: Servery outside kitchen-to-alfresco window. *heehehe*

It's been 20 days since I have posted anything here. That's only because there's nothing really we could do while waiting for paperwork to be done by my builder. He was organising for the 5 Star energy rating to be completed with the architect and builder engineers, permits approval from the Town Council, etc. HOWEVER, we have progress!!!! (.... was beginning to have Home Building withdrawal symptoms!)

Progress Report from My Builder

• Site cut has been completed (pictures to come soon! woke up at 6.45am just to drive down to the land to take pictures this morning!)
  
• Architecturals are completed, awaiting Reflections Estate to sign off (should have them back by tomorrow)
  
• Engineering plans completed (although I would wish to take a look at them)
  
• 5 star energy rating completed
  
• Property info completed
  
• Applied for PIC (Property Identification Code) number (awaiting response) - this I am not entirely sure if my property actually needs a PIC Number! Will check with builder what this means...
  
• Building permit (awaiting Estate's signoff of plans)
  
• Block to be pegged out by Friday *he hopes*

During the process of getting the land, there were some metal pegs on the land. Although it looks like a really flat piece of land, I decided (with the advice of friends) to include "Subject to satisfactory soil tests" as one of the conditions of offer of purchase. Cost me $280 incl of GST for the soil test where they drill 4 corners of the land and 1 in the centre of the metal pegs on the ground to ensure that that part has no "bad" soil or foundation.

This diagram shows where the holes were bored.

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You can see the holes drilled in the ground here.

Test Result: H Class Soil with general Silt Clay soil.

*PASS* =)

I have finally been able to save a Jpeg format of my floor plans & elevation drawings from my architect who have been sending them in PDF files. He couldnt' help me save it in any other format except PDF because of his CAD program. BUT, I have got it out!!! We looooove our house plan....!!! Although we're only in our very early stages of build, we can't wait to see it in fruition.

Here are the Elevations. We want to go for something a LITTLE bit modern, with a rendered parapet section. I love dark bricks and light roofing as a contrast. But I will see if the builder is able to upgrade to the bricks I like because they are a fair bit dearer.

On the South side, you will see my alfresco area with sliding doors from the Dining area. I have also requested a double swing-open windows from the Kitchen so that food can be brought from there directly. That window will also have a ledge to be able to put drinks or food. I think I might get some bar stools for that area too... "Can I have 2 Asahi's pls...?" hehehehe