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Hey,
We are building with Bellmarch Homes. They are a small building company who normally build on the north shore, so when we handed over all the requirements for the block and the area I think they were very puzzled and overwhelmed, hence rain water garden went to a hydraulic engineer and didn't go to council until 2 weeks after our plans were submitted!!! ( i guess someone has to be the guinea pig)
We have a gas point outside in our alfresco area, for when we "do" decide to do the outside kitchen or we can just connect it up to a bbq. So all good!!! LOL.
Maybe next year Chrissy time we can do a huge street party and discuss the stressful and fun times we have had with building
Could you ask your builder if they could level the backyard out? We asked our builder re about saving costs as there isn't much cut(hence savings for them) and they totally ignored it.
Have you joined the North Kellyville Building Page?
Have you joined the North Kellyville Building Page?
Thanks for the advise. I'll speak to the builder. They will not ignore me as I am a bit of a difficult customer
although sometimes I feel as am just a yapping dog with no real power as it is their market.
No, I have no idea about North Kellyville Building page? Can you pass the link please?
Thanks.
haha - we are all the same!!! After all its your house to suit you and your family's needs.
The page is through facebook. If you type in the search bar -building in North Kellyville, it should come up
Haha street parties and BBQs sound good!
We just gotta get through the build first!
Knigor, you are 2 doors down from me, I don't know who will be in between us but I can't see any DAs or CDC applications on the council website so hopefully they won't ayart building for a while. Assuming behind us on dorrigo they will be done worse case scenario we still have the block between us. But who knows. As soon as CDC comes onto the council website it's as good as done. So really can't tell but a little hopeful not seeing anything on there for now.
For us, we have been in council for 5 weeks now so hopefully we will be out soon. We are getting the pool done first then getting wisdom landscapes to do the backyard levelling. They reckon there will be heaps of retaining walls throughout the backyard so I have no idea how that will work with the pool and house build. Raingarden will then go in before the house starts. We did that because we will also have virtually no access once the house is up. We have no choice but to get our extended alfresco slab done after the build because of ratios etc so I'm not sure how they will pump concrete in after the build time, especially if there are other houses being constructed around us. Suck it and see I think!
Yay memorial, I did see that you're out of council and your trees are gone! Such an awesome milestone! Can't wait to hit many more. Mummawalshie, you're setting a good pace, hopefully it all comes up soon. You will be the first non-developer home!
I agree everything with am99. Just took a drive past this morning and council pathways is your best bet with tracking developments in the area. Nothing is done on the other side yet so maybe thats a good sign!!
I noticed on the castlehaven website the houses for sale on Kakadu now. They reckon the will be really by late September!!
http://castlehaven.com.au/buying/reside ... stings.phpFingers crossed we get some good weather soon
am99... 5 weeks and counting. R r looking every day for updates. I honestly was looking every hour.
Haha. I check weekly actually but every few days sometimes. Depending I think I've been beaten down by all the late delays etc so not getting my hopes up. I might be really happy once we get the keys. So jaded! Haha! Terrible aren't i!
Hi Mummawalshie, wondering what happened with your saline question? I was talking to hubby the other day and he said north kellyville all has saline and when we were first getting a quote from our builder he added cost for saline straight away. Just thinking you should def double check as I saw the wood next to your site yesterday which is yippee but want to make sure it's right before framing up. Anyway consider me a concerned neighbour. Haha. It just seems odd that your saline came back fine?
Hi mummawalshie, just wondering if you've hit any rock at all? would they have told you when piering? We are putting in our pool first so wondering if that will cost us more. Although a friend hit rock in baulkham hills but the cost for the rock was offset by the shallow piering because of the rock under the main slab. Does that make sense in your experience?
Sekisui came back with the drawings and they say that in order to meet 0.5m cut and fill we will have to have 8m front setback:(.
Hi Knigor, that doesn't sound right, you will have hardly any backyard! We have exceeded the maximum cut and fill but our builder has provided justification through council. I think they were going to do that through CDC as well as we have a step down through the house (split level) but we have way more slope than you I think. I would definitely try another builder if I were you, everyone else will have a 4m setback and your house will be behind everyone else. You won't be able to see down the street. Otherwise ask Sekisui for other options? Good luck with it!
Hi I printed a scale plan of the house on the transparency paper and played a bit with that. With not much effort I moved the house towards the road by simply flipping the layout. When I calculated it ended to be 3cm more. I'm hoping that's not s big deal. Fingers crossed, the consultant is having the meetings tomorrow.
Hi Knigor, that doesn't sound right. I do know that some builders refuse to build to the 88B eg - Allworth homes told us that they can only do the spilt in a single storey not a double storey. I understand there a certain of "extra" complexity to build the required requirements. Is your garage on the left (looking at it?) I know that we are 20cm over for the side boundary and they let it pass. It seems Sekisui might be trying to avoid the drop edge beams and steps hence making it 8m set back. What is your slope? We had a slope of 2m from front to back. Didnt think it was that bad on the naked eye.
Good luck
Hi Memorial,
Thanks for the info. That's what I thought also. Honestly if we on our lots have to build a split level houses then I don't really know who can say that they don't really need to do that. The highest point on my lot (the close left to the street) is 20.36m and the lowest one is the far right part of the lot at about 18.58m. Overall 1.78m!!! The house we've selected is 17m long with the alfresco. And the alfresco is big (like 4x5.5m). It is a short house and if they cannot fit that on a 1.78m slope over 34m in length and we all know that 50% of that slope is in first couple of meters of the lot, then really I should reconsider the builder.
What were your drawings like when you received them before the contract? Were those spot on or did you have a lot of review comments. I had like 5 genuine mistakes on each sheet of the plan!!! I was not impressed by that. It was an obvious copy/paste job that didn't go well.
I saw your bricks. Really cool. We might go with something a bit lighter, but still on the same tone. We're still thinking between cement and gravel with off white mortar. The roof will be dark grey (colour bond - monument or something like that). Being super cheap I didn't want to pay for any special facade. Some people are telling me I might regret that when the time comes to sell. Not sure...
Your house is making a real progress. You might move in soon
.
Oh by the way I received the report that says they hit a rock in one of the halls at 400 cm. did anybody else have something similar?
Hey Knigor, we havens started building yet. Mummawalshie has, i just got home and looks like some more bricklaying has been done. Its all coming along nicely.
We should be getting the temporary fence end of this week and the portaloo.... the small little steps lol.. We opted for no balcony this time round as we didn't use it at our old home. We are located on the corner which meant we had to have 2 facades ( not too happy with more expense). We didn't know anything about 88b until 2 weeks prior to going into council. We got hit up with a $45k variation with drop edge beams and steps -similar to am99. You should be able to view our house through council, to give you an idea of the complexity of the work involved.
Hi Memorial,
Sorry I confused your place with Mammawalshie's
. You'll get there soon, and so will we
. This is all frustrating but exiting at the same time. I like this forum
Knigor, you hit rock? Oh no. We are building our pool first before the house so we will find out sure enough. A friend of mine got rock and had more expense because of it but it was offset by the lesser piering they had to do for the house as it was sitting on rock anyway. Which makes sense. I hope that's the case of it happens to us! Anyway, I will let you guys know if we do get rock.
Hi everyone,
Sorry. Been out of the loop and havnt checked msgs for ages and when I did reply I had issues. Damn technology. And a,so this forum seems to pick up words and won't post.
Anyway....
I spoke with our builder and he said the reports came back with no salinity. This was from the surveyor.
Also we didn't have rock on our block or needing drop edge beams. We have a 4.5m setback.
It's strange that all the builders are giving each different advice as our blocks all have similar fall (in my opinion anyway) especially Knigor who is next to us. Maybe each in its own way is trying to make money somewhere. They are trying to run a business I suppose.
Our build is coming along nicely and we hope to be in before Christmas which would be great.
Memorial, yours is coming along well too.