Brickwork 1/2 complete

Last week's photos corrupted, but as this week's photos show, the brickwork is about half done. The brickwork progress claim arrived in the mail last Monday - a fair bit early. A quick phone call to the accounts section and everything was sorted.

Here are the photos:The front

The southern boundary


The outside of the living room with the fireplace

The alfresco

Taps fixed and frame pretty much complete

The windows for the front facade have been installed and the taps have been relocated to the correct location. Brickwork was expected to start during the previous week but has obviously been put off for a week.

Front facade with the windows installed.


No taps between rumpus windows anymore.


Taps are now located between these two windows. It's hard to see from the photo, but they are there.

Update on stuff-up

We called the site supervisor this morning and he was a bit shocked about where the taps were eventually placed. He advised us he will rectify the problem as soon as he can. Pretty good service!

Frame pretty much complete but a minor stuff-up

The frame is pretty much complete now and the bricks have arrived but we have had a minor stuff-up by the builder. The site supervisor called last week to tell us where we wanted some external taps was not a suitable location because there was no space, so we told him to move the taps to the lounge/meals wall junction. If that location was not OK, then call us back and we would advise another location. Unfortunately it appears the taps were instead placed on the rumpus wall exactly where we plan to put the BBQ. Hopefully, this mistake can be rectified quickly.

We're not sure why the plumbing is done before the brickwork. Now the brickie has to brick around the plumbing rather than the plumber just drilling a hole through the brickwork.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the progress:
The taps originally were supposed to be to the left of the window in the centre and because there was not enough room on the corner, we asked for the taps to be put between the window in the centre and the window to the right.


You can see the recycled tap (purple tube) between the two windows on the left. There is another town water tap there obscured by the fence. This position is not where we wanted the taps.


A view of the 2 sets of bi-fold doors in the alfresco.



A view of the front elevation, showing the taller parapet wall.

Frames arrive!

Our timber frame has arrived. Here are some pictures:

The roofing members are in the foreground with some of the wall frames inside the fence. Below are some more wall frames:

We've started...finally!

We've finally started. We had no issues with Council, but quite a few issues just trying to get all the variations sorted out. We ended up at Variation number 12 before everything was sorted.

On Friday we knew we had started because money was withdrawn from our account without our knowledge or authorisation for the first progress claim. We'll be taking the issue up with the bank on Monday.

We have a slab and the remainder of the drainage will be done next week. Here are some pictures of the slab:
This picture was taken from the front. The garage is on the left, with the stepdown. The next picture was taken from the side of the house. The little piece of concrete sticking out is for the fireplace. The garage is to the right with the stepdown.

Basix issues sorted...sorta

We decided to remove air-conditioning from our BASIX certificate even though we will eventually put a system in. The reason is because despite specifying a very economical system, BASIX works on the energy rating of the compressor itself and doesn't consider technologically advanced systems that run the compressor much less than normal systems.

We were at 38 BASIX points with the air-conditioning (40 points passes) and could have included air conditioning as long as we agreed to have the system wired in such a way that we could not run the air conditioning in the bedrooms during the day or in the living rooms at night. Sometimes we come home late from work and the last thing we'd want to come home to is a hot house we can't cool!

So, onwards and upwards and now we go to Council!