Electrical and Plumbing

Haven't done an update in a while, as I have been a bit lazy. Plumbing and electrical have been roughed in. We had our meeting on site with the sparky and he was a very good guy. I was worried they would not let me run my own cables, but he was fine. He said "It's your house".  We also got him to run a few extra powerpoints including the one in the roof for the projector. Also, we got one in the pantry. Not sure if we will ever use it, but thought it was a good idea as you can then keep the toaster, coffee maker or whatever takes up too much space on the bench in there and use it.

We ran our HDMI over Cat6 cable runs for video to the family room and main bedroom, as well as rear speaker cable and outdoor speaker cable. We also put a couple of extra cat6 points around the house, 1 in the study nook and an in the master. This means we will have data to Rumpus, Family (as included in NBN install), Kitchen, Study, and Master. I only ran single runs, kind of regret not running 2. But should be fine.

We were considering putting LED downlights in the living room and rumpus, but at $100 a light thought it wasn't worth it. I don't think they would have worked well in the room anyway. Just going to go to Bunnings and buy some DIY batton light extenders for $15 and put some nice shades on them to make them look like feature lights. In the kitchen, I will put a DIY 4 bar spotlight, and have some LED strips run under the overhead cupboards. That way, no licnesed electrician to come in and saves us a fair bit of money.

The last thing that happened was the plumbing going in. We got a phone call the day they did it, saying JG had put the wrong order in for most of the fittings. We had an upgraded shower with rail shower and mixer , but it was not on the order that way. Anyway, it's all fixed now and we got upgraded to mixers on everything. That was what was showing in the plans, so I think that's fair enough.

Next week Tuesday the insulation goes in, then Wednesday plaster.
There has been a short hold up on bricks, as supply is low.
The roof has still not been fixed on yet, as it has been raining fairly regularly of late, but have been told it will be finished by end of this week.

 

Roof is on

Tiles have been set out on the roof. I thought this would take a pretty long time as there are quite a number of tiles to be done, but they got it done in a day. They need to come back to finish it off obviously, but things are moving ahead quite well.

Windows, Door Frame, and Wrap

Good to see the windows go in today. Also, the roof tiles have been delivered and should go on this week if the rain disappears.

Door and Windows Arrive

We were starting to wonder whether our windows and doors were ever going to be put in. All the houses around us had windows by the time the frame was up, but we are about a week after and we still had not seen windows.  So to see this was a relief. Also, roof scaffolding is on, ready for them to put the tiles on early next week I think.

Steel Frame Up

Lots of steel! Finally can get a feel of the size of the place. When it was just a slab, it looked very small, but now there is some structure it looks quite big, except the entrance hallway which I always knew would be quite narrow.

I spoke to our site supervisor today to organise the meeting with the sparky for electrical rough in. He says he will get back to me next week after the roof is on. I need to run some cat6 for HDMI that I am hoping he will let me run, or it will just take that bit longer once we move in.

Remember when I said we hit rock? Well we FINALLY got the bill today. Very unimpressed. The site supervisor had told us roughly $300, I sent photos to my conveyancor who asked his friend; also roughly $300. When we opened the bill to see $1100 it was a shock, and one I will be following up with JG King as soon as the long weekend is over.

Accompanying that letter was a request from JG King for an extension by a month as the frame was delivered late by the supplier. I'm pretty sure the supplier is owned by JG King. Hasn't really been one thing go right for us yet.

Hopefully we get to see our windows soon because the frame makes them look quite spectacular.

On a side note, one of my favourite shows on TV is Selling Houses Australia. Shayna finally used dark flooring in a house rather than say it sucks the light out of everything. As our tiles and carpet are both quite dark, it was good to see that it can work.

Framing Almost Up

I drove out to the block today to see if the frame had arrived, after being told it would be here on March 3rd. We had been out there on the weekend for a display village opening and we had some friends with us. It was still just a slab on the Saturday, so unfortunately they didn't get to see too much. To our surprise, the frame was almost up when we got out there Monday night.