Upper Slab

Late on Friday afternoon, April 14th, we received a most welcome email from Stannard to say our upper Slab pour was happening the next day.

We were a bit stunned given it was a Saturday but on the other hand, the site has been ready for about two weeks. 

We went down early Saturday morning on the 15th and, sure enough, the concrete pump truck was there and awaiting the cement mixers' arrival. We didn't have to wait long before the first mixer showed and the first load of concrete had been poured for our upper slab.

There wasn't much to see from the ground so I sent my drone (DJI Mini 3 Pro) up to capture the action from the sky. By 10am it was all done, including the stairs, which, interestingly, I learnt required a drier mix than the main slab after speaking to the concrete truck driver whilst he waited his turn.

The form work stayed up for just shy of a week before the majority of it got removed, giving us a look at what some of our downstairs rooms/areas felt like enclosed with a ceiling, where lights would be, etc.

Next steps require scaffolding to be erected around the house, a brick lift, bricks to be loaded and then, of course, a brickie team to lay them. We've not yet got any timing of any of that so stay tuned.

Upper Floor Slab Prep + Pool Stage 2

It's been a productive couple of weeks on the block. Yay!

Firstly, we had the formworkers complete the wooden framing and prop work for the upper floor slab. Next, the sparkies from Custom Electrics and the plumbers have been out to do some preparation work prior to the steel workers arriving (mainly downlight canisters and some basic plumbing provisions that will need to go through the slab). 

Toward the back end of last week, the steel workers arrived and started forming up the grid mesh that goes into our upper floor slab. They were back for their third day on site this morning. The sparkies were also back today to lay their electrical conduit through the steel work grid for all the electrical circuits that are either under the slab or feeding the upstairs.

If that all wasn't enough, over the last fortnight we've also had Mark from Blue Star Pools come out and start of Phase 2 of our pool rehab. This involved jackhammering off all the old plaster, waterline tile and bullnose tile, core driling through the shell to put in the three new return jets, cutting channels into the shell for new electrical provisions for the two new lights, concreting up the old skimmer box and cutting in a new one on the other side of the pool, as well as making a new 1.8m bench seat in the shallow end and a 1.0m bench seat in the opposite deep end corner. He also laid all new piping and ran that into our new pool equipment room at the back of the house, including plumbing in a waste pipe to our new soakwelll.

An engineer is also due out to certify all the work that Stannard have done and then it should just be a matter of getting the concrete poured to complete this next step. We did go up and have a sneak peak at our view from the second floor and we can indeed see the city off in the distance, as well as lovely views down to our local park. Very happy and can't wait to have a slab party to celebrate!

Formwork!

In what has felt like forever, finally I'm able to make a new post about actual progress. That's right, the form workers have arrived!

Just one day after receiving an update that our formworker was still a couple of weeks away, I received a call today from our design consultant from Stannard stating that form workers were on site and form work was going up. Shortly after, the construction consultant also emailed to share the great news. It seems there was a cancellation so we got bumped up the list. 

I was able to pop past the block on the way to picking up the kids from school and had a quick chat with the guys. He said he got back from xmas break and had 14 jobs waiting, has a yard full of form materials but simply doesn't have the labour to put it up. He's down to just himself and his son whereas he used to have five crews, blaming the mining industry. 

The two of them wasted no time getting started with the framing, with most rooms already having several props with wooden frames set up. Probably a few more days ahead of them based on the pile of wood and props still out the front. So just like that, we're back to moving forward with our build. 

In fairness I should mention at some time in the last few weeks, we've also had the plumber out to mark up the downstairs internal and external plumbing and someone has been along to cut all the brickwork for those pipes too. So we have been inching ahead, but the arrival of the form worker is a more significant progress milestone. Fingers crossed we can keep the momentum!

Waiting for form work

It's been a couple of months without an update and really that's because there has been nothing to update. With brickwork on the ground floor finishing late November, it was always going to be a struggle to get anything further done prior to Christmas break.

Unfortunately there hasn't been any further with post Christmas break either as yet. We are awaiting form workers for the upper floor concrete slab but they are battling a backlog not necessarily of their own control. Form workers depend on plumbers, electricians and concreters to do their work before they can take the form work away and do the next job. Any hold up in those trades holds them up which makes planning their arrival difficult.

So for now we're just sitting tight hoping to hear some good news soon. It's quite frustrating not even having an indication of when we can expect to see progress but there's not much we can do at this point but wait.

Ground Floor Plate Height Achieved

On Monday November 28th 2022, we officially reached plate height from our ground floor. That's pretty much one month for all brickwork to be laid, including a few days lost to site cleaning in preparation for the crane, a day for the crane to lift the supporting structural beams into place, a couple of days lost to poor weather and a few days when Gary and the boys were offsite finishing some other jobs. All in all, I feel it was a pretty fast build, and neat too. We're really happy with the workmanship (brickmanship?).

The house is feeling great to walk around and we're really happy with the layout/design of it. The rooms already feel spacious and the brickwork gives us an idea of how high the ceilings will be. All the doors being 28c also help with the sense of space. There was only one on-site variation relating to the cavity sliding door, where they ended up removing one side of the double brick cavity to help access it later if need be, replacing the bricks with gyprock and giving us another 100mm of cupboard width in the scullery.

Yesterday we did our walkthrough with the electrician to confirm the placement on all our lightswitches, powerpoints, internet points, TV points and all other electricial items for the ground floor with Ray from Custom Electrics. He was very patient with us over several hours of walking through the house thinking about where we want everything. There weren't a lot of major changes, mainly a few more powerpoints for outside and an extra light in our void area. There were quite a few shifts of power points though (fortunately no cost for those!).

Unfortunately I don't think there will be much more progress this year given we're fast approaching Christmas and trades are still flat out. Our site supervisor has said his form worker simply will not give him a date and therefore he can't give us one. If we could have squeezed in the upper slab before Christmas then it could have sat and cured while everyone was on holiday break but never mind. Hopefully it's all systems go after the break and we can see the house continue it journey up!

Have a great festive season and I'll update again in the new year.

Construction Progress

Week 1 of Brickwork

Gary and his team have been absolutely smashing out the brickwork on our house and it very quickly went from a slab with brick pallets to something that resembles a house. After five days of work, we could walk into our games room, our downstairs guest bed, robe & ensuite, the scullery, laundry, linen, pool equipment room and open plan kitchen/living/dining. We also had a wall up for one side of the theatre. Not only were they fast but also very neat. We're certainly impressed with their work thus far. Most of the windows were set in place along with the external doors. Here's a few progress pics from week one:

This is a pic looking toward the scullery & laundry (on right) and the open plan kitchen/living/dining (on left).

This is a pic looking back toward the open plan kitchen/living/dining area. Next to the window will be a nearly 7m sliding stacker door that will open out to the alfresco area.

This is looking into what will be the hallwall leading past the games room (front wall missing) and on to the guest bedroom/robe/ensuite. The windows at the end will form part of the void and will be replicated above to form a wall of glass looking out toward the pool.

This is a pic from inside the guest bedroom. The ensuite is around to the left, past the window looking out to the pool area. The ensuite has a door to the outside so that users of the pool can access a bathroom directly.

Week 2 of Brickwork

Week two of brickwork saw the team finish a few more external walls, then crank out the scaffolding so they could finish building the walls up to their finished ground floor height of 32 courses (except for a couple of rooms at 31 course). They also commenced work on the garage, which is in a different colour brick as it won't be plastered over, so that brick work will be face brick. We also saw more internal walls built for study, mud room and theatre. Some more pics:

Here is the start of the garage being built. The walls you can see will be the inside of the garage, so it's all face brick (i.e. you will see it, it won't be covered in plaster). All the red bricks you see will ultimately be covered by plaster/gyprock and painted white. So you'll see this white/limestone coloured brick in the garage leading into white walls when you enter the house.

Here you see the open plan kitchen/dining/living now bricked internally to full height of 32 courses. Behind the wall in the centre is the scullery/laundry and linen storage, also all fully bricked up.

Here is a view from the kitchen looking back toward the guest bed and games room. All now bricked to 32 course high (guest bed) and 31 course high (games). The games is 1c lower as the upper slab is thicker toward the front of the house. The doorway on the left of picture will eventually open to under the staircase.

This is an aerial view of the site overall at the end of week 2 (with us out the front)

Brickies!

Well, it's sure been a wait (15 weeks to be exact) but today, October 27th, as I completed my morning commute ritual of driving past our block on my way to work, I saw that sweet sight we'd been waiting for all this time, a car parked in front of our house indicating we finally had a brickie team on site. 

As I got closer I could see the cement mixers turning and I knew we were finally in the way up. Walking onto site I was greeted first by the site fore-dog, Bruce, who was very keen to see me but liked it less when I stopped patting him to meet the crew. We have a team of three brickies led by Gary, who also has his son as part of the team. They also have an offsider with them learning the ropes.

It was barely 8am but we they already had two mixers turning, pegged out guide ropes and had commenced the brickwork, starting at the back corner of the house. The picture on the right is the very first bricks laid.

They have a few solid weeks work ahead of them but it's great to finally be moving into this phase. The picture on the left is where they finished up for the first day. You're looking at the back corner of the house, which is where the pool equipment will be stored, then down to the laundry (door and first window), further on to the scullery (second window) and then just out of picture is the wall with window for the home theatre.

Stay tuned for more build progress updates.