That sucks david... I know for me sometimes the delays p%ss me off more than the extra $$...

I'm waiting on council.

My Dad visited my block the other day and he reckons that they excavated a little on the block next door just before we settled on the block, thereby forming a small step down into our block, he reckons I will now need to build a retaining wall below my boundary fence. In my mind the developer should have done the the retaining wall along the side of block as they have at the back of the block... I might drop by there tomorrow morning and take some pics.

Hey Aaron,

I agree, I dont really care about the money especially if the delays can be avoided.
As for your block, it depends on the amount of fall between the blocks. A retaining wall might not be needed and you could get away with treated pine sleepers during erection of the fence. Does the step impose into the front where the boundary fence is not required?
How long has it been with council for now?
My suggestion would be to call 1300362170 and say " can I please speak to someone about my DA approval. I would just like to follow up on the progress so far. If you don't have your DA application number - all good. Just ask them to look it up by your address. ( Lot and street number, suburb.) they should then tell you how long it has been in council for, and give you an estimate completion date. If they don't tell you ask if someone has started to look at it as yet.
Hope that helps!

How does the use of facilities work?

Do we all get some sort of key/pass to access Courts/Pools?
Is booking essential or free to use as you please?

Anyone know.

Chan

i would like to know too... can we bring guests/friends in?

Hey all! we all get issued 2 swipe cards per residence. The access is limited to the nearest pool/bbq area to your house. You can however request to Parkbridge to have the other access card. Im not sure if you have to pay for the extra card or not, but i am under the impression you have access to your closest bbq/pool pavillion only. Each card has it's access stated on the card which would say something like "Club Woodlands pavillion"

To book the pavillion, you will need to check with parkbridge. There was a rumour you can book, but i don't know for sure. You can have family, friends etc use the pavillion while you are there.

hey David,

Sorry to hear that about the sewer peg out. But at least now the waiting game almost finish. And you building will be start real soon from now.

Thankyou David,

Hubby and I just talk about it another day about how can they limited residence only to the facilities as everything is so open. Now we all know. Thankyou

Hi Selkie, very true!
Got the approval from waterboard today! So the CC will be done in a matter of Days!
Then the 20 day commencement period will begin!
The bank as usual has been very slow with letting me know if they need any further information prior to releasing any funds, but I guess I have unconditional approval and they just wanted a copy of the HOW Insurance which I sent to them on Wednesday! So hopefully.... hopefully... the 20 days will start 25th / 26th june, which means we should have a slab down by the end of July!!
House should be at lock up by October and then the internal fitout will take 8 weeks. So The house might be finished by the end of the year, but the driveways and landscaping will not be done unless we have no rain or bad weather during my build.. which is unlikely.

I am a little busy again with 2 sick kids so didn't hang around much at all. So glad to see everyone helping each other.

Our house is building nicely. And our wet areas tiling was expected finish either yesterday or today.

Our kitchen and bathroom cupboard already in. I think next step will be the whole house painting.

We went to see our tiler on the Wed and found our front door is already arrive and sitting there waiting for install.

Finally got chance to get a couple of spare roof tiles from the site. (Been checking another forum said take a couple in case later any break tiles we can replace it) We also found the worker next door keep taking our roof tiles in our alfresco. Is not i really care but it is just funny as we are not using the same roof tiles.

It was 3 months since our slab poured. Seeing David already starting his building blog feel i am so lazy. Well done David will need to see when i am less lazy to start one too....haha

Hi Selkie, were your roof tiles from Austral? If they were you can pick up a "sample" or two if you go again... and again.. just to let you know...

That's no good to hear your family is sick again!! You all just got over the Flu!
Great to see your build is progressing nicely!
6 - 8 weeks you should have handover!
How exciting!

just try to get the one that they used in our roof as different batch sometime have different colour but i guess they are just roof tiles not as noticable as the bricks.

And we are not using Austral roof tiles. We are using PGH. (I know they are the same can get sample from them). We are the last customer who use PGH roof tiles as Mirvac not using their roof tiles anymore. Indeed we need to argue to get PGH roof tiles as our bank problem over the Sept price increase and they didn't notice us about the change so we only like the PGH dark roof tiles so we said no we only want PGH no Austral roof tiles. And they said ok we will be the last customer to use them.

Yes it is no good and this is worse than the other too. Both of the kids have 40 degree fever for the last 2 nights. My oh my. I am thinking to take the kids to have the flu shot after they recover as they got it too often now. Because i am take care of them closely so normally I got it from them too. So it is really no good.

Did anyone know if Costco really will build in Casula?

Hi Selkie, yes they are opening a Costco at Casula. It is going to be in the Cliver peters building (been sitting there doing nothing for a year since they went bust) They have not started anything as yet. It was only passed in by council late last year.

I am getting closer to building... I am just waiting on the CBA to issue the commencement letter to Lily then the contract starts.

Glad to be back. I’ve been busy lately.

Sorry to hear some bad news and also it is great to hear some good news and progress.

Our CC from council has been received last Friday. I’m due to a sign-off “for construction” meeting with my builder tomorrow. However, like David, I’m still waiting for the Letter of Commencement from CBA (for three weeks now). This is absolutely giving us stress as we thought the lender is easy to deal with. No updates… no emails… no return calls… how unprofessional…

Good luck with that ryosuke! Both of us are with CBA and both seem to be having the same problems. I cant believe how slow they are! All I seem to do is wait for the bank!
I think building a house will be the quickest park of the whole process! It's been 8 months since I sold my house and started the land / house building process and Im not going to do it again in a hurry. The builder, DA and CC have all been relatively quick in comparison to the bank.

Hi everyone,

Well so far so good for us. We've sold our house in the first week to an investor & doing a "Leaseback" where we stay in our home & pay rent to the new owners.

Going to Mirvac office in the city on Thursday to sign the Building Contract & a whole lot of other docs. Already signed off on tender & plans.

We still haven't had our colour appointment so I'm guessing that will be next week. We've pretty much decided on external colours anyway, now just finalising kitchen colours.

Will there be another appointment down the track to finalise on all internal colours? Or is it done in the first appointment. Mirvac said external colours is most important & we will have time to finalise internals.

We went past our land, there is a pile of topsoil in the middle. Trying to make sure it's removed before settlement of land which is in about a week. But if anything is dumped after settlement it is our responsibility! Has anyone else had to remove any rubbish before building commences??

We will see if our house is done any quicker, due to it being a Mortgageport lot. I'm reeeally hoping it will be ready by end of January. They should start the build in 2 months. Fingers crossed.

Hi Zeus, Congratulations on your quick sale! That's a perfect outcome as you can continue to live there and plan your build!

There are lots of appointments to come!
Exciting and stressful times a head.
You will select your internal colours ( paint for walls & doors etc.. with Mirvacs color consultants. Have you selected your driveway style and colour yet?

What about light fittings and power point locations (electrical layout)? - you probably still have that to do too.

You still have your wet area tiles to pick from Di Lorenzo

IF I can give you a few pointers and helpful info - ( you don't need to read the below, but might be helpful)
When you are doing your kitchen, make sure you increase the fridge space. Mirvac fridge spaces are often only 800 x 1750mm.
Allowing for ceramic tiles to your floors and a double door fridge ( lets face it, to have more internal fridge storage, you will need a bigger fridge.... - You should increase your fridge space to 950 x 1850 to allow sufficient airflow around and behind the fridge and a bigger fridge in the future.
Also, make sure your power points AND LIGHT FITTINGS will be in the locations you want them in and you have a sufficient amount of power points.. Don't forget IXL 3 in 1 heat lamps to the bathrooms!

2 months before you start to build is very optimistic..
Your build will still need to go through Parkbridge ( up to 2 weeks) , council ( up to 6 weeks), waterboard and CC ( 2 weerks) - as long as there are no problems with pipes an sewer pits). This process takes a good part of 2-3 months, then Mirvac have 20 days to commence works. You are looking closer to 3 - 4 months starting times. It all depends how quickly the paperwork gets passed around from person to person... and how long they sit on it before stamping, putting it in the post and passing it along to the next person...

It took me 2 weeks in parkbridge, 3 days with the builder to sent to council, 2 days in the post and 3 weeks in council to approve. Then the postage of the DA back to Lily Homes took 3 days. Total = 6.5 Weeks.
CC took 3.5 weeks.
Total = 10 Weeks. Thats GOOD progress!

Im only telling you this so you don't get your hopes up too high for a start in 2 months.

Hi Zeus,

I have done my colour selection on the same day when i sign my building contract last week... just wait another 1 week to see if mirvac will call you or not...

Hi David,

I will be doing ducting and installing outlets on ground floor only... my colour consultant didnt mention anything about this and i forgot to ask her as well... lol...!! anyway, then i called Mirvac yesterday and she said this is nothing to do with colour consultant and someone else will call me RE: ducting air-con... does it sound right?