NBG Buckingham 36E, Moved in and lots of pics... finally!!!

House-To-Be · Aug 18, 2008 12:13 pm

Hi Mel&Em, congratulations on your start, lucky you can drive by so many times in one day!!! I only get to ours once a week!!!

Will enjoy watching/comparing your house go up. A friend is also building the Buckingham - heavily modified (she's the one who left a message on your blog :wink:

)

Bring on the slab

Mel&Em · Aug 18, 2008 2:45 pm

Hi Brittany, it's annoying when they make you wait. That was one of the reasons we decided against building over the easement (all the crap associated with applying/approval etc). I wish I could drive past our block that often, its a good 15-20 mins away and out of my way during my drive home from work. I'm lucky to get out there once or twice a week.

HTB, your friend sounds like she is playing the waiting game at the moment. Hope it all speeds up for her now that its about to start.

Update on our block... We've got concrete piers on the back half of the block in readiness for the slab. They have still got to do the drainage before the slab goes in. (hopefully this week). I think the weather is causing some grief. This drought had better be over :evil:

brittany · Aug 18, 2008 6:44 pm

Rain rain go away, go rain on someone elses block!

Mel&Em · Aug 19, 2008 9:35 pm

The drainage pipes are all in and sticking out of the ground. They have also spread crushed rock over everything to smooth it out again. I've posted pics on the blog as its easier to do it that way. Hopefully, we'll have a slab soon.

Mel&Em · Aug 22, 2008 8:15 pm

Does anyone know if there are any potential problems with pouring a slab on wet fill? We've got concrete piers and the soil has been compacted, but walking on it today, there were still plenty of areas where my feet sank into the mud.

Any comments??

to_do_list · Aug 22, 2008 9:07 pm

Mel&Em

Does anyone know if there are any potential problems with pouring a slab on wet fill? We've got concrete piers and the soil has been compacted, but walking on it today, there were still plenty of areas where my feet sank into the mud.

Any comments??

Nup.....engineering wise it's fine in fact you can get issues in summer if the ground is too dry and the soil "pulls" the water out of the concrete and the concrete doesn't hydrate (set) properly.

Of got some photos of some work we did this winter on my project at work, we had an excavator bogged to the top of it's tracks, and we could still do concrete in these conditions.

Mel&Em · Aug 26, 2008 8:40 pm

Hey all

I went past the block today and we've got a slab. They boxed it up yesterday and poured it today. Really excited to see the shape of the house and where it sits in relation to the rest of the block.

How long do they normally leave the slab to set before putting up the frame?

Sharee · Aug 27, 2008 10:11 am

A slab is exciting! They only left our slab for a couple of days before they started our frame!! It was then another couple of weeks before they put the roof tiles on.

Mel&Em · Aug 27, 2008 11:39 am

Wow, that's quick. Hopefully ours continues moving along. Tell you what though, they were quick to send the base stage payment invoice. Slab was poured yesterday and I was emailed the invoice this morning. That's fine though, as long as it continues.

Does anyone know how double stories work during the frame build. Do they do both stories at once, or some other way?

House-To-Be · Aug 27, 2008 7:13 pm

Yes we got our invoice for the base the day after the slab was poured. The acct depts don't muck around!

Our slab was poured on a Monday, timber delivered Wednesday and pre-cut started. On Friday the lower frame was resting on the slab and by Saturday it was all up. They then put the oregon timber up to create the space between the two floors and then they started on the top frame - we did have to wait a week because someone stole our timber for upstairs :roll:

Check out some of the blogs, there are alot of two storey houses going up at the moment.

brittany · Aug 30, 2008 9:32 pm

Our slab sat for several weeks. Then the frame for the ground floor seemed to go up in two days. Then straight after the bricks for the outer garage wall and the columns in the alfresco and the area outside the laundry. Monday supposedly they are delivering the steel which provides the support for the second floor. The reason they only bricked those three areas is that they need them to put the bricks on as there is no frame in those areas. Then the framers are due back to do the upstairs and then the brickies. At this rate you will be ahead of us in no time. I love my bricks - I have dithered about changing mortar colour back and forth but very happy with them.

Mel&Em · Sep 01, 2008 2:08 pm

Hi Brittany

It does sound like we may get ahead of you, but who knows what delays we will be hit with in the coming months.

What bricks did you go with and did you go with the natural or white mortar.

What was the hold up with the frame. Did they end up telling you?

Em

brittany · Sep 01, 2008 6:34 pm

We've gone for domino bricks whcih are nearly black. We ended up going with the natural/grey mortar. I drove around and around and looked at houses and dithered and convinced myself I had gone the wrong choice. But looking at them up I love them and the mortar and have no idea what all the fuss is about. My husband just rolls his eyes. It will be the darkest house in the street but we've gone for a red garage door and front door and the side panelling is a tannish brown. No steel today but it is booked for Wednesday (I hope!). He says it will take four to six weeks from today till the roof is finished weather permitting. The inside he hopes will be quicker. He says the three trades he is struggling with are brickies, framers and roofers. They are going to have all sorts of issues with the trusses and steel as no heavy vehicles allowed in our street and the power lines are smack bang in the wrong spot.

Mel&Em · Sep 30, 2008 2:35 pm

We have our ground floor frame up and bricks delivered for some structural work. When they are working, they work quickly...

brittany · Sep 30, 2008 10:28 pm

Wow the race is on between us but I have no illusions of keeping up someone how. Your builder really does move. Our second floor frame is up and the roof trusses being delivered on Thursday. Amazing looking at your frame - your rooms are all on the other side than ours.

blessedpeople · Oct 01, 2008 1:28 pm

How exciting to see the progress of your buckinghams!!!! It really makes me so happy to see you the building process moving on steadily.

We finally got the building permit last week. Met with the builder on Monday and signed off on the plans. Expected start date is 21 days so hopefully, by the grace of God, we will have some updates before the end of October.

Mel & Em, I am simply dumbfounded at how fast your building process is going...hopefully it continues all the way until handover

)

Brit, I love your choice of bricks...if we weren't going with a plastered rendering, i think we would have seriously considered paying the extra and going with either domino or the Vic blue one (sorry can't remember the name)...i really like the contrast of your red garage door...what are you going with for the driveway?

Also, did either of you do any changes in terms of lighting. Our builder said something bout the standard lighting (being all downlights) leaving the house a little dim hence the reason why the display home doesn't have any windows coverings. What are your thoughts?

Speak to you soon...Happy building!

Mel&Em · Oct 01, 2008 1:51 pm

Hi Blessedpeople

Congratulations on the paperwork. It was the hard part for us as well.

We did not make any changes to the lighting, but did on other aspects of the house.

Let us know when you get started and post some pics for us to compare.

Good luck

Em

brittany · Oct 01, 2008 10:54 pm

I think we're just going to concrete the whole front yard with a black tint. Might be a bad idea as will show tyre marks badly. Not sure. Lighting we didn't do any changes. We are however putting in ceiling fans with lights in the master and guest bedroom. Also a ceiling fan over the meals area and one in the alresco. I was keen on getting rid of all the down lights which chew up energy and replace them with oyster fittings that take the new fluros. My husband was far keener on down lights. We're used to living with downlights and use lamps for reading spots.

Mel&Em · Oct 02, 2008 1:21 pm

Hi guys

I just received a call from our builder who said that they will be starting some of the brickwork tomorrow. He also asked what colour mortar I had chosen. I informed him that we had gone for the white mortar and had paid extra for it. He asked whether we had asked for white or off-white (white sand but off white cement). I said we had asked for white. He asked how much extra we had paid and I said around $800.00. He explained that the cost for full white mortar was about $3000 so we had only paid for the off white.

Does this sound right? When I ordered the mortar through NBG, we weren't asked whether we wanted off white cement. We asked for white mortar and were given a price which we accepted. These other issues never came up at the time.

Any advice would be appreciated as they are starting the brickwork tomorrow.

brittany · Oct 02, 2008 4:44 pm

Drag out your paperwork first and check what it says. Interestingly we got a phone call from our builder one day before bricking asking which mortar colour we had chosen. We had decided not to upgrade and even though I dithered at the eleventh hour we did not end up upgrading. I like our mortar now we have bricks up too. Maybe its a builders trick to get some more moula... ?