Frame & Steel delivered

The last 3 weeks have really tested our patience - we had not had a single workman onsite and only a few days of rain!

My first call call to our site supervisor on Tuesday was great - he seems like a friendly guy and immediately lifted our spirits with the news the frame would be delivered the day after, followed closely by the steel. He said the erection of the frame should start before Wednesday next week and that he was aware  the pace needs to be lifted due to the delays we have experienced.

We stopped by the site early Thursday morning which just happened to coincide with the delivery of steel and our SS being onsite. It was great to meet him for the first time and have a walk onsite.

I hadn't really paid attention to the quantity of steel in the engineering plans for the house, but it was amazing to see the amount of steel delivered - I thought the truck had multiple deliveries to make, but it was all ours! There are 19 beams, with the largest being 6570mm long and many in the 5230 to 4215mm range.

We also got our long awaited quote for tiling upgrades when we visited the showroom after taking over 4 weeks! The quote was higher than we expected, though not surprising given the finishes we are after and the fact that the only tile selected within the builders range was the tile for the alfresco, porch, and patio areas.

Here are some of the pictures...

 

External Drainage Installed, Tile Selection

This week we had our tile selections at Di Lorenzo and the plumbers were onsite from Mon 1st to Wed 3rd June to do the external drainage.

We now seem to be in a holding pattern waiting for the steel and frame to be delivered and erected - hopefully this happens soon! Our site supervisor said the steel should arrive this coming week with the frame at least a week after that...  a disappointing delay.  

A nearby house has been at the same stage as us, including having the slab poured on the same day. They now have their frame up including steel work... I guess we don't expect Provincial to be the fastest as quality is the main consideration for us, however we are closely tracking the contract period and the rain days. Having it completed within the contract time is important to us as we are paying rent while this is being built and we are held to all the contract points from the builder - they apply both ways! The liquidated damages that apply after the contract period will at least pay the rent during delays. 
  

Tile Selection

I had been dreading the tile selection appointment as I had found the tile selection harder than any of our other selections made so far. Although we are going with wooden floors (Blackbutt) throughout, we still have a fair amount of tiles in our extended alfresco, porch, balcony, bathroom, wc, ensuite, powder, and laundry - with a lot of these being floor to ceiling tiles.

We had a few ideas but went early to have another look on Sunday 31st. It ended up easier than I expected! Isabelle our selections consultant helped immensely. Our selections are now with the estimator who will hit us with the excess charges given all but the external tiles are outside the builders range (di Lozenzo's green range), and will be extra.

In the end we made the following selections:-

Wall and Floor tile throughout - 300x600 DC1654 (same as the Woollahra showroom) with 1.5mm spacing to match the wall.

Main Bathroom feature tile to bath wall and back of shower niche - Infinity Silver Modular a natural stone feature tile used in the main bathroom of the Woollahra showroom. This will look much greyer when sealed.

Ensuite feature tile to the wall behind the freestanding bath -  White Quartz Stacked Stone. I loved the rugged natural spa look this gave!
In the shower niche we used a DL10326 a glass and stone mosaic tile as the Stacked stone could not be used in the shower.

Powder feature tile was the natural split PLVS Fussana - a natural stone on the vanity wall.

For all external tiles in the alfresco, porch, and balcony we chose a 450x450 ceramic DC2623 Grey External tile

External Drainage work

All drainage from the slab was fitted off and connected to the sewer, and the stormwater connecting the downpipes locations to the rainwater tank and overflow to the street.

We had one unexpected cost with the plumbers having to put a camera down the sewer where they connected to the older clay pipes just to check they were OK. Hopefully this will not cost much - cameras down pipes are pretty common aren't they?

All the pipework has been covered over again now by a bobcat, but here are the pipes just after installation:-

Northern side - Stormwater & Sewer

Southern side - Stormwater and Discharge from the rainwater tank to street

Rainwater tank pipework

Front Downpipe connections

Connection to the sewer with Pool Discharge above