Browse Forums Building A New House Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 41Sep 18, 2013 3:51 pm Hi SaveH20, We are in Ryde Council area in Sydney. Any feedback/observations would be appreciated. Thanks, Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 42Sep 19, 2013 6:02 pm Hi gregol02, I am going to break this down into: a)Rainwater harvesting best design practice. b) The detention system along with council & BASIX regulations. First, a couple of questions about the detention system. You posted on your blog "8000L retention and 1000L detention so we were going to need at least 2 tanks and a small underground bladder for overflow to stormwater." Where did you get these figures from? I have found it extremely difficult to read page 3 of the (blog) hydraulic plan but it indicates that there will be 3,000 litres detention. Page 2 also states that 3.05 cu. m. (3,050 litres) is required. Strangely enough, this is also the minimum capacity for a pumped system! (Hmmm). Page 1 shows that the two tanks will be 2,346 and 4,312 litres (total: 6658 litres) but these figures themselves are strange. Nevertheless, 6,658 + 3,050 = 9,708. Page 2 also states that the driveway area (36.40 sq m) is an impervious area that is factored into the detention system's collection area. Will the driveway in actual fact slope towards the street or could it be made to do so? There is additional expense in having an underground detention system and if the driveway will not in fact have any surface run off onto the property, then I have to query the need for the underground detention. I will leave the detention system for now until I get some feedback. Rainwater harvesting system. Several issues here and the following are all found on the page 1 blog attachment. (1) The two diagrams shown above RAINWATER TANK state that first flush diverters are to be fitted either at the tank or at individual downpipes. The diagrams also show them fitted to the vertical risers. First flush diverters should never be fitted to vertical risers as they will simply fill with the settled water in the riser whereas the first flush is at the other end of the wet system. You will lose yield for no gain. This is not regulated but it comes back to some very basic knowledge. (2) Your area's 1:20 Average Recurrence Interval (ARI) is 200 mm/hr. This is the calculation used for eaves gutter roof drainage and it is based on a 5 minute intensity of an average 3.33 mm/min. Your roof area is 229 sq m. During a 1:20 ARI, your roof will supply 763 lpm. The two tanks are shown to have either 90 mm or 100 mm overflow pipes. You can forget about two 90 mm overflow pipes as they have buckleys of draining over 380 lpm each and they should not have been mentioned. The same goes for two 100 mm pipes. The roof areas draining to each tank need calculating and the overflow pipes need to be calculated so that their overflow capacity is equal to or greater than the inflow capacity during a 1:20 ARI. Note that this is not regulated but again it comes back to good design. (3) They refer to having a "cleaning eye" on all charged pipes. I assume that this refers to Inspection Outlets (IO). Unless the rainfall is very heavy, charged pipes lack the velocity to transfer all of the detritus up a vertical riser. This is why wet (charged) systems can block up and/or turn the water stagnant. IOs have limited value as they often need to be fitted above the level of the horizontal wet pipe and what water is released drains rather than flushes from the pipe. The system needs to be designed with an additional low restriction flow path that feeds from the wet pipe at the riser to a valve fitted about 100 mm above the bottom of the tank. This allows the wet system to flush every time it rains and a competent designer will know this. To do this, the system MUST be fitted with mosquito proof leaf diverters on each downpipe as water is required to pass through mosquito proof mesh before it enters a tank. (4) Page 1 also states "An approved switch system similar to 'Rainbank' to be used via mains". The Plumbing Code of Australia (PCA) is the standard for all plumbing and drainage work in NSW since it replaced the NSW Code of Practice for Plumbing and Drainage and other local requirements several years ago. The Code calls up AS/NZS 3500 as a Deemed To Satisfy document. The Plumbing Code of Australia 2008 states: PART 7—REQUIREMENTS FOR WATER SUPPLY WORK 10 Definitions In this Part— automatic or manual interchange device means a device that by way of manual or automatic means can alternate between varying water sources; Requirements where rainwater used for sanitary flushing. (1) If a reticulated water supply from a network utility operator is connected, or proposed to be connected to a building where a rainwater tank is installed for the purpose of sanitary flushing, an automatic or manual interchange device that allows alternate use of water from the rainwater tank or the reticulated water supply must be installed to ensure that there is a continual supply of water for sanitary flushing”. A Rainbank or similar device as stipulated refers to an automatic mains water switching device. BASIX does not specify the use of an automatic mains water switching device; they refer users to the relevant plumbing codes and also to the water utility for their guidelines". I cannot find anything on the Ryde Council website that mandates the use of automatic mains water switching devices. In fact, it is easy to find outdated and incorrect information on their website. Manual mains water switching devices are cheaper and rarely cause problems. My own preference is to plumb a separate PEX pipe from the pump or a pressure tank that branches to a second cistern valve fitted to each cistern. This eliminates an expensive change over device as the toilet will then have an isolation valve for both mains and rainwater plus the cistern valves have an air gap in any case. It is also very neat to do this as opposed to having pipes and fittings hanging off outside walls. A diagram of a manual twin cistern valve system can be found on page 1 in the Victorian Plumbing Industry Commission technical solution sheet linked below. http://www.pic.vic.gov.au/__data/assets ... sterns.pdf Of interest, there are also mistakes in the Vic PIC document that I have linked. The reference to water tanks having to harvest a minimum of 50 sq m of roof is a (unstated) Victorian requirement for new houses that have to opt for either a solar HWS or a 2,000 litre water tank connected to all toilets. Most Victorian new homes fail the 50 sq m minimum requirement but are passed anyway(!!!) but that is another story. The twin cistern diagram pertains to the PCA and is uniform. Even if you prefer to have the more expensive automatic option, you and others should be given the choice. Note that many plumbers, builders and inspectors do not know the regulations and this misinformation often filters down through the food chain. This is why councils often give incorrect advice when their inspectors (who 'advise' others) do not know or understand the regulations. EDITS: Text tidy ups. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 43Sep 19, 2013 6:32 pm Quote: Page 2 also states that the driveway area (36.40 sq m) is an impervious area that is factored into the detention system's collection area. Will the driveway in actual fact slope towards the street or could it be made to do so? There is additional expense in having an underground detention system and if the driveway will not in fact have any surface run off onto the property, then I have to query the need for the underground detention. The purpose of detention systems is normally to limit the total storm water flow to the councils drains. Total means both direct pipe (for roof water) or indirect (off paved areas including driveways to the councils street drainage) Depending on the particular councils regulations some will allow discharge from the driveway others won't The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 44Sep 24, 2013 12:01 pm Hi SaveH20, Thanks so much for your feedback. SaveH2O You posted on your blog "8000L retention and 1000L detention so we were going to need at least 2 tanks and a small underground bladder for overflow to stormwater." Where did you get these figures from? These figures came from one of the first emails we received from a Hydraulics Engineer at the Consulting firm engaged on our behalf by Wisdom. Our case was eventually taken over by the owner of the firm who revised them a couple of times and the final revision is what I posted on my blog. They have never made a site visit. SaveH2O Page 2 also states that the driveway area (36.40 sq m) is an impervious area that is factored into the detention system's collection area. Will the driveway in actual fact slope towards the street or could it be made to do so? There is additional expense in having an underground detention system and if the driveway will not in fact have any surface run off onto the property, then I have to query the need for the underground detention. The driveway slopes towards the house and cannot be changed without raising the height of the slab which we don't want to do. Thanks, Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 45Sep 29, 2013 5:11 pm I have to assume that the underground 3,000 litre detention system drains to an off site underground stormwater pipe as the detention storage is next to a driveway that slopes back to the house! As previously mentioned, I have difficulty reading the third document. The second document show that 5.99 lps (359.4 lpm) is the Permitted Site Discharge (PSD). This is the maximum hydraulic flow attained when the detention capacity is full with maximum head. Your 1:20 Average Recurrence Interval is either 195 mm/hr zone 1 or 186 mm/hr in zone 2 (as per page 3 of the Ryde Council document linked further below (but this needs verifying). Let us assume the lesser zone 1 (an average of 3.1 mm of rain per minute for a 5 minute duration). The driveway and roof area would therefore produce 265.4 (sq m) X 3.1 (mm per minute) = 822.74 lpm, a difference of 463.34 litres per minute when the detention capacity was full and generating the maximum flow (359.4 lpm). Even with the lower figure of 186 mm/hr used in this example, a 1,000 litre detention capacity as first advised would be grossly under engineered. This was immediately obvious when I read your post and it is of great concern that this was first suggested by a professional hydraulic engineer who needs to be conversant in fluid dynamics. Note that AS/NZS 3500.3:2003 shows that your 1:20 ARI is 200 mm/hr. This is an average of 884.7 lpm off 265.4 sq m during a 1:20 ARI in your area or an additional 62 lpm to the 1:20 ARI of 186 mm/hr figures used above as per the Ryde Council document linked below. http://www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/_Documents/F ... ackage.pdf You will notice that page 3 in the Ryde Council document mentions an alternative above ground system. This would be considerably cheaper. Were you given an option? Unfortunately, you are (possibly/probably) locked to a below ground system because the driveway drainage cannot be serviced by an above ground system. The price quoted is very high. The hydraulic engineer would have a basic template and when doing multiple houses in the one estate, the calculations and design are quick and easy to do. Doing multiple jobs would be gravy! The problem that many new home buyers have is that they are seduced by the low prices that project builders offer but the houses then built end up costing way more than the base price. Project home builders factor this into their bottom line. If they built and sold homes at the advertised price, they would go broke. The money is in the mark ups, kick backs and variations, in your case the onsite detention system (ODS) as a starter ($24,000). It is something that a lot of people do not realise or fail to consider but that's the way it is. Edited 30/10/2013. Had written $20,000, changed to $24,000. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 46Oct 04, 2013 8:03 pm Well we haven't added to our blog for a little while and it is hard to ask anyone questions because we don't really know what is happening. Wisdom received their third non-compliance from the council for our application today. We don't know what the non-compliance was for this time as Wisdom contacted the council this afternoon and haven't let us know yet what the problem is. We thought it might have been wise to phone early in the day today in case the council had things to address and we could have been briefed before the long weekend (our countdown to the deadline to build is ticking). We don't know yet if it is because Wisdom failed to include/address something in the application that was asked for or whether council has added to their requests. It seems pretty straight forward to us. You just address the criteria listed by council and that should get you through. Obviously something was wrong from one of the parties however so we will continue to sit and wait for someone to give us some information. Ah well. Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 47Oct 04, 2013 10:32 pm Two bald men fighting over a comb. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 48Oct 05, 2013 7:48 am Yep. Got to love red tape!! It is actually a bit annoying as you look at the house being built next to us which went through CDC and they haven't done any of the things we have been asked to do with our build and they are on exactly the same slope. Anyway we shall wait and see. No point getting too worked up when we don't know what the problem is. Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 49Oct 05, 2013 12:15 pm Jazz_J No point getting too worked up when we don't know what the problem is. Good attitude. I hope that everything else is smooth sailing. 3in1 Supadiverta. Rainwater Harvesting Best Practice using syphonic drainage. Cleaner Neater Smarter Cheaper Supa Gutter Pumper. A low cost syphonic eaves gutter overflow solution. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 50Oct 08, 2013 10:16 am gregol02 The money is in the mark ups, kick backs and variations, in your case the onsite detention system (ODS) as a starter ($20,000). It is something that a lot of people do not realise or fail to consider but that's the way it is. Thanks SaveH20 for the assistance. We have used some of your information and written a list of items we are not happy with in our Hydraulics plan and variation and provided this to Wisdom. We have sought 3rd party consumer advice as we believe that we have been denied the opportunity to seek an alternative as we were told if we didn't sign then there would be no house built, so we signed relunctantly. Jazz_J No point getting too worked up when we don't know what the problem is. Jazz_J I need to adopt the same attitude as you as I don't want to let the bullies get me down. I saw your complaint on Product Review. I also posted an earlier complaint which you may have seen, but it got me no where except a wrap on the knuckles from Dominic Vitalone who insinuated I was dragging his company's name through the mud. Apparently Wisdom can do no wrong but the customer can always be blamed. So not sure who to blame for the fact our DA has now been delayed by 3 weeks because a fence which was in the landscape plan was missed from other drawings, the land size was shown incorrectly in the Basix report and the total glazed area was also incorrect in the Basix report. Must be council's fault for finding the errors. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 51Oct 08, 2013 6:56 pm Well Wisdom fixed the non-compliance notice today which was two very minor points. One point was that our BASIX notes had to be amended to include the correct rainwater collection amount and the other was the structural details needed to be amended to indicate a soil class of High (H1) as per the Geotechnical classification. I assume this may have been a big cost problem for us if we had gone with the original recommendations from the Wisdom contracted engineer, who had indicated an M class slab and non exposure bricks were ok. Not quite sure about all this but we had already upgraded our slab to H1 anyway and had exposure grade bricks put on the house. Hopefully this means we don't have any further costs and Council has now given conditional approval for our DA.........HOORAY!!!!! Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 52Oct 11, 2013 7:49 am Congrats Jazz-J that's a great news. Hopefully no more dramas..... Find Out About Bungarribee Community At http://bungarribee.com Building Washington 29 from Wisdom Homes - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=63920&p=1011725#p1011725 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 53Oct 12, 2013 9:40 am Jazz_J Council has now given conditional approval for our DA.........HOORAY!!!!! Congratulations Jazz_J. We also got our council approval on Friday. Looks like our builds may progress simultaneously, although we have a demolition and pool excavation to squeeze in before site cut. Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 54Oct 15, 2013 7:33 pm Thanks Transformation and Gregol02 Yep we got the official letter from council on Monday and the bank pack has been forwarded. Not sure how long the next step takes but it is nice to have that DA out the way. Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 55Oct 24, 2013 1:32 pm Hey Jazz_J how is everything? Any progress? Find Out About Bungarribee Community At http://bungarribee.com Building Washington 29 from Wisdom Homes - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=63920&p=1011725#p1011725 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 56Oct 27, 2013 8:37 pm No but we have been away in Darwin for about 9 days and got back today so haven't really been on the house ball so much. We will be following up our bank and Wisdom this week and hopefully will have some news. Our bank lost our information from Wisdom (don't know how you lose an email but anyway!) but that was resent early last week so we will see what has transpired. Hopefully all is well. Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 57Nov 01, 2013 7:52 pm So we received our Post contract variation today which was good although there was an error which we need to get fixed. It took us about 10 minutes to cross reference the full document with our variations and notice 1 error. Does anyone think it strange it has taken Wisdom 16 days to complete the variation document since DA approval when they don't have to get any costings or anything. Surely it must only take about 30minutes to just transfer the information across. It can't be that they are super thorough as we found an error. Anyway we keep waiting. We put more details on our blog if you want to have a look. Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 58Nov 02, 2013 9:22 am Jazz_J So we received our Post contract variation today which was good although there was an error which we need to get fixed. It took us about 10 minutes to cross reference the full document with our variations and notice 1 error. Does anyone think it strange it has taken Wisdom 16 days to complete the variation document since DA approval when they don't have to get any costings or anything. Surely it must only take about 30minutes to just transfer the information across. It can't be that they are super thorough as we found an error. Anyway we keep waiting. We put more details on our blog if you want to have a look. Unfortunately you do need to check everything as errors do occur. I think time wise it doesn't take long to prepare the post contract variation, but that task is one of many things the admin people do and you are probably put in a queue hence why it takes so long. Our site start was 14 weeks after DA approval, so there can be a bit of a wait til you start, but I think our timeframe is hopefully the exception. Ah, The joys of admin! Certainly tests your patience, the build should move along quicker. We built the Wisdom Majestic 40 - moved in! Our blog - http://ourwisdommajestic40.blogspot.com.au/ Our H1 thread - viewtopic.php?t=54156 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 59Nov 02, 2013 7:06 pm Onewheel Jazz_J So we received our Post contract variation today which was good although there was an error which we need to get fixed. It took us about 10 minutes to cross reference the full document with our variations and notice 1 error. Does anyone think it strange it has taken Wisdom 16 days to complete the variation document since DA approval when they don't have to get any costings or anything. Surely it must only take about 30minutes to just transfer the information across. It can't be that they are super thorough as we found an error. Anyway we keep waiting. We put more details on our blog if you want to have a look. Unfortunately you do need to check everything as errors do occur. I think time wise it doesn't take long to prepare the post contract variation, but that task is one of many things the admin people do and you are probably put in a queue hence why it takes so long. Our site start was 14 weeks after DA approval, so there can be a bit of a wait til you start, but I think our timeframe is hopefully the exception. Ah, The joys of admin! Certainly tests your patience, the build should move along quicker. Yep those 14weeks must have been torture Onewheel. We should count our blessings if we get started by our cut off date then. Fingers crossed! Building a Washington 29 with Wisdom Homes Our Blog: http://ourwashingtonhome.wordpress.com/ Our Thread: https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=66117&hilit=washington+29 Re: No more renos! Time to build a Washington 29 Wisdom Home 60Nov 02, 2013 7:44 pm Hi Jazz_J, We seem to be aligned with you at this stage as far as the admin process goes as we too got our final variations to sign off. Ours took the same amount of time as yours and this was because Wisdom had to wait to see if the private certifier who issues the construction certificate had any requirements that had to be added into the final variation list. In our case there were a few things which are listed on my blog. This means for us we cannot get our construction certificate until all conditions are met. One of the conditions states that Wisdom must provide 4 copies of final drawings to them. So we have to sign off the final variations and then they will do the final drawings which is at least a 10 working day wait. Once we sign off on those they will go to the certifier who should issue the construction certificate. We were promised a site start before Christmas and our tender expires at the end id December, but it seems unlikely Wisdom will be on site by then. We have learnt to take no notice of any time frames they quote us. On another note, did anybody who did their floors after handover have to pay Wisdom a fee for just tacking on the skirting boards? Can someone please offer some advice? Im DESPERATE. Because I'm completely and utterly exhausted. How long are variations taking with other companies at the moment? We… 0 18435 Hi, guys! If you've built with Wisdom Homes, would you mind sharing images of your front facades once they're all rendered? I'm considering signing up with them for a wide… 0 13869 So it looks like we finally have some movement on site! Definitely later than expected, but I'll take any progress at this point. I'll drop by over the weekend to get… 5 27188 |