anyone building in armstrong creek?

Thanks gzk. Do you know what you did to comply?

This is what was in our variation for BAL 12.5 compliance:

* Bushfire Garage vehicular door compliance - nylon brush to along top of door.
* Bushfire weephole compliance (mesh cartridges)
* Foil sarking to underside of entire 22.5 deg. roof (with anti-ponding board to dwelling only where there is no eave)
* Aluminium framed flyscreens with aluminium mesh to all openable windows (glazing within 400mm of ground already complies)
* Upgrade 820mm wide hinged rear garage door to solid core
* NOTE: Under the code there is no requirement to screen sliding doors. Doors have surround seals as standard. Brick sills to be minimum 18 deg. from horizontal. Roof penetrations are sealed as standard.

Thanks gzk.

The whole solar thing has confused me. Having lived in a house for 34 years without it, I thought it was meant to be something that reduced your electricity bill and you sold back unused energy to the supplier, but apparently that's not the case?

That's pretty much it in a nutshell, when the panels are active the house draws power from that source first and any excess power is sent back to the grid. Eg if the panels are generating 1000watts and you are using 800w then the excess 200w are sent back to the grid at a price per kw/h. Effectively you are using no power from the grid at all.
Alternatively if you are generating 1000w and using 1200w you will be charged the excess 200w from the grid.
Our average daily usage was 16kw/h at our previous house and now with the panels we are using about 3-4 kw/h a day so our bills should be a quarter of the cost.
Haven't had our first bill yet so can't say this for certain though!

Horrible horrible experience with Mainvue. Sales consultantwill tru to rip and lur clients to spend
Big bucks. My suggestion put everything in writing even small promises because in d ens mainvue will deny anything they promised or compromised. Yes prices slashed but inclusin now is uncomparale to inclusions before. U get what u paid for....

What stage is your land?

So should we be letting our utilities company that we have solar panels? gzk was saying that they're only for the hot water, and never having had them before, I thought they were for electricity?

I'm guessing you only have one or two panels on the roof?? That is for hot water only and won't generate electricity at all.
An electrical system will be at least 6 panels (we have 10) and looks different to the solar hot water panels.

yeah, we only have 3 on our roof. It's all very confusing I'm glad gzk knows what's going on So if it's just for water, is it just a matter of letting barwon water know?

You don't need to inform anyone, its just a part of your hot water service.
Basically rather than heating the water in your tank with electricity or gas, the water is run through the solar collectors on the roof and heated by the sun before going into the tank.
Depending on your system, the water may be heated up further with gas or elec if it hasnt reached a certain temperature eg 50C
Your builder will be able to explain the system further to you as there are various types of solar hot water systems but the function is all the same, to use energy from the sun to heat your water, saving on usage of elec or gas.

Hope that helps

it does ta

We've spent two years, working on our new PD home. The best person with the most sway is Peter Brooks at Providence Greenvale. He has been with the company for years and very down to earth. We were going to change from PD but he gave us an awesome deal with no surprises. We're building a Cayman, which we've extended to 52 square, seven bedrooms and three bathrooms.

We just had another inspection today and were told our final inspection should be in about a week and a half, so we're estimating Friday next week . Just wondering how long is it normally from final inspection to key hand over and move in?

I understand it depends on how many issues need to be resolved following that final inspection. For us it was only 7 days, but I have heard of longer.

Ta. Burbank just clarified that the inspection in a week and a half will be our PCI inspection and then it's usually 2 weeks after that. Hoping it's sooner, as I'm currently on leave and go back Christmas Eve!

Remember you also need to have all the paperwork ready for the bank for the final payment. You will need to have the building insurance organised for the final payment. You will receive some certificates from the builder (certificate of occupancy etc) you will need to provide these as well. Also the bank will need to organise a final valuation of the property, our broker informs us it may take up to 5 business days to finalise.

Thanks for that info

I was considering moving my leave (which I'm currently on), but with all of what you say (and the fact I'd just be moving it to christmas/new year which I have the majority of off anyway), it sounds like I'd be better keeping it as is. Our lending manager has told us that when we get the final payment request, we need to organise a valuer from the bank to come to the final inspection with us. Gzk is organising the insurance side of thing. The certificate of occupancy, do we provide that to the bank or the insurance company?

Sorry im not sure its our first time to build and PCI should be similar time to you.

Cert Of occupancy goes to the bank.
To release final bank cheque, the bank needs cert of occupancy, insurance cover note and final valuation.