Thursday, May 14, 2009

Building Permits - Ready, Set, Go

After months of planning on the 8th May we finally received our building permits!! Now Metricon have 21 days to be onsite to cutout the area for the slab.

Apparently it takes about 2 weeks for them to order everything but worst case I would expect to be starting before the end of this month which is about 2 weeks ahead of when I was expecting us to be starting. This date may work out well for us given it is 7 months to Christmas and we may be able to get everything finished off by then if we're lucky. Metricon have allowed 9 months to build the house so worst case we should be in by the end of Feburary next year.

Casey and I decided to take it on ourselves to fill in the hole at the front of our block on the nature strip. The hole was filling up with rubbish and weeds and was a bit of a hazard and the estate didnt' want to do anything about it. It looks a bit better than the before photo.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This hole is deceptively deep and long it took about 10 full wheelbarrow loads to fill it.

Our next door neighbours have started building and have been using our block to make their building process a little bit easier. I met the owner on the weekend and she was friendly. Their builder Simonds has rubbish everywhere on the block and it keeps ending up all over our block. We've asked Simonds to remove the bricks and tiles from our block a couple of times without any success. Now that we'll be onsite within the next few weeks we'll have to keep drilling them because it is our responsibility to ensure the block is clear.

We also have a tap on the block now, it's amazing how we get excited about the most simple things. They put it right in the middle of the block where I would want to put a path so I might have to move it later, as a reference for other people I'm not sure if you have much choice where they put it, the builder organises it and they would just say drop it anywhere irrespective of what you told them. In our case we've put a lock on it until we start because Simonds building the house next door found it more convenient to use our tap rather than the block they were building on. That'll teach em :)

Below is the most recent shot of the block, there is a bit of construction starting to happen.
Next update when something happens on the block!

2 comments:

  1. Hello Ben & Casey,
    Very happy and excited to see the tap on your block. It is a very good informative blog. I have already took one of your suggestion on board and will not be going with the broker.
    Kind Regards,
    Harry

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  2. Thanks Harry. The intention is as much for us to look back and see our progress but also help people like yourself out with some tips here and there.

    Not using the broker is a very, very good idea. Westpac charged us approx $590 on top of what we already paid in stamp duty and I have asked my broker about 5 times to follow up and each time I've heard nothing!!!!

    Best of luck with your house.

    Cheers,
    Ben

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