South @ Seaford Meadows

Jonooo · Dec 06, 2014 6:32 pm

That's great. Did you guys remove the back yard soul independently or did fairmont so that as part of their cut fill process? We've seen a couple of other builds down there do a similar thing too and we are not sure what to do. We will still have access to the rear of our yard through the garage as we have a rear roller door to the yard so have the option of doing that once the house is built and we get to see the levels properly. So many decisions!

Our house is now with council as of last Wednesday after coming back from the certification process so hopefully we will be at your stage soon! We haven't got any quotes on soil removal yet but the mrs. Has a friend whose dad does it. Is it a big expense?

The Slaters · Dec 07, 2014 4:02 am

We asked the fairmont footings guy when he rang to do it
We will just pay them for that bit cash
It's easier to do when nothing is there,
It will be a few thousand dollars
We had a fair bit to remove ..
But it was expected

Jonooo · Dec 08, 2014 4:04 pm

Yahoo! Council approved this morning. Fairmont said they would pass it onto their footings contractors now so just waiting to hear from them. Hopefully it'll be started soon!

Who did you use for soil removal slatters if you don't mind my asking? We're trying to get some rough costs at the moment to see how much money it will cost us. Phoned a couple of people who are estimating it to be around 110-120 tonne at around $1800.

The Slaters · Dec 08, 2014 6:22 pm

Hi congratulations on council approval

That's great news.
We used Gary George he was on the list Fairmont gave us,
We only got the call from the Fairmont footings man
Last Wednesday saying we are down at your block about to start,
He said there will be a lot of soil so we need you to move it this afternoon.
I rang him and he did it the next day
not much notice for him.
He was out there till dark with lights on it was around 200 tons
He charged us $185.00 a truckload we had 20 loads of dirt removed.
Next doors build started the next day too so you have to get rid of it really quickly
Glad that's over now.

The Slaters · Dec 11, 2014 8:38 pm

Fairmont called today they have done the slab ..

Jonooo · Dec 11, 2014 8:49 pm

Oooh I guess they want their money! Good news for you though, no doubts over whether the slab would be cured when they put the frame up! Ready to go in the new year.

We don't think we will get a slab before Christmas now. Pretty much given up hope on that but really hoping that first thing back next year they really get cracking and start as soon as possible. We're just so keen to get an idea on scale and proportions of our house. Being a custom build were really nervous to see it all come together seeing as we've not been able to walk through it or anything.

The Slaters · Dec 11, 2014 8:54 pm

He said that stormwater will be done
when they come back around the third week in January
We will go check it out on the weekend
We haven't seen our house e other yet we modified the plan and there are no display homes of it.
There was,
but it closed just before we started looking
When the frame goes up is when you can really see the size I think ..

ConLaw · Dec 22, 2014 6:52 pm

Hi Everyone,

Thought it was about time I should join the forum and introduce myself in this thread as my partner and I are also building in Seaford Meadows. We have bought in Stage 8A and are building with Simonds Homes.

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know and I will certainly do my best.

Cheers,

_______________________________________________________________
Seaford Meadows; Stage 8A – Simonds Homes – Palisade House Design
12-Nov-2013 Selections
05-Dec-2013 Build Contract
25-Feb-2014 Initial Land Settlement
08-Aug-2014 Land Settlement (Actual)
24-Nov-2014 Site preparation
01-Dec-2014 Slab
15-Dec-2014 Frame / Bricks / Roof Tiles

Jonooo · Jan 15, 2015 10:38 pm

Hi all, hope you've had a great break. Lots going on down at seaford meadows now in the newer developments in the last few weeks. So many cut blocks, footings, slabs and even some frames and brickworks!

Our house finally got a start last Friday by cutting the block. However all that's happened this week is the dumping of 2 piles on our land. One pile of dolomite and a pile of fill from another block. Don't know why they dumped the fill??? Only thing I can think of is they are going to use it to level the block further. I hope so, I don't want to pay to remove it as its come from another block (the mrs. Saw the truck take it from one site to ours)

Still frustrated with how long it's taking. I know I should be patient but after waiting 18 months of planning to get up to now we just want some solid progress! It's frustrating and exciting at the same time. Other houses all around have been cut, dug and had footings poured this week! Although I'm thinking the delay could be due to the neighbours contractors having their bricks piled on our land which has been extremely frustrating. They can't seem to keep anything within their own boundary even after repeated complaints to their builder from ourselves. Had to call them last week to move a massive skip from our land- it wasn't even close to the boundary but completely on our block! Hope it won't be delayed much longer, well over paying rent and the land mortgage at the same time! I'd love some kind of timeline to give our land lords. Fairmonts tradesmen are officially back from next week so here's hoping.

ConLaw · Jan 17, 2015 6:42 pm

Hi Jonooo,

Christmas break was great and relaxing. Spent a few days at Hindmarsh Island and then a week at the Clare Valley.

We had some problems with 2x neighbours builders dumping spoil on our land – 1x on our left and 1x behind our block. The builders on our left dumped 2 small lots of spoil and all we did was contact the builder who then contacted the owners and they removed the spoil the next day. (They were really good.) The builders behind us (Rivergum) were hard work and I had to contact them several times asking them to remove their spoil. I got to the point where I rang and said to one of the managers, “Your spoil is holding up our progress and if it isn't removed ASAP we will need to look at removing this spoil and this will come at the cost of Rivergum along with a 20% surcharge.” I also said that the other builders around us have done the right thing and Rivergum are the only builders who have been disrespectful and this spoil is their responsibility and needs to be removed as it has been there for over a week now. It was removed the next day….

It is a little frustrating not knowing when you can move in.. Our builder won’t know till lock up – which I expect is maybe a month away?? (I have no idea..) Jonooo – are you currently in a lease or will you have to break your lease? I have to admit, our current rental lease expired October 2014 and I was lucky enough to negotiate a 6mth fixed lease with the view to go periodically after the 6mths, but will give them a minimum 2 mths notice of terminating the lease. The landlord said YES!! Woohoo.. I wasn’t expecting that.

We were advised on Friday 16th Jan that our bricks are now complete and the gyprock inside the house has started this week. Will make the drive on Sunday (currently live in Brompton area) to check it out..

ConLaw · Jan 18, 2015 8:14 am

Thought I would start to share our journey if this is of any interest to anyone or if anyone has any questions or vice versa.
I’m trying to upload our floor plan but have discovered I need Photobucket or some photo sharing platform program, so I will give that a go..

ConLaw · Jan 18, 2015 8:17 am

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Jonooo · Jan 18, 2015 9:50 am

Hi con, we were lucky with the builders next to us being very prompt removing things when we contacted them, but as different trades go on site there would be different piles on our land. The builders, SA Housing were right into it when I told them though- particularly seeing as we didn't sign any consent forms or anything to give their trades permission to use our land at all. That's what annoyed me more than anything, the lack of professional curtesy to at least let us know what was happening. Fairmont were very good and had us send our neighbours some forms acknowledging construction would be taking place and obtaining permissions but for some reason SA Housing didn't see fit to offer such politeness. We found their communications very unprofessional when we were looking at their houses and obtaining quotes from them so to see that if flows right down the chain made us glad we didn't choose them to build with despite liking some of their plans.

In regards to renting we are very lucky as our landlords are my parents, we are living in their investment property, although they still need to know a rough idea of when we move out as dad wants to do some renovations and needs to start thinking about getting other tenants in, he's already had some inquiries but unless we can tell him roughly when we will be out its hard for him.

We had a call on the Friday just gone from fairmonts site contractors - our footings are scheduled for Thursday who's is exciting! We just need to sort out someone to take the spoil and the following week the slab should be poured. Then we should get a rough indication on time from the builder!

You floor plan looks great by the way Con, we really liked some Simonds houses but we found, as with other builders the house plans were just too narrow for our block and we would have had allot of wasted space at one side of the house. It got too costly with Simonds to alter some of the plans and they weren't interested in a custom build.

ConLaw · Jan 19, 2015 1:33 pm

We popped in to the house on Sunday to have a look and we are impressed on the progress that has been made. Even got to talk to the tradie who was installing some gyprock walls and we even got to meet our backyard neighbour’s parents. They told us that their son’s place got broken into last week and stole all their kitchen cabinets and anything else that was in there.. They gained access by kicking in the garage door that leads into the hall way and stole their kitchen.

We even had our back sliding door stolen as well. Another one has been ordered.

Jonooo · Jan 19, 2015 1:36 pm

I've heard break ins are common. We're supplying our own appliances so won't be covered by the builders insurance and are **** ourselves when we have to get all that into the house. I think I'll hand the appliances over to be installed then remove them myself until we move in. Oven is easy enough and dad is a gas plumber so can reconnect the stove. It sucks but it is quite frequent from what I've heard.

Glad your happy with your build! Wish ours was at a stage we could walk through it!

ConLaw · Jan 22, 2015 5:49 pm

Thought I should share some photos of our progress:

Slab
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Slab with support beam for alfresco sliding doors
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Frame
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Frame
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Looking outside from the kitchen / dining area
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Looking into the house
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East Side (back) of the house
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South side of the house
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Jonooo · Jan 30, 2015 11:01 pm

Hi all, I have a question that I'm hoping someone can shed some light on regarding the NBN. We've paid 500 or so dollars already as part of our contract for an NBN conduit, associated PowerPoint and some other rubbish that was 'compulsory' according to our builder, which seems a load of rubbish. I'm sure there isn't a $500 charge for an equivalent telstra conduit where NBN isn't available.

From reading some NBN co. Paperwork we received a conduit into the house seems to be all we need from the builder in order to get NBN down the track. The other day we got a letter from fairmonts electrician, in it there is an explanation that to get the 'minimum' package for NBN we need to pay $900+ which includes some kind in tech hub box and a couple of data points. Do I really need to pay that extra $900 or is that something I can get an electrician or other trades person to do at a later date? We've been in the dark through the whole process of building and no one has accurately explained exactly what we will need to eventually get NBN and I'm under the impression builders and tradespeople are trying to gouge more money from us and profit from the confusion of a new technology. The info from NBN co. Is confusing at best so didn't really help us either! Any help would be much appreciated, we just can't afford another surprise $900+ we didn't know about.

On a positive note we now have a slab!

ConLaw · Feb 01, 2015 9:33 am

Hi Jonooo,

As you mentioned, personally it sounds like they are taking advantage of the situation. From my understanding, there are (??) 3 NBN installations options; fixed-optic (This what we have in SM), Fixed Wireless or Satellite and the NBN will pay for at least one of these types of installations to your home which includes the NBN Utility Box (Outside of the home), Connection Box, and power supply (both inside the home – generally in the garage).

You can either set it up with your builder (in cases of new dwellings) or I believe with existing homes in areas that are NBN compatible, you can arrange to set up the installation with your Internet provider. [This is what my current provider; Adam Internet; informed me as they said there is a 3 month waiting period for the NBN installation.]

It sounds like the extra $900+ Tech Hub Box is an extra add on or an upgrade?? From memory, a tech hub is a completely separate box where you can control what data goes to what room/area – that’s if you are having extra data points in all rooms/areas of the house. [I am no expert – but this what it sound like to me.]

With our builder, we paid $750 for “Provide pre-wire for NBN requirements as per encumbrances includes the following: 1) Standard 13m of services run, 2) 2x Cat data or phone points only and 3) power provision for NBN device to garage.” A few months later, we then paid an extra $141 as we needed extra cabling as the contracted 13m wasn’t enough due to the location as the NBN hadn’t been installed in our street at the time of our contract.

If you are currently with an internet provider, I suggest maybe contact them as they maybe be able to clarify this with you because if they want your business… They should be able to assist you to ensure everything is set up correctly..?

Below is our current electrical plan which shows where our builder is installing our NBN inside the garage. Check to see if your builder has drawn this in to your electrical plans and if they have, asked them why are you paying extra?

Hope this helps?

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Jonooo · Feb 01, 2015 9:08 pm

Cheers for the info! I looked through our contract again and the $500 we paid includes the conduit from the pit to our house then up into the roof cavity. I also called our sparky, the one we will use for our electrical work after the house is built and had a chat with him about it who laughed big time at the quoted price. He can sort the rest out for us for so so soooo much cheaper! Our NBN will go into our storage room, which is where we've told fairmont to put the powerpoints for it, which is marked on our plans. I'm calling Adam tomorrow (our current provider) to get info about it. If the wait is three months it'll be good to know before hand so we can book in advance! Love this forum and the help, thanks again.

ConLaw · Feb 08, 2015 11:41 am

Sorry for the late response – have been away. Forgot to mention in last post – congrats on the slab!! That is great news!!! Won’t be long now till you will have a frame up!

I rang and spoke with my Builder’s liaison manager who confirmed I need to get our internet provider to get the remaining NBN connected, so I rang Adam Internet (as I was previously told there is a 3 month wait from Adam Internet) but the sales person told me there is only approx. 20 days connection wait. I mentioned that is not what I was informed the other week but she reassured me it won’t take them long to get connected and that I will need to ring back closer to the date – otherwise, as soon as Adam Internet connects the NBN to the house, I will be paying for 2 services until I disconnect where I am living now. I even asked if they could connect the NBN but place my service on hold until I move in there and they said they don’t do this.

Received an email from our builder on Friday advising us that our painter finishes painting this week and that our tiler starts this week, but our front door was stolen last week..