Re the capping of the sewer, we did it ourselves. Took a full day to dig it out. Purchase a small Ozito jack hammer to break up the ground and then shovel it out. It cost us approx $300 all up and that included the permit vs $1600 quotes by a plumber with a small excavator. Not sure about you, howev...

Should allow $70-$100k for options which includes flooring, bricks, tile upgrade etc. Will be closer to $100k if you opt for ducted cooling. Allow another $30-$50k for post handover expenses and that is if you do the landscaping, otherwise professional landscaping will set you back this amount alone.

Hi Mirz, Great to hear from you and glad to hear you've settled in well. We have our 12 month inspection in a couple of weeks and hope to have a similar experience. cheers Michael

Does anyone know if you can have a mixture of warm/cool LEDS with the Luxury electrical pack? Henley wouldn't allow us to mix them due to health & safety on eyes :( you can mix them up in sense of having cool in your bathrooms and warm in your living areas.

Wasn't Henley's as we did our own flooring. We used Airstep underlay, I think the yellow variant which cost an additional $1k for the first floor. Noise from people shouting upstairs not an issue. Its the footsteps that are noticeable.

No, nothing at all. Opted for the carpet and premium underlay which I reckon would be quieter than boards with acoustic underlay. But hey, if you don't like carpet, you'll be happy to tolerate some extra noise.

It's an opinion game at the end of the day. Hope you love it.

Also, I noticed that in our house (under construction) the sound from people walking on the first floor is very obvious on the ground floor. We have not installed carpet though. SS says that the normal insulation batts for thermal purposes in the subfloor (between first floor and ground floor ceili...

Well done Snyde, you should end up with a lovely and more importantly, sound home. Agree with the independent inspector and IMO allow up to 4 weeks for the items to be rectified.

yeap, love the floor. What did you go with in the end?

That's correct they are recessed into the bottom of the overhead cupboard. They weren't cheap from memory, around $400 a pair. Good pick up Snyde, ours are also cool white which doesn't make sense given all the other downlights are warm. See if you can get them changed before its too late.....

Hi Drew, I've seen a Lucas Morris home which has also been built on stumps. Will be interested to see how you go with pricing, heard they charge $60k+ for stumps over slab. Hopefully its less.

yeah its pretty chaotic at the moment. Can't even walk properly I'm that sore. In the last month we have -installed the evap cooling -floorboards -carpets - blinds -alarm and video intercom - built a retaining wall around most of the perimeter - bobcat moved 30 cubic mtrs of soil to rear of property...

Not far away now, looking good!!!

We're in Victoria. Yeap they were pretty good. From memory site costs increased by about $5k as a result of 2nd soil test. To their credit, all costs communicated during the sales process were very accurate, a couple of items came in higher, however, a couple also came in lower. The key is to educat...

Looking good! If you are going to hang your TV's on the wall, might want to ask if you can install a couple of noggins if required.

We installed a Breezair unit for $4300. Didn't really obtain a price from Mainvue as they didn't offer the Breezair. If you purchase from the builder you'll need pay the builders margin (I think its 20%), however, the benefit is that it's there when you take the keys so it wont delay your move.

Hi Neth, Apologies as its been a while since the last update. Handover was last Thursday and today we had the evap cooler installed. Carpet will be the very last item to be installed and is scheduled for 20 Jan 16. Need to take some photos and update the blog.

Sorry Snyde, I wouldn't be relying on any builders QA to give me peace of mind.