Post Slab, Pre-Bricks

Couple of site works updates in this post, which I'll add to as time passes.

21 July 2022:

On the 19th of July, two large 1500 x 1500 concrete soakwells were delivered to site. According to the plans, one was going into the front left corner of the block and one in the back right near my existing shed. To our surprise, they didn't sit there long as the next time we went past the block on July 21st, they were already in the ground with two new pipes sticking up. Given the slab had only been down one week as of the 20th, I was surprised to see a digger had driven across it already (in their defense, they took the shortest possible route) in order to dig in the rear soakwell. Happy to see some more progress. There were also more PVC pipes delivered to site, along with several boxes of plumbing supplies so looks like there is some more work for the plumbing team to do before we're ready to commence the brickwork stage.

9 August 2022:

Over the last few weeks the weather in Perth has been nothing short of horrid. We've had a very large, very slow moving low pressure system sitting over the south west of WA and it's brought days and days of strong winds and rain so not a lot has happened at the block. However, last Friday, August 5th, a whole team of plumbers were on site with a mini excavator making quite the mess digging in all the plumbing for the new house. From what I could see, they connected some storm water drains, connected the mains water, laid gas and water pipes and also put in my provisions for my pool equipment that we asked for during the planning process. The wet weather continues so I'm not sure if they are finished yet or not as they haven't been back thus far this week. 

In other news, we had part of our boundary wall fall down during the digging of our footings for our garage, which abuts the boundary wall. An engineer was engaged after its partial collapse and to no one's surprise, found the footings from 1970 non existent. This is a 2m high, 30m long limestone block wall so we've had a couple of people out to look at it following a letter from the engineers and we're getting BMC Microfine Chemical Grout Solutions out to do some underpinning works on the remainder of the wall to ensure we don't have any futher issues with it going forward. Stannard are going to rectify the bit that fell down as part of the garage wall construction (which is itself a retaining wall with the cavity filled with rebar and cement). This underpinning works is scheduled for August 22.

18 August 2022:

Today we were meant to meet up with a Landscape Designer from The Greenscape Collective at Homebase Subiaco to go over our landscape master plan but unfortunatley she got covid and couldn't meet us, at least in person. Amanda and I went over anyway and dialled her in and went through our design, making a few tweaks and giving some feedback on things like stepper sizes, front wall design, plant selection, etc. We also had a look at a few things at Homebase such as aggregate colours, decking and flooring options. The Greenscape Collective will now go and make all those changes for one final check in before generating construction drawings for us. We're going to get Stannard to build the front wall from bricks and render it as part of the build.

30 August 2022:

A fairly quiet few weeks by all accounts. On August 19th, we had the first of our window frames show up on site, which was unexpected. The next day, the wooden door frames for the front door and the doorway between garage and mud room also arrived. We had BMC come out on August 22nd to complete the underpinning works for our western side retaining wall. They pumped roughly 5,875L of grout emulsion under 23 lineal metres of limestone wall to a depth of 1m. This has provided the 50 year old wall with a stable foundation and should prevent any further rotation. This was really just a piece of mind exercise as we are not doing any earthworks near this wall but better to be safe than sorry for the sake a few thousand dollars. The next day, several metal internal door frames were also added to the collection of door and window frames. As part of our fortnightly construction progress updates, Stannard informed us that we should see brickwork commence in the next four weeks, which is super exciting and in line with the 10 weeks post slab down they originally quoted us. It's been pretty wet since the slab was poured so it's been really good curing weather so I'm quite pleased it's had this time to cure properly and slowly.

Ground floor slab

Today was a major milestone day for our new home - the pouring of the ground floor slab. Unfortunately I missed being there for the first few loads (I am meant to be working) so when I arrived on site, the back half of the ground floor slab had already been poured and mostly smoothed already as you can see if the pic on the left. Based on my observations for subsequent coverage, I estimate this to be approximately three cement mixers worth of concrete.

As there were no cement mixers there when I arrived, I found the team having a quick break.

We didn't have to wait long for the next mixer to show up  and the team quickly went back to work  to finish the slab pour. All up I watched a further three cement mixers worth of cement poured, to bring the ground floor slab count to six, in addition to whatever was used yesterday to make the foundations. Was interesting to see them out there with the laser level to check heights to ensure it was all at the right level (no idea what they would do if it wasn't!). 

It was a perfect day for the slab pour, lovely and sunny but not too hot. By lunchtime they were all done and had even already started removing the wooden frames. Picture of site at lunch on right.

Ground floor slab marks the first major step in our construction contract so no doubt we can expect our first major bill by close of business today. Can't wait to have a walk around it and really get a sense for where all the rooms are going to go. We don't know when brick work will start at this point but were told it probably won't be for around 10 weeks.

Footings

It was exciting to see works start on our footings and slab on Friday the 8th of July. The first step was to put in place all the plumbing so by the end of the day, we had lots of pipes sticking out from the ground. We could start to tell where things were going to be based on pipes - i.e. bathroom locations, kitchen, laundry, WCs, etc. 

Work continued on Monday to dig footings and put in more pipes for drains, downpipes, etc. Unfortunately there was a set back with one of our retaining walls where a part of it collapsed as a result of digging near it. Fortunately no one was hurt but we now need to get an engineer in to determine a way forward. 

The picture on the left is how our site looked Tuesday morning, the 12th of July. You can clearly see where the main slab will be going and all the pipe work sticking out of the ground (along with some of the limestone blocks from the fallen wall). 

By lunch time the above pic had changed with black plastic down, some mesh had been laid and the concrete pump truck had showed up. Next the first of the cement mixers showed up and they started to pour footings! By the end of the work day all footings had been laid and the site ready for the main slab pour tomorrow! 

Earthworks

Monday the 20th the surveyors were out re-pegging the block for boundaries, levels, etc. Two days later the earthworks started to level out the block ready for compaction and then ground floor slab. 

Super exciting to see some progress towards the build. It's quite amazing to see how level they get the ground and so quickly. Can even see the step down in the sand levels for where the garage will be. 

Our site supervisor, Joseph, also gave me a call today just to say g'day and let me know he had our file and that work was commencing. He was just waiting to hear back from his concrete guy to lock in a date to get the slab down but said compaction should occur over the next few days, then testing of the compaction. After that we'll be ready for slab, which, with a bit of luck, we should see go down inside of the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Construction Phase

Pretty much been a month since my last update and I'm happy to report that today we officially commenced the build stage of our new home. No, this doesn't mean that anything has happened at the block (yet) but we've been handed over from our pre-start consultant (Thanks Lee), who I'm sure will be happy to see the back of us, to our construction co-ordinator Sam (Good luck Sam!).

Over the last month, we've been reviewing our plans over and over again and finding little things to annoy Lee with variations for. Nothing major, length of a wall here, orientation of an air con duct there, door configuration a robe, etc. We were also unfortunately slugged with a price increase, such is the nature of the industry at the minute, so that wasn't completely unexpected. At least in our mind, it was a reasonable figure, unlike some of the figures we've been hearing about in the news.

We've also been working with The Greenscape Collective on drafting up some landscaping designs to compliment our new home and what it might look like all finished, especially around the pool area, which is the central focus for our whole new build.  The pic to the right shows what it could look like when done. Our work with The Greenscape Collective will result in a construction ready set of drawings for our landscaping to use when we get to that stage (both from a build perspective and financially).

Repegging and siteworks will be the next cabs off the rank for our build and I'm hoping to be able to report in a few weeks to say that has commenced. Exciting times ahead!

Gone

After the excitment of Demo day, the next 3 days were spent by Mark from Preferred Demolition clearing away the rubble that used to constitute our family home. After seeing the mess at the end of Day 1, it was really incredible to check back and see how much clearing had been done by the end of each day. It's not like everything was simply picked up and taken away either. A lot of time was spent by Mark sorting out the rubble, putting things into specific piles to be recycled, salvaged or disposed of as appropriate. Watching a big excavator pick up a dainty pipe separate from the rest of the rubble around it really demonstrates the skills of the operator and I can tell you Mark is a gun operator!

Not only does Mark operate the excavator, but after he loads the truck, he then hops out and drives that away, comes back and hops back into the excavator and does it all again. As a single operator, we didn't think it would be possible for him to clear away as much material as he did in a day but he's a hard, careful, efficient and skilled worker and just got on with the job each day. He even managed to carefully remove some trees that were right on the property boundary, hard against our neighbours driveway and very close to our electricity pillar, without any damage, which I didn't think he'd be able to do. 

After 3.5 days of sorting, loading, dumping, raking and clearing, our block is now a raked sandpit with a fenced off pool shell and a few things tucked along the back fence all ready for its exciting next stage. If you are looking for a demo company to handle your demolition, I would not hesitate at all to recommend Mark and Linda from Preferred Demolition and can't thank them enough for the level of professionalism and care shown in completing our job. 

DEMO DAY!!

May 3rd, 2022  - a day that saw a mixture of emtions as we watched our first family home reduced to rubble in a matter of a touch over 60 minutes. 

We got off to a normal start to our day with the digger not expected to site until mid-late morning. So the kids went to school with Amanda and I started work from home. We then got a text from the demo company mid morning advising the digger will arrive around 11 and it will get straight into demolishing the house shortly after that.

Amanda went and picked up the kids and I headed down to the house just after 11 to find the digger unloaded. I had a quick chat with Mark the operator while walking the site, then it was all systems go. Mark told me he'd go straight into the lounge due to lack of space on the lot, taking down most of the house before he started sorting the rubble into wood, metal, rubbish, etc.

He wasn't wrong. No sooner had he entered the digger and we were all ready, he punched the bucket of the digger straight through the front wall of the lounge, brought it out, punched it through the bay window and just like that the whole lounge room collapsed. From there, the digger kept making short work of walls, roof, air con ducting, tiling, wiring and whatever else stood in its way. 60 minutes later and 90% of our house is flattened. Video here: Our Demo

Imogen was a bit sad, Josh seemed excited and both Amanda and I had some mixed emotions, mostly excitment but a little bit of sadness to see our family home gone. Overall though, it's a necessary evil to enable us to build our dream home on our lovely block.

We left the crew from Preferred sorting out the rubble and took the kids back to school and I went back to work (from home). The photo on the right is how it looked at the end of the day 1. As you can see, it's a massive mess, there are a couple of small walls still standing and the team have started to sort the rubble into different piles.