The St George build in SA - earthworks

I've been busy reading lots of other threads, so I thought it was now time to start my own.

It all started out when we were looking to buy established houses and couldn't find anything with a decent backyard size for the kids. One day we saw an old place that was on a decent size block on a nice street and it just felt right, so jumped in and purchased it.

We plan to build a two storey family home with room for the kids to grow.

Here is a rough timeline so far
2013 - Bought an old run down house with the intent of knocking it down and rebuilding
Jan/Feb 2014 - Demolished the existing house
Jan 2014 - Development Plan Consent received from the council
Feb 2014 - Building Rules Consent granted
Feb 2014 - Development Approval granted

And that brings us to today, where its not long to go until the slab will be poured.

Before I start with what's going to happen, here is some more history.

The house we purchased was really run down. Rotten floorboards, ivy growing everywhere (some of the ivy trunks were 10cm in diameter!), overgrown with trees and just in a state of general neglect.

Here are some of the features of the old house that I'm sure fellow homeone members will appreciate

Lovely light fittings


Beautiful plastering


Modern kitchen


Lovely mouldy roof


Beautiful tiling


Lovely natural effect where ivy is growing into the room (top left hand side of picture)


Ivy covereing the outside of the house


Latest electrical technology


Great tapware selections


No eaves - great for ventilation


More "ventilation"


Some nice rising damp


Nice wall cracks


Half a clothes line


I never went down this side of the house....its like a jungle


More growth in the roof


This has seen better days


Plants growing up to the chimney and on the tv antenna


Nice broken window

Surely a quick Spray n' wipe inside & a lick of paint on the outside would've restored it to its former glory?

Oh my goodness, no idea why you did not renovate

Can't wait to follow your build!

Thanks for the comments

So it was with great sadness that the house was to be no more... if anyone is interested, here are the items I had to do to prepare for demolition

- Find a demolition company, get quotes etc etc.
- Organise with the gas retailer to abolish the gas meter for demolition
- Organise with the electricity retailer for removal of the electricity meter and supply to the house for demolition
- I didn't do anything for water and phone line. Water stays connected. The demolition guys snipped the phone line.
- Apply for building consent with the council to demolish the building. The demolition company helped me with most of this and was pretty easy.
- Sit back and watch the demolition (actually one of the neighbours has a home office overlooking our block and said she was captivated watching them bring the house down).

The guys had a big mix of weather to deal with. For one or two of the days it was 44 degrees, then the other day we had the wettest 24 hour period since 1969 (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-14/a ... ry/5259480) . It turned the site into a bit of a bog, but they cleaned it up well.

And now for the pics...
Roof is off


I see the light (through the ceiling)








Lounge room is no more




That was the kitchen




Demolition in progress


House is gone... now for the garage at the back


Tidying up


All finished

love the pics
and what a big difference

Following!

Wow... fantastic transformation. What a nice clean block

I am also fascinated when a demo is in progress, we had one across the road when I was a teenager, I was home sick with the flu that day. I stared out the window almost the entire afternoon just watching the action. It was really mesmerisng.

Looking forward to following your build.

How did the real estate agent describe the existing property? Always funny to read the marketing description then see the property.

Amazing transformation! Good luck.

They did say it needed a lot of work done... "renovate or detonate"... something along those lines.

So the other day I drove past the block and was amazed to find a truck parked in the front... the earthworks had begun!

Here is the start




Some old pipes they dug up


Base is prepared


Trenches


More trenches that look like lamingtons

There was one glitch along the way... The digger hit some of the old footings were still in the ground. Apparently this rarely happens, but it happened to us.

Old footings


However the demolition company were very responsive and came out and cut the required sections away

Looking good, it will be a big house!

Good to see things coming together.

I think that pretty much describes the rental I was in before our home was ready.

Hi,
Going to follow your build Your posts came up when I searched the dreaded E-D soil.
We are in Kensington and has came up same - waiting on our footings.
The house we are going to demolish is cracked a lot.
Did you worry about building on the ED soil? Have they employed any special measures to protect your slab/foundations.

Look forward to hearing more !!

St george build and bluesteel
You both would have got class "p" classification for your sites I'm guessing
and if so what did the engineer recommend for you footings

good to follow your progress

Have a P site with e-d soil (yippppeee).
They have recommended 900 deep piers with 92 mesh 100 thick slab
The saving grace hopefully is there is no fill.

Are you having soil issues insider?

The house you knocked over looks a bit like our current house