Browse Forums Building A New House Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 83Jun 17, 2014 6:37 pm Hi D_rail, frustrating I know, but as you say, uncontrollable. This WA weather of ours is rather unpredictable. But give it time (easier said than done I know!) and we'll get there in the end! -Shannon. Dale Alcock Homes. We love building. T: 08 9242 9200 Mon – Fri 8am-5pm Sat - 10-4 thedacrew@dalealcock.com.au http://www.dalealcock.com.au http://www.facebook.com/dalealcockhomes Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 84Jun 17, 2014 9:54 pm Hi D_rail We are also building with Dale Alcock and have our prestart tomorrow. We just finished the demolition of our old house and had our pool put in this week. Loved looking through all your colour selections, I think you have picked the same 600x600 tile that I want through our living areas. Love the look of the big tiles but I am really scared about the $$$$$. Did you end up going with the tiles or did you decide on wood flooring? Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 85Jun 17, 2014 10:45 pm tanyaw Hi D_rail We are also building with Dale Alcock and have our prestart tomorrow. We just finished the demolition of our old house and had our pool put in this week. Loved looking through all your colour selections, I think you have picked the same 600x600 tile that I want through our living areas. Love the look of the big tiles but I am really scared about the $$$$$. Did you end up going with the tiles or did you decide on wood flooring? Best of luck for tomorrow Tanya. We haven't made any decisions with flooring yet, but we're leaning towards wood (probably laminate). The tile are upwards of $100-150/sqm and we have around 150 sqm to cover. As much as we like the tiles, we're worried they'll date and will be really hard to replace. We also like grey tones through our walls so we're worried our house would be too grey. I'm sure we'll change our mind another ten times before finalising! Look forward to hearing more about your build. Who did you do your pool through? Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 86Jun 17, 2014 11:29 pm Quote: Who did you do your pool through? We have used Barrier Reef Pools. All has gone well up to this point but the real test will be when we take the planking off in 12months time. Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 88Aug 02, 2014 10:11 pm Given the few days without rain, we stopped past our block tonight and were a little surprised and excited to see that our site had been surveyed and boundary repegged. There even appeared to be track marks from an excavator on the block. Unfortunately, the excavator hasn't done any work and we can only assume they decided it was too wet to start. The block is still very wet in the areas with lots of clay. At least there isn't any pools of water left on the block. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking, but there may be an outside chance that we'll start this week. A forecast of 24 degrees for Wednesday should help dry it out a bit more! Fingers crossed! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 89Aug 30, 2014 3:49 pm I love the rain and illegal dumpers..... Not. As if we didn't have enough clay to get rid of someone added about 10 cubic metres to our block this morning. They were stupid enough to be from about 500m from our house and our neighbours and their neighbours confirmed the timing of the pick up and dump. A little visit to the owners will be happening later this arvo. I hope it was their contractor and not them personally. Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 90Aug 30, 2014 5:47 pm That is so rude! I hope they cop a big fine. Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 91Aug 30, 2014 7:46 pm So, long story short, the owner was lovely and quite shocked at what happened. They used the same earth mover that our building company uses, so I suspect they've saved a trip to the tip. That said, a courtesy call/ email wouldn't have gone a stray! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 92Sep 19, 2014 6:18 pm With the weather warming up and a few days (9) without any rain I was hopeful that our site works might have actually commenced this week. I somewhat optimistically contacted DA hoping for some good news. I should also say that I've refrained from contacting them before now and actually hadn't received any updates since the end of June. The feedback we received was that our site was still too wet and it would take a few weeks of dry warm weather before the site works could commence. I'm sure conditions aren't ideal but the entire building industry doesn't shut down for 6 months when building on clay sites on the East Coast of Australia. Based on their response, I can't see how our build will start before November. This will only be 12 months after signing the PWC. Given our site conditions were known for so long, I can't help but get frustrated at the lengthy delays that we experienced earlier this year! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 93Sep 19, 2014 6:39 pm That's pretty woeful and I think you make a good comment about how it works well over East and really clay isn't anything new around here either. I have bucket loads of it on our site and HGWA have managed to still get our slab pour done. I thought our delay was bad enough, yours is far worse. I don't know what else to say other than I know your frustration and to keep at them. Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 94Sep 19, 2014 6:53 pm Marcia That's pretty woeful and I think you make a good comment about how it works well over East and really clay isn't anything new around here either. I have bucket loads of it on our site and HGWA have managed to still get our slab pour done. I thought our delay was bad enough, yours is far worse. I don't know what else to say other than I know your frustration and to keep at them. Thanks Marcia. It's good to see your build going up quickly as a result of your persistence. At least some of our delay can be attributed to our site conditions which are out or ours and our builders hands. However, I seem to think the current reluctance of the builder to start is an issue of cost maintenance. Obviously damp clay will cost more to transport than bone dry clay. The site conditions didn't prevent them from driving up onto our block to dump wet clay a couple of weekends ago! Maybe it's just the cynic in me..... I'm just hoping this will become a distant memory when they start! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 95Sep 19, 2014 7:00 pm D_rail Maybe it's just the cynic in me..... I'm just hoping this will become a distant memory when they start! I found the more delays we had, the more cynical I became. And the more cynical I became, the more dogged I became. And I am the least cynical person around which made me feel even worse. I will say tho, now that I have something to look at and can see progress I am slowly relaxing about the build. No doubt there will be things that fire me up again, but at the moment I am almost back in a positive frame of mind. Not quote there yet, but close. The thing that bugs me the most about all builders and building, is the contract gives them xxx number of days to complete - that should be worst case scenario, not used as a crux to suit their own budgets and costs. I think you are right about heavy wet clay sand vs lighter, drier clay sands. That sucks! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Delayed 96Oct 18, 2014 5:59 pm We had a pleasant surprise when we went for a routine drive by our block this morning...... Earthworks had started! However, we're a tad nervous that it might have been a little premature with today's forecast of rain. I had called the builder last week for an update. When a few days had past with no follow up, I called again to check on the situation. I was told that the earth works company would visit the block at the end of the week and make a call on when the work could be scheduled in. They obviously scheduled it in for either the same or next day. I really shouldn't complain, but I really hope that this rain doesn't settle on the block and turn it into a pond! Anyway, here's some photos, 500mm of clay removed and now we're waiting on some retaining before adding a 900mm sand pad. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Progress! 97Oct 20, 2014 8:13 pm Yay for progress You must be so excited!!! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Progress! 99Oct 20, 2014 10:49 pm Very excited to have actually started. And relieved the rain didn't affect the block too much and there were only a couple of small puddles left today. Can't wait for that slab! Re: KDR - Dale Alcock Eastern suburbs - Progress! 100Oct 30, 2014 11:52 pm It's been a busy couple of weeks for us with a laundry and bathroom reno. Our bathroom becomes useable again tomorrow. A shower screen, custom mirror , re-coating the bath and towel rails will finish it off. We've had progress at the block with a start on our sand pad. They still need to retain one side and finish the fill. We've been told that siteworks will be completed by next Monday with the slab to follow after. The sand pad is massive! 900mm in total and it takes up about 60% of our block. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Last year I had a gas leak at my house. 3 days later, I have about 1 sqm of my exposed aggregate paving broken up. I am not sure how to go about getting it repaired… 0 10408 After some ideas on making our patio kid friendly . Currently we have exposed aggregate. 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