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Hi All,
We have been looking at display homes for almost a year now and have finally made the decision to go with the Dunedin 29 by Porter Davis. We also purchased a block earlier this year in Merrifield Estate which is located in Mickleham, Victoria and are excited to start building our first home
Below is the standard plan of the Dunedin 29, which we have made modified slightly to suit our needs;
Our biggest layout modification is to close off the 'Study' with an added access door from the garage. The reason for this is we are going to be installing an in-wall fish tank along the wall that separates the study and dining area. Here are some screen shots of the 3D cad model I have been drawing up of our house plan which shows the location of the fish tank;
Here is a short list of the upgrades we have chosen:Promotions- The gourmet touch
- Free Colorbond roof
- Stylish solutions
- A place for everything
Extras- Griffith Facade
- Extended kitchen bench 3340mm x 250mm
- 600mm Deep laminate bench top to WIP
- Alfresco
- 300mm high raised ceiling to entrance
- 1800mm high x 600mm wide Aluminum square set reveal awing window to En suite
- 1000mm high x 1800mm wide Aluminum sliding window to laundry
- 325mm high x 1025mm wide x 90mm deep niche to En suite shower wall
- Sliding doors to WIR and WIP
- 2340mm high x 820mm wide & 520mm wide double doors to Master bedroom
- Privacy adapter to Bathroom and WC
- Additional wall tiles to En-suite
- Additional tiles to kitchen splash back
- Additional tiles to bathroom
- 900mm extension of mirror over bath in the bathroom
- Brivis Promina P65 Evap cooling
- Additional hot/cold water, gas (alfresco) and waste point
- Phoenix Twin Lexi shower with square overhead rose
- Blanco 900m wide stainless steel glass canopy range hood
- R2.5 sound screen insulation to Theater, garage, WC, bathroom and En-suite
- Timber look garage door
- 820mm wide and 520mm hinged door to Theater room
- 2100mm high x 2700mm wide 3 panel Boutique style door (Family/Alfresco)
- Upgraded front door frame to accommodate 1020mm door with 330m wide side light on either side
- Upgraded front door
- Door bell
- Heat/Fan/light to En-suite
- Additional self sealing fan to Laundry
- 2100mm x 2400mm Boutique style door (Rumpus/Alfresco)
- Cat 4 bricks with white mortar
- Upgraded toilets to
- Porcher Vallo vessel basins
- Porcher Cygnet toilets
There are many more costs such as site costs, developer covenants, bush fire attack levy... but what I have listed above is most of our chosen upgrades, SO FAR!
Our experience so far with PD has been quite positive. We were in discussion with them for over 4 months back and forth with changes to the quote. The sales consultant was extremely helpful, knowledgeable and patient throughout the whole process! The only recommendation I have is, go to Hopetoun Interiors and PD tile shop. Then ask the SC for pricing before you put the initial deposit down!! Our quote changed A LOT after we had visited Hopetoun and picked all our extras.
We both look forward to sharing our experience with everyone on here and appreciate any feedback/advice given.
Cheers!
Got an intro call from our BC today. Tender appointment is on the 23/07/2014. We are very excited and it will be interesting to see what it all adds up too.
Here are a few pics from Hopetoun interiors and our initial 'selections';
This is the look we are going for on our Facade. It's not the same as our chosen Facade layout wise but the colour scheme will be similar. We saw this at the display village in Mernda and fell in love with it.
Front door
Wood look garage panel door
Render and brick
Colorbond roof
That's pretty much all that we have (kinda) decided on for now. Feel free to critique
you have the same sort of facade theme going as us, I love the timber look garages so much!
and the stained timber door! We're getting our front facade windows in timber just to match then the rest is aluminium
Cant wait to see yours come together. I love watching builds with the same taste that I have!
Awesome! Yes I agree, timber look garages look great.
Interesting, never thought about that. I will speak to my better half and see what she thinks. We were going to go with black aluminum for the front but I think you might be right. We should go with wooden look to match the doors and then aluminum for the rest of the house.
Thank you very much! Look forward to seeing your build coming together for the same reason.
joea... I am very excited for you and am looking forward to following your journey!
Got our 'Preliminary' soil test report today. It's based on a approximate location of where the block is going to be as construction is not complete yet.
It gives us a rough idea of what to expect for site costs and our SC was spot on, H2 Class waffle slab.
Here is a screen shot from the report, if anyone can help me make sense of that table that would be great! Specifically the soil description section.
Cheers
Oh wow the one thing I have always wanted! A fish tank in the wall. This is going to be amazing!
Cheers onggie! Really looking forward to having it
will post photos once it is all set up.
[quote="joea"]Got our 'Preliminary' soil test report today. It's based on a approximate location of where the block is going to be as construction is not complete yet.
It gives us a rough idea of what to expect for site costs and our SC was spot on, H2 Class waffle slab.
Here is a screen shot from the report, if anyone can help me make sense of that table that would be great! Specifically the soil description section.
http://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag297/joeassi/Sectionofsoiltest_zpsf102adb3.jpgCheers[/quote
joea
might be able to help with the description what is it you would like explained
Hi Insider,
I don't understand what B, B1 -and CH stand for. I also don't understand what is meant by "refusal on hard basaltic base hole 1"
Thanks
Hi Joea
B,B1 are just different layers of soil ,the CH stands for a clay that is highly plastic that means it is a highly reactive clay layer.
Refusal means that they basically hit rock and couldn't get any further.
So you have a 200mm layer of fill then below that a highly reactive basalt clay layer and then basalt rock at 700mm and 1100mm.
This is a very common soil profile in the west and northern suburns of Melbourne.The highly reactive clay is the reason you have got
a "H2" ,if the fill layer was deeper than you would get a class "p".
Not sure why they didn't comment on the compaction of the fill but it is a prelim. report I suppose.
Hope that helps
Hi Joea
B,B1 are just different layers of soil ,the CH stands for a clay that is highly plastic that means it is a highly reactive clay layer.
Refusal means that they basically hit rock and couldn't get any further.
So you have a 200mm layer of fill then below that a highly reactive basalt clay layer and then basalt rock at 700mm and 1100mm.
This is a very common soil profile in the west and northern suburns of Melbourne.The highly reactive clay is the reason you have got
a "H2" ,if the fill layer was deeper than you would get a class "p".
Not sure why they didn't comment on the compaction of the fill but it is a prelim. report I suppose.
Hope that helps
Hi Insider,
Thank you very much for your information. It makes the report much more understandable. It seems like the sites in Northern and Western suburbs are not really an 'ideal' location to build a home but I guess that's what it is and we have to trust (and monitor) that the engineering of the slab is up to scratch. The report also states that owner maintenance is required which is basically what was mentioned in the 'has anyone rectified slab heave' topic. Drainage, no vegetation near slab etc...
So with the basalt rock being at 700mm and 1100mm, does that mean that the piers need to go that deep?
The information I posted was only a snippet of the whole report (6 pages in total). I looked through it and nothing mentions compaction of the fill. I will look for it in the final report, is there anything in particular I should take note of about compaction of the fill?
Thank you again for your help.
From what the report says doesn't necessary mean you will need piers unless it is stated somewhere else in the report.If you are going with a raft slab then the beams will be dug down to sit in the natural clay.This would be my preferred footing system in highly reactive soil
Once it is determined you reqiure piers a engineer will be required to design the slab.
The engineer will generally determine the pier depth using the soil report as a guide.
The rock depth in the west and north sometimes is very difficult to determine if it is base bedrock or
what the call floaters which are round basalt rocks sitting in the clay.You may have seen old fences made from rock floaters on the side of the road.
The fill is only 200mm so probably won't be any compaction report ,developers are allowed to spread shallow top soil without any compaction report just as top dressing.Just a bit sloppy of the soil testing company not to mention their opinion of the fill but don't worry nothing major.
There is a organisation called HEDRA who has put out a similar guide to the CSIRO one and it's
more current and a little bit better in my opinion but the are both must reads if your on reactive clay.
From what the report says doesn't necessary mean you will need piers unless it is stated somewhere else in the report.If you are going with a raft slab then the beams will be dug down to sit in the natural clay.This would be my preferred footing system in highly reactive soil
Once it is determined you reqiure piers a engineer will be required to design the slab.
The engineer will generally determine the pier depth using the soil report as a guide.
The rock depth in the west and north sometimes is very difficult to determine if it is base bedrock or
what the call floaters which are round basalt rocks sitting in the clay.You may have seen old fences made from rock floaters on the side of the road.
The fill is only 200mm so probably won't be any compaction report ,developers are allowed to spread shallow top soil without any compaction report just as top dressing.Just a bit sloppy of the soil testing company not to mention their opinion of the fill but don't worry nothing major.
There is a organisation called HEDRA who has put out a similar guide to the CSIRO one and it's
more current and a little bit better in my opinion but the are both must reads if your on reactive clay.
Insider,
Sorry I didn't really share other parts of the report as I didn't know what was 'Generic' and what was specific to our block. Here is another section that states the Footing recommendation:
Looks like they recommend both but my guess will be that PD will only accept Waffle slab. I will ask the question in our upcoming tender appointment as it seems most recommendations I am getting is to go with a raft slab 'If I have the choice'.
I will track down the HEDRA guide and have a good read through it, thank you for recommending it.
I can't thank you enough for the time you have spent guiding me through this report.
No problem joea
It looks like a pretty standard report.You might just want to black out their name below prelim footing recommendations.
Earthworks are still in progress so things may change when you get your second soil test.
I would still push your builder to use a raft slab
One question you may want to ask your builder is, are you designing and installing proper drainage as per the Australian Standards recommendations(agi drains etc).
No problem joea
It looks like a pretty standard report.You might just want to black out their name below prelim footing recommendations.
Earthworks are still in progress so things may change when you get your second soil test.
I would still push your builder to use a raft slab
One question you may want to ask your builder is, are you designing and installing proper drainage as per the Australian Standards recommendations(agi drains etc).
Ah I missed that bit! Thanks for pointing it out.
Yea I will push for a raft slab and definitely will be asking the question about drainage.
Cheers
We did some tile shopping and colour matching on the weekend. Few photos of the combinations we were looking at...
For the kitchen cabinets we are thinking of going with 'Basalt' for the top and 'Evening Shale' for the island and bottom bench. Not sure if we should do 'Basalt' for both cabinets against the wall and just the island in the darker colour.
This is the tile we like and are opting to use for the whole entrance/living/kitchen area. It's a much lighter grey than shown in the picture. We really wanted something a little lighter but the only tile we found so far was at Western Distributors and it was really thin and only pressed instead of a full ceramic. Tile name 'Belgium Stone Cenere 300x600'. For the bench top we are leaning towards 'New Crystal Salt' which is the third Essastone sample from the top.
You can see the difference between the sample and the full sized tile. I think it's a different batch so we will check the batch before we purchase it.
Looking at different splash back options. First picture is our preferred so far. We also found another nice tile show in the second picture for the splash back. This was all done at National tiles so not sure if PD offer these tiles as an option.
As you can see we really like grey colours
Just gotta make sure it doesn't all come out too dark and grey! Any suggestions are welcome
Our Tender appointment is next Wednesday, it has come around so fast I can't believe it!
I've made up a list of all the things to ask/check during our appointment using a combination of 'things you forget' topic summary and the guides from anewhouse website.
Hopefully I have everything covered.
We still haven't decided on a floor tile, found another nice tile at anytile bur unfortunately the warehouse is out of stock and there is no ETA for new stock....
I'll post up some info once we complete our Tender appointment.
Cheers
Hi joea, your selections look great, I really like that second tile option for the splash back! it might give your kitchen a little bit of neutral warmth and avoid the dark grey look that you don't want
look forward to seeing it all coming together its very exciting. Im still a bit torn between tiles and having the standard bolero laminate
I love that "things you forget" thread I've used it to make a huge list of things to remember to add or look out for with our house, I haven't heard of the anewhouse website I will have to check it out
good luck with your tender appointment