House Build 12 -

To catch up on house build 1-11 click here.

Observation from afar, after arriving in NSW we went to visit my mum in the hospital. The plan that at the end of the weekend Lanky would return back home with the kids. I would stay to care for my dad and settle my mum back in home when she got released.

November update.

We entered November debating if the builders would make true on their mid November estimate. Then within days being informed it would be pushed back to the end of November. The pattern is 2 week push backs. About 2 months prior I had pointed out to lanky that a lot of people in the GJ Gardner Facebook group were having multiple month long delays in their garage doors, my opinion was this would not be rectified by the time we were set to have ours installed, I was right.

We were also informed a week into the month that there was an oven missing. The in the wall oven had not been ordered, we were given a February arrival date. As you can imagine that went down like a lead balloon.

Lanky gave options which we could do if they needed

We could collect the oven from anywhere between SA – VIC – NSW
Tell us the value and we would go buy a oven ourselves and remove the value from the contract.
Get us any brand what so ever, we don’t care as we can always replace it after moving in.

The site supervisor said he can sort it so we have trusted him.

November 5th/6th

These are the first days Lanky could get to check progress. The tiles were well and truly completed by now, so was the painting. The floors were getting installed we opted for waterproof hybrid floors, after living with bamboo which swells at humidity increase (well maybe not that extreme) we did not want to have the potential of swelling issues that we have dealt with in the past.

Besides needing a mop, they look pretty good.

Friday 8th

A lot had been happening, maybe my worrying about dates being pushed back again weren’t justified.

Wardrobes installed
skirting boards installed
Delivery of most of the fixtures and fittings (this is the day we found out a wall oven was missing)
Plumber had started on the plumbing, side and out
more earth works and tidying up the outside of the property.
internal door handles fitted

Saturday 9th

We were meant to have the Falcon stove and range hood delivered by Monday 28th, Falcon and Harvey Norman both assured us it was going to be here at the latest Monday morning. The stove and range hood did not arrive on time, but the morning of Saturday the 9th, Lanky was on site with the site supervisor to unload and lock it up in the house.

Lanky video called me after he had seen off the delivery driver, both Lanky and Sam walked me through the unboxing and checking over the stove to make sure it was all in good condition, when i asked about the range hood the call was ended for Lanky to chase up the delivery driver.

When ringing the store the gentleman refused to put Lanky through to the warehouse, telling him he would get the delivery driver will call him back. So Lanky and Sam waited for a few hours, Lanky ended up ringing back and getting put through only to find out the range hood was apparently missing a part.

Harvey said they could take the missing part from another persons order who wont need it till February next year.
This drama continued for a few days before we got told unfortunately the other range hood was a different model and they couldn’t use the missing part from it. I believe it was almost 2 weeks of phone calls and everyone pushing blame onto the other departments or companies before the new rangehood turned up.

November 12/13th

Tuesday and Wednesday seen a lot of progress on the plumbing front.

Bathtubs were set
Taps and showers installed
Toilets were set
Water tank installed
Septic trench work was underway

Thursday and Friday 14th/15ths

The plumber had been hard at work and the only issue we encountered was on the plans the stormwater runoff was placed where it would wash our driveway away so with some alterations Lanky signed off on the modification. The trenches were being fitted out getting ready to be back filled.

Inside the house the carpet was being laid.

18th-30th

Around the 18th we were told the take ownership date was pushed back to Mid December.

The Plumber covered the the septic system up and started to install the hot water systems.
The Air condition installers had to send the outside unit back as it was the wrong unit. The new install date is Monday 2nd December.
Carpet install was finished.

Just before the frame build started we were told none of the trades will come on site unless the driveway was installed right up to the garage door. So that is what we did, however the driveway pad was never installed. We ended up talking with the current site supervisor and using the cement allocation to complete the paths around the house. In South Australia all new builds need a path around the whole house, we were going to do this ourselves after build was completed, but opted to do this now rather then pull up part of our driveway to install the parking pad.

So the concreters spent a few days doing the paths around the house.
All but 1 oven has been installed, including my duel fuel.
Mirrors and shower screens were installed.
Our bins were delivered