Final plans approved

Last week our exemption for an encroachment was approved. As the street isn't completely perpendicular to the front of the house we had to apply for an exemption where it cut in closer to the house on the garage side, since it's slightly narrower than the mandatory set-back from the road at that end.

 

This week we signed off on the Compliance Plans - the final set that are used for construction. Which means, in three weeks the build should kick off!

 

Here's our final floorplan:



Although listed as a 'single garage' its actually a double. They had to shave 20cm from one side of the house to compy with the block size limitations (1.5m on one side and 3.0m on the other) which made the garage measurements 20cm short of the standard double garage size which the plans need to reflect.

 

 

Kitchen and bathroom elevations continued

Kitchen and bathroom elevations

With the Christmas shut down period throwing a spanner in the work as far as getting the final paperwork sorted, I figured I would put up some of the final internal design plans while we're waiting. Wouldn't want to leave my avid followers, all three of them, waiting too long before an update, so here they are....

Kitchen - 3D:

 

Kitchen - elevations:

 

Bathroom and en suite - elevations:



Our land

Settlement

Well its official, at long last, we settled on the land on Wednesday last week. Ben and I are now the proud owners of six hundred and twenty-five square metres of dirt, time to go plant some crops. We are officially in debt for the rest of our lives!

Other recent revelations on the build, we have encountered a couple of unexpected 'after-we-signed-the-contract' expenses... unfortunately these weren't taken into account in our homeloan, which has already been approved so will now have to come out of our pockets, or rather, our of our wedding budget.

Both of these complications confirm the advice I've been given by several people which I will put out there to anyone about to build a house - QUESTION EVERYTHING!

Concrete piering: 

It appears the 30 lineal metres included in our contract wasn't enough. After the builders sent us an initial variation for $6000- of additional concrete piering, we consulted with my expert uncle the quantity surveyor, who confirmed our thoughts that this seemed fairly excessive. Additionally, friends who just built a two storey place in a nearby suburb didn't even need this ammount of additional peiering so surely it was too much for our little one storey house.

We left the variation unsigned while we were overseas for eight weeks then had a meeting with the builders. They explained the requirement for the additional piering, but assured us the price would be closer to $1500-$2000, much to our relief, however we still decided to wait for the surveyor's report before signing anything off.

The end result came back last week at ~$1900, still a decent chunk of money, but better than the original $6000 they told us it would be. Our house better be super stable after all that!

EER:

The next hiccup we faced was meeting the Six Star Energy Efficiency Requirements. Turns out our house met the requirements, originally. That is until we got to playing with the window sizes. Wanting a bright, open and airy house I had enlarged just about every window in the place.

And so it was, another unexpected variation arrived informing us we'd need to pay around $4000-$5000- for one of two options, both including double glazing variations and downsizing a number of windows, in order to meet the EER.

The double glazing I was ok with, after all in the long run this would save us a bundle in heating/cooling bills, but downsizing the windows was a definitive no-go. If I could have fit more windows into that place I would have, there was no way I wanted to make the ones I had any smaller.

And so, after numerous emails to the builders we were able to get the plan evaluated externally and a third option was provided to us - additional double glazing and leaving the windows all as is, and, it came in cheaper than the options of changing the window sizes!

Speed bump and metre boxes

This week we've found out we should be settling on the land in early November. I also stopped past to snap a few updated pictures and found we now have a speed bump right outside our place and the metre boxes were being installed.

Unfortunately though, with all the paper work that has to wait til settlement, this means our build most likely won't start til next year. So we won't be in by our wedding in April. 

DA plans and a street sign

Despite there still not being any word on the progress of our land, other than getting a street sign, the administrative side of the build has taken another step in the right direction.

Although the land still isn't registered, the surveryor for our builder was able to sneak on site and conduct the countour survey, which means our Development Application (DA) Submission plans could be drawn up ready to go. We received a copy this week and they look great. They've added in all our final external variations to the house, increasing a few window sizes and adding an external door to the garage from the back garden.

We just have to sign off on them and pay the next installment then, once the land becomes available, it all gets sent off for approval.