Hello everyone,
Been reading everyones posts now for about two weeks so have decided to have ago as well.
We bourght our 5 acre block of bush two years ago then started the task of finding something to build on it tried just about every major builder in W.A. but did not like the responese we got regarding the cost to build, so we decided try the owner builder option, and again went to all the kit home suppliers in W.A still not happy with the prices given and after a couple of months of researchimg the internet decided on PAAL homes Camden to witch we modifed to our liking.
And so the fun began with PAAL being in Sydney and us on the oppisite side of the country, lots of emails and phone calls, probally took us about six months to get all right so we thourght. Anyway we proceded with everything then came the fisrt problem PAAL drew up the steel floor and Bluescope Lysaght where going to supply it But they would not certify it becuase it was out of there spec so we got a local engineering firm to structually certify it well what a stuff up that became they actually made every wall in house load bearing and blew the cost of the steel Quikka floor out to 50k how they managed to do that I still to this day don't no anyway it got fixed in the end, then came problem number two when I finally got the building instructions for the house they included some hard copies and one was for the alfreco witch showed posts going from the wooden facsia boards to the ground and with footings well after discusions with a few family members rang PAAL and asked them how do we do this considering the house is on stilts well after about two months of emails and phone calls it was rectified. Then we moved on to the footings whitch are 600mm diameter 450 deep and there are 114 of them now the ground on witch we are building consist of gravel and rock lots of rock after speaking to the local earthmoving contractor who also happens to be my neighbour was told it needs to be ripped up to remove all the alluvial rock then refilled with clean fill and compacted before holes could be drilled witch happend over two months so we finally drilled the holes took about five hours to do all still hit a few small rocks witch made the holes even bigger did that on a Monday and poured concrete on the Thursday and even that did'nt go smoothly with three concrete two concrete trucks in the drive way i get a phone call from the guy who who's going pump the concrete saying he's one hour away well beleive me i was not to happy to here this either were the two aggy drivers well told him he better be here very soon as I had two trucks in the drivway and two more on the way well by the time he got to us we had emptied on truck by hand and he says to me it going to take him twenty minutes to set up well I gave him a bit of a serve and said you have ten minutes or you can p*%$ off and I aint paying you a cent well we had little spit at each other with the truck drivers having a good laugh in the background but in the end it all got done so now we are waiting for the floor to arrive its been about three weeks now so hopefully it won't be to far away.
I have had problems from day one regarding this project but I will post that stuff later i.e the shed & water tank.
Cheers
Heath

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The arrival of the externals.
I will post more soon now that I have worked it out

H@#* Crap...glad to hear we aren't the only ones who have had dramas with Kit building!!!!! Feel your frustration. Can't wait to see your progress photos.

Like the Camden...you'll have to show us how you modified it.

Hi all,
So now that I have got the house dramas sorted I might as well tell you about the other problems I have had so far being an OB we fisrt ordered our shed from a certain shed company here in Perth and after paying our deposit of 2K were given plans to submit to council for approval well just about a month before all was to go to council I got a letter in the mail saying that this certain shed copany has gone into receivership owing lots of people around the couple of milliom mark so I gave the receivers a call and was told I'd be lucky to see a single cent of my deposit witch i was'nt to happey to hear I put the phone down went outside and lost it (LOL) wel after calming down I set about finding a new shed company to supply me a shed and came across Youe Shed.com and give them a call well after about a week someone called me and said yep no problems and I give them a grilling over the phone as your not going to go bloody broke any time in the near future are you first thing he said was you lost money from this certain company and I sad yes so he give me the spell about how long the company has been around for so I odered a 10m x 10m x 4.6m Aussie barn payed my deposit again got the plans a week later then payed the rest about 3 months later well about a month and a half went by and I got a phone call from DW saying theres a truck outside our block with the shed parts on it and the driver wants to no where to drop of the stuff well I did'nt even no the shed was ready let alone when it was going to be delivered and here I was away working and theres a truck out the front of our uncleared block well told the DW to tell him to drop it off inside the gate then go get some chain and a padlock and lock the gate as I was still a week and a half away from getting home lucky for us DW has family who live very close so she went there saw a cousin of hers and he gave her some chain and padlock so all was good well so I thourght well about five months later when my dad and I were erecting the shed we came across a slight problem the biulding instructions where for a gable shed and not a barn style shed so after trying to work out what was what we set about standind up the A frame portals know we had four frames up and trying to work out why our top hats don't reach from potal to portal so on the phone trying to get hold of the shed guy in Katherine N.T. well after countless call and only getting answer machine decided to leave it for the day well the next day I got a call from the shed guy told him the problems we were having and he told me he would look into it and I said you wanna be quick as I have these things standing up with no bracing so of he went got a phone call later can you send some photos witch I did and I asked for bill of materials list and he said he would send it so down came the portals and two days later got the BOM in the mail well when i went through the BOM it all looked good except for the bit at the bottom of the page that said proposed 10 x 9 aussie barn so onto the phone again told the bloke on the other end about what I had come across and he say where dose it say that at the bottom of the page I said and the he says oh" I no whats gone wrong we did a program change back when you ordered your shed and some sheds got throuh good and some didnt well I sad so how are we going to fix this, His response was can you go measure up what is missing and I will send what you require, my response was why dont you fix up your f*#@up and look on the proper plans and send me what I am missing, I,m not you bloody lacky mate he did apologise and said that it would take about two weeks for the bits to arrive which I said was okay as I had to go back to work anyways so sure enough two weeks later when I came back the bits where there at the front gate and about a week and half later it was finished we still had problems erecting the bloody thing buit with all the extra materials we had we where able to over come them, who said Owner Building was easy???????
Cheers
Heath

P.S. Next post will be the bloody water tank stuffups.

Well finally have some good news the steel floor will be delivered end of month Wednesday 30th June, about time to there paper work says 20 days end of month will make it about 37 days!
Cheers
Heath

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Ok so this what we are building we only modified it by adding verandahs all way round elfresco on back maid the main living area bigger witch in turn made the bedroom wing bigger so bed 2,3,4 and activity grew about one meter each way, made the formal dining into study put a wall in there ant took out the open fire place much to DW disaproval and lounge room will become home theatre I hope the DW whats some for her sewing/scrapbooking may have to put another wall up maybe in study, that will come later.
Cheers
Heath

Very nice. I really like the layout. This would have worked well for us too. on delivery date.

Hi barker. I think the shed company you were talking about is the same one we got ours through. They went bust but luckily we got all our materials (even though we didn't get the right ones either). It must be a thing with these shed companies. They are a nightmare.

Anyway, Im just starting to look through the OB threads to get as much information as possible. We are also from WA and have 5 acres. Cannot find many houses to suit our land and the one house we have got a quote on has been quoted very expensive so.............are looking at different avenues. We built our shed ourselves 11mx16m and DH is very hands on but don't know if we have the time to actually OB. Will be reading this thread with interest to see how it all goes. Good luck with it all. Im sure it can only get better

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Clearing begins December 09

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Tank pad

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Tank underway four guys one day this is how far they got.

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Tank completed only took 4 weeks, tank size 239,100 litres 11.5m diameter

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Sheds up, took my dad and myself about ten days

[URL=http://s746.photobucket.com/albums/xx104/hgb13569/?action=view&current=SH102876.jpg][ img ][/URL
House footings, 114 holes
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All concrete footings done, just needs a bit of a cleanup now.
Cheers
Heath

Great photos...the tank is HUGE.

Well finally got a confirmation that our floor will be delivered tomorrow morning so I am off early to meet up with the load and make sure the drop it off where we want it not at the front gate as in the past, wiil post some pics soon.
Heath

Well finally got a floor well sort of they have managed to lose 26 piers and supply some really bizzare pier lengths nothing matches the dimensions i have given them looks like theres going to be lots of cutting on my behalf they supplied 49 @ 2900mm piers my longest is 2400mm and there is only one of them work that out, will be ringing them in the morning to ask about this has gone from being a quikka floor to a bloody slow one!!. did take some pics on the phone camera but just relised the cable is still at work up in Broome.
Cheers
Heath

I was told today that the missing 26 piers have not been made due to and ordering stuff up and once they are made will be air freighted to Perth so I will have to wait till Lysaght get there act together before I will no when I will receive the piers though I should be able to start on the floor on Monday I hope.
Cheers
Heath

Very nice house design

Hope all works out on Monday!

Good luck with starting the floor today. Hope you weren't out there too early this morning......brrrrrrr less than 0 degrees

Hello everyone,
Well the floor has gone totaly pearshape I spoke to the estimator in QLD today and he even said oh no some one has stuffed up bad by supplying all the wrong piers he simply said some one has used the rong paperwork, well I aslo spoke to the Lysaght section manager today and told him the I have been supplied all the wrong piers so now he's actually coming out to our build to have a look at the stuff up, should be interesting, will let you no how it goes.
Cheers
Heath

Well finally got a visit from Lysaght manager and he admitted he stuffed up the order by looking at the wrong paper work well he asked me if I could use what was supllied and I told him I could only use some of it and I would have to cut all the ones I could use down but was still short of 44 piers which needed to be longer he said he would take care of it, well that was last thursday, havent heard from him yet. Any way I am back at work at the moment so cant do much till I get back in about a week and a half might give him a call today to see how things are progressing.
Cheers
Heath

Any luck Friday? The piers we got for ours only ended up being enough for half as the system they had designed was not good enough to pass council here so we spent another $3800 to get enough steel. Hope none of their stuff ups are going to cost any more for you. Time is costly enough.