Concrete Work planning

Had a family friend who is a concreter meet me out on site yesterday to advise/quote for the work that we want completed.

Basically, we will be doing exposed aggregate to the driveway and pathway to the front door and the rest which is the 1m concrete apron around the house will be coloured concrete. All 100 mm thick.

He suggested we mark out what we wanted done to measure and quote and we did. Here is my VERY rough paint work :P

We've finally won another battle!

Hi All,

For those who have been following our build since day 1 you would remember this post. Click here.

We have been in discussions with the builder since slab stage where we believed a retaining wall and AGI was required to the front RHS of the house due to them dropping the house level by 200 mm from our contract to construction drawings without our written authorisation or any notice for that matter.

After multiple emails, on-site meetings and with the required muscle from our independent we finally managed to get the builder to install a retaining wall to the front of the house with an AGI drain behind it.

Originally, the wall was only planned to go on the boundary but for some reason they installed it to the front of the block too. To be honest, we couldn't be happier with the result. Even though we really didn't want a retaining wall to the front of the house, we're just glad it's done.

Some photos I took today of the install. AGI pipes still not connected though.

Meeting with Independent Inspector and Site Supervisor

Our independent lock-up inspection was booked in for today. Fortunately, I was able to meet both our independent and supervisor on-site.

There is A LOT happening on our site at the moment.

- Bricking
- Lock-up crew
- Electricians
- Data rough in (Argus)
- Framer

It seems they are all hands on deck to progress our house towards lock-up this week. They are also rectifying all the issues BSS 'Independent' inspection raised. And by all I mean MANY.

There are too many issues to list at the moment. Most are small and can be rectified easily. However, site drainage has been raised again by our independent and he will be personally calling PD management to get it resolved.

Without going into too much detail, AGI drains are required to both front sides of the house and a retaining wall to the right hand side.

The slab supervisor has told me previosuly that the 2x AGI drains and retaining wall are not required which is incorrect.

Some good news though, the independent has praised the brick layers work and said it was of high standard. I agree with him and can't wait to see it all complete!

It's going to be an interesting few weeks...

Foundation Inspection

This afternoon @ 3 pm we had our 'pre-pour/foundation' inspection conducted by Darren from Darbecca Pty Ltd.

When we arrived, the slab team were still completing the final touches. The inspector went ahead to inspect the works that have been completed so far. Communication from the Slab Supervisor was very poor. I had text him photos of the damaged pipes this morning and no response. Fortunately, the drain for the laundry that was broken had been temporarily repaired by a plumber as it would have held up the pour. The broken downpipe drain is still to be repaired and the inspector picked up on that and marked it. 

Even though most issues were rectified on the spot as the inspector pointed them out (nothing major), we still received a full report from him.

Rememberer my concern about the reduced FL of the house and site drainage? Turns out I was right! Here is what the inspector had to say in the report. 

Finally, the exciting part.... Some more photos, enjoy :)

Site works halt 3 days into the build... We're off to a good start!

Many of the followers and regular visitors of this blog would know that our site works officially commenced exactly three days ago. You might also have noticed that after looking at our cut site that I had a bit of a hunch that something was not right. Well.. I was right.

After checking our final construction drawings yesterday I noticed that the floor level has been dropped by 200 mm from our contract drawings. This set off some alarms and I immediately proceeded to email my building coordinator and text my slab supervisor.

Unfortunately, that's all I could as it was after hours and that meant another sleepless night caused by our build. Being human, questions start to arise. Did I read the drawings correctly? Why did I miss this? Why did they do/miss this? etc...

This morning I waited anxiously for an email or phone call. That didn't happen. I wasn't going to wait as I knew I didn't have much time to react.

Finally, I managed to get through to my slab supervisor and building coordinator. After explaining the situation, they both agreed that they needed to look into this further and have called a meeting first thing tomorrow morning. Attendees will be our BC, SS and one more member in charge of siting and floor level designs at the PD Keilor office. Luckily, we all agreed that works will be stopped until this is rectified. I was very assertive about this as they had deviated from our contract drawings without any Building Variation (BV).

Since the site has been cut already, there are really only a few options that I can think of to rectify this (if they agree):

1. Fill, compact and raise the platform for the slab
2. Increase the thickness and in turn the height of the concrete floors

I would really appreciate some feedback of which would be the better solution of the two. Please comment or PM me if you can help. 

Thanks for reading and sorry about the essay!

Phone call with our slab supervisor

After heading out to our site yesterday and seeing that they had begun works, I decided to make a call to our Slab Supervisor.

Being used to the lack of communication from previous PD staff I have dealt with (our first Building Co-ordinator) I was expecting a short conversation and to be 'snubbed off'. Boy was I wrong!

He (Slab supervisor) was very helpful and took as much time as required to answer all my questions and concerns. Here are some of the questions/concerns I had and the answers I was given:

1. Foundation quality of work: I was assured that he has selection of contractors that he has worked with closely before and only accepts high quality of work from them. He also explained that the slab built by PD uses almost 9 tonne of steel instead of the minimum requirement of 6 tonne for a similar build to mine. 

2. Slab heave: He told me that he has had lots of experience with slab heave (even with his personal property) and that he believes that there are many factors to the cause of this. The factors he raised were site drainage (tick!), quality of foundation work (tick!) and correct design of slab including reinforcement amount (tick!). He has ensured me that all pre-cautions will be taken to build a high quality foundation for our home with correct site drainage. 

3. Slab pour date/pre-pour inspection: He was more than happy for me to pass his details to our Independent Inspector (Darbecca) for them to co-ordinate the pre-pour inspection without me being a 'messenger boy'. The slab pour date is expected on 03/03/2015.

I must say, I was quite impressed and relieved after this conversation. Of course I couldn't note down the entire ~30mins phone call but the above points cover the most important topics. 

Here's hoping that all goes well with our foundation work and slab pour. After all, it is the most important part of the house.