Slab Preparation is Complete...Slab to be Poured Tomorrow

Today was a day of action at the site. A full day of slab formation occurred including all the additional work around the Deep Edge Beam (See first and second pics below, this shows the area formed ready for the concrete. The bottom pic is of the triple garage slab preparation.

The Steel Mesh Has Landed...

The steel mesh has arrived, now the concretors have everything they need to prepare the slab for pouring later this week (probably Thursday or Friday).

On site we now have:
- Waffle Pods,
- Steel reinforcement bars,
- Steel mesh stirrups,
- AND of course the Steel Mesh.

So tomorrow, weather permitting (not looking good at present), is planned to be the slab preparation i.e setting up the waffle pods and the rest of the formwork, deep edge beam formation and setting up the steel mesh over the pods.

Waffle Pods, Steel Parts & Accessories have arrived...

Drainage Now Certified...

Yass Valley Council's building inspector arrived this morning (Monday @ 9.00am) to inspect and certify the drainage work that was completed last Saturday. The Council Certifier is below wearing the 'business attire' ;-)

More Slab Preparation & Drainage Pictures

The Slab Prep is underway and the Drainage is in...We are ahead of schedule...

PROGRESS FOR YESTERDAY AND TODAY (Friday and Saturday)...

YESTERDAY:

To my surprise, I received an email from a neighbour yesterday to say that the Concretors were on-site, at 6am! Yesterday, the crew achieved the following:

- Formwork completed,

- Deep Edge Beam dug out and formed up,

- Strip footings excavated,

- Areas for the 9 metre high pylons formed up,

- Pier holes (1.8 metres deep x 450mm wide) dug out,

- Principal Certifier called and arrived on-site around 2.30pm to give the OK to pour the pier concrete,

- Concrete trucks arrive and fill-in the strip footings (for the front staircase) and the piers.

NOW THAT IS A FULL DAYS WORTH OF WORK, then the crew drove back to Sydney!

TODAY (Saturday):

- Drainer arrived and dug out and placed all the drainage pipework in the slab area.

The guys will return Tue/Wed next week to do the pouring of the slab. We are ready for the slab pour - Amazing!

UPDATED SCHEDULE:

Tuesday, 20th January 2009 - Waffle Pods and the Steel Mesh is due to arrive from Sydney. I am told by the Concretor that our house has one semi trailer load of stuff for the slab!

Tuesday, 27th January we should see the frames, trusses and windows arrive on-site.

Now for some pictures:

What's Next? The schedule explains...

Spoke with Mark (my Project Manager) yesterday afternoon, here is the updated schedule:

Monday, 19th January 2009 - Formwork for the concrete slab commences.
Tuesday, 20th January 2009 - Slab preparation activities (waffle pods, steel mesh, drainage).
Wednesday, 21st January 2009 - Slab preparation activities (waffle pods, steel mesh, drainage).
Thursday, 22nd January 2009 - Slab pour for main house, garages and the water tanks.
Friday, 23rd January 2009 - Completion of slab pour activities (if required).
Monday, 26th January 2009 - Australia Day Holiday
Tuesday, 27th January 2009 - Delivery of timber frames, roof trusses and windows.

I assume the framing contractors will arrive shortly thereafter.

John & Tarin.

Earthworks COMPLETE...

The Site Earthworks are now complete. The picture below shows the excavator and the truck leaving the estate (truck is almost above our site in the middle of the photo).
Click on photo to enlarge...

Day 3 of Site Works - Progress Pictures...

Hi All,

Today, the excavation work continued, and what a day it was. It was almost 39 degrees, as well as very dry and dusty.

Here are today's progress pictures, you will see the two slab levels - the garages and the main house platform:

BELOW: The two level platforms - the foreground is the triple garage and the rear is the house platform.















BELOW: Another angle of the two platforms.















BELOW: This is the triple garage platform which will also incorporate the ground floor balcony, which will be in the corner where I am waving ;-).















BELOW: Water tank excavation. This is where there will be 2 x 5500 litre Slimline Tanks in Merino (Paperbark) colour. The tank slab will be 6000mm x 1250mm and will also have piers and steel mesh reinforcement.

UPDATED: More Site Preparation Pics as @ 6pm today...

Go for Launch - Site works underway (as @ Noon today)

Finally, the excavator dude, who now has a name - Brendon, has turned up with his father and another worker.


Brendon is the excavator driver, Brendon's Dad hauls away all the excess spoil to landfill or other sites if required and the other guy was the 'Leveller Man', he uses the laser leveller to ensure the cut and fill is happening OK.


Here are some pics of progress as at Noon today:







< Left: The Site cut is now sloped to negate the requirement for engineered retaining walls.








BELOW: Joshua & Kevan - very excited to see the big diggers on the site working away...

Action Expected on Tuesday, 13th January 2009

This morning I met with my Project Manager, Mark.

We had a look around the site and the cut that is already there and we discussed it being cut back a little bit more so we have some walk-thru space behind the conservatory. Mark will also have the cut "stepped" so we don't have to go to the additional cost of engineered retaining walls (Mark thinks of everything for us :-).

So, tomorrow the excavator dude is back at around 8.30am. Mark will stay with him to do the site works and get it all done so by the end of the week we can have the slab poured - BEWDY! Hopefully no delays and the weather holds out...looks like it will.

Also, as we will have lots of fill leftover I have asked if the excavator dude can push the leftover fill forward of the fill area to an approx. height of 1metre so we can have a level 'upper-level' front lawn. Hopefully be will do this for me for a bit of a cashy :-)

Updates and photos tomorrow (I hope)...

Still No Action @ The Site

I expected plenty of action at the site today, but...you guessed it - nothing.

Today was the day in the original schedule that had the slab being poured, but the excavator guys still hasn't returned. I keep getting informed day by day that the site works will continue and when I check, nothing has happened.

The Project Manager (Mark) is on leave, I just hope he is not expecting more to have been done than has been done (bugger all).

I am sure Mark will be onto it all as soon as he returns to work.

JB

Still No Action @ The Site

The schedule below shows that a bit of work was due to have happened by now, but nothing has happened. The slab is supposed to be poured on Monday, 5th January, but this cannot happen as my mate the excavator driver has only completed a half-arsed job and is now probably sucking Coronas down the coast (hope he has lime in it too).

So, with compliments of the excavator dude we are now behind schedule.

JB

We are in the House-sit, and NOT HAPPY ! ! !

Happy New Year, everyone. Not a good start for the Browns of Yass...

Finally we have completed the move, 22 trailer-loads later...the old rental is now clean and spic 'n' span, more than I can say for the house-sit. It was an absolute filthy mess. I wish we hadn't of 'helped' out a friend in need (didn't want the house left empty, "empty" Haha far from it...) who promised the house would be emptied and cleaned. Far from it, actually. Tarin and I have had to clean the old rental and have had to come to the house-sit and give it a thorough 'Grade A' clean prior to us moving our stuff in. The state of this house is truly unbelievable - I do not understand how anyone can live like this, let alone let someone see that this is how they live - very depressing...Tarin and I are annoyed about all this, the kids don't care 'cause they have 1/2 an acre to run amok, ride their bikes and green-machines and see it as a bit of an adventure. Heck, our caravan is better than this place...it is clean and has clean appliances and flooring...the list goes on...All I can say is "At least Masterton Homes is in the process of constructing our lovely home, NOW I really wish Mark (the Builder) would do what he can to get it done as quickly as humanly possible...the light is at the end of the tunnel...very dim, but it is there (or is it a train ;-)" (Mark has already given me his work he would do this for us anyway...)

Below is a pic of what we had to clean - NOT HAPPY! Don't even imagine what was under that rug which the owner wanted packed as it had 'sentimental value', not sure if he meant the rug or the filth had the value. It is not like this now, there is NO way we would ever move into this sort of filth, especially with the young 'uns.

Shame you can't see the detail of all this filth, well, no, it is probaly a good thing...

Another picture (and there are plenty more where this came from) - this is like a museum of cleaning products. Filthy house, plenty of stuff to clean it, but none ever used. See the pink item called 'No Vac' - well, they obviously took this product literally ;-) hahaha. There is even an empty beer bottle in there, weird!. The next product there is 'Scrub Buds', you can see how pristine this item is, never used, never opened, why did they have it?:

Well, off for another day of scrubbing and detailed cleaning - will post pics of the cleaned result...I am sure you will be amazed...

John & Tarin

Almost packed for the next move...Not into the NEW house though... :-(

Today we packed 10 trailer loads of stuff (mostly crap) and shuttled it up to the house-sit house.

The owner will be taking all of his stuff out tomorrow and putting it into storage, so we should be able to put most of our stuff in and finalise the clean in the rental house by COB 1Jan09 (Happy New [OLD] House).

We have another couple of trailer loads of boxes and bags of clothes and stuff and a couple of loads of the BIG stuff (fridge, washer, plasma, TV unit, Lounges and the beds. Tomorrow will be a big day, dunno if I will see the new year in...really stuffed after today! Very sore too.

The house we are in now is a small 2 bedroom house with a small garden shed. The house-sit isn't much bigger, but is a different layout - it is amazing how much stuff we have accumulated since we arrived here in Yass in April (this year 2008). A lot of it really is crap, stuff that we are moving from house-to-house just to keep us busy. We also have a tonne of stuff at my parents house in Canberra, half of their garage has our stuff in it.

Will blog once we are in the house-sit - HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone, wishing you all good health and happiness.

John, Tarin, Kalinda, Kevan, Josh & Tommy.

Packing to Move (into another temporary house)...

We originally thought that the next time we packed and moved would be the move into our great new Masterton Mansion.

We are in the process of packing up and moving to another old house here in Yass. This one we will be house-sitting in and just have to pay for our own expenses.

The house isn't any bigger, but we are doing it as a favour for a friend who doesn't want their house empty, plus we can have our caravan and box trailer with us (instead of storing at friends houses) and the kids can play around and ride their bikes on the 1/2 acre block. At the rental house we are in now the kids can't play much outside due to the main and very steep road out front.

We will lose internet access for a short while whilst Telstra does the relocation across to the new [Very OLD] place thus you may be relieved of blog updates for a while.

Hurry up Mark, build our house so we can get out of the old dumps we have occupied for so long already! ;-)

This is the house we will be house sitting at:

Front View:

Back View:

Happy New Year...

John & Tarin.

Plenty of Rain, and still no Excavator !

I am convinced, the excavator dude must have buried himself under the big pile of dirt at our block.

He was due back today, but has not shown up. Just as well, really, it has been bucketing down this morning. So today, he has a genuine reason for not doing his job.

I doubt we will see anyone at the site now until probably at least 5Jan09.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all - if you are travelling, make sure you travel safely...

John, Tarin, Kalinda, Kevan, Josh & Tommy.

The Excavator Has Disappeared !...

...but when will he return.

Mark states he was due each day last week, then it was put off all weekend, with a continuation of site works planned for today. Still nothing. Mark said he would call, but he hasn't. I called him, left 3 messages.

Mark did say the excavator would be on-site "Monday or Tuesday", I doubt very much he will turn up tomorrow - can't get him to the site on normal days, let alone just prior to the Christmas break. Also, the excavator has gone...to who knows where?

This is the same excavator operator that said the ground was too wet to work, but worked the driveway earthworks on the block next door - may have only been raining on my block? It has been dry for a week now.

This will no doubt affect the schedule...

Will update later...

Meeting With The Project Manager (Mark)

Yesterday morning we met with Mark to go through the plan and the design and to discuss particulars around the construction.

Mark said that the pouring of the slab has been delayed a bit. Here is the revised schedule:

- Mon 22 Dec 08: Continue/Complete site preparation. Level building platform.
- Tue 23 Dec 08: As above.
- Wed 24 Dec 08: START Christmas Closedown.
- Sun 4 Dec: END Christmas Closedown.
- Mon 5 Jan 08: Pouring of the Slab.
- Tue 6 Jan 08: As above.
- Wed 7 Jan 08: START - No Activity Planned.
- Tue 13 Jan 08: END - No Activity Planned.
- Wed 14 Jan 08: Delivery of Timber Frames and Windows & Doors.

Yesterday, we also went to the block to whipper-snipper the grass around the fence line (I like to keep the site tidy ;-)

We noticed that the site fencing has been fixed too, it has been extended and goes around the entire perimiter of our block.

The boys decided to play in a nearby huge dirt pile and decided to start throwing dirt at each other while I was whipper-snippering - look what happened to Tommy: NOT HAPPY with these boys!










That's it for now...

It's Never Rained So Much!

We got a call from Mark our project manager yesterday and he said that the Excavator guy will be back on Monday to finish the job. As well that we should have the slab down on 5 Jan 09. The frames arrive on 14 Jan 09.

We are also in the middle of packing at the rental as we are moving to another rental house, we were really hoping we wouldn't be packing 'til we were moving into the new house.

So here's 'til Monday!

No Action Today :-(

The Excavator was supposed to continue today...no show.

The site is dry so the crew must be off somewhere else.

Maybe tomorrow...

JB

Then The Rains Came...('cause we are building)

Murphy's Law, the day after we commence the site excavation, the rains came.

Have never seen sooo much bloody rain.

Rain, rain go away, come back....in 7 months or so (or rain over the dams ONLY).

Even thought it rained heaps, the site looks OK and isn't the mud pit I expected. Here is a pic:











Oh, and here is the new peg I mentioned earlier...1.02m means that the slab is this distance from the boundary, the boundary peg is on the fenceline, which is the short one (below).

Surveyor Has Been Back (in the rain)...

Still some progress, the surveyor had to return to replace a peg that was removed by the neighbours construction clean-up.

Now we have a fresh, clean, white new peg to look at ;-)

Will take some pics of the estate later today...

Site Preparation Has Commenced ! ! !

We got a phone call this morning from our Project Manager, Mark.

Mark said that the excavator had started and that the earthworks will take a few days.

Tomorrow the surveyors will be back to replace a peg that was accidently removed during next door's site clean-up. They also need to do some extra makings for the 3 x Garages as this part of the house is 800mm lower than the main house slab.

Mark also said that we should have the slab by Christmas (that doesn't leave much time) and our frames have been ordered and should arrive either 7 or12 January 2009.

Here are some site earthworks pictures taken this afternoon...



Left: This is of the rear section of the cut. Cut is approx. 1 metre deep.

Left: This is the cut looking towards the front of the block, now that is one huge pile of dirt !

More updates as things progress...

Where's the Excavator?...

Unfortunately the excavator couldn't turn up today due to delays beyond Masterton's control thus no movement on the block :-(

The excavator is scheduled for Thursday...

Site Establishment

Last week we finally had some movement on our land Yipppeee.

We now have a port-a-loo, a fence around our block and the sediment control barrier (siltation). We can't believe we are about to start. We have been waiting for this day for sooooo long :-).

Mark (our Project Manager) said that the excavator is scheduled to start tomorrow (Tuesday) - we are so excited!!!

More pics tomorrow of the level building platform (if the excavator turns up...)