Energex came and switched the solar on this week so we should be generating some of our own power now its all connected up to the grid. All we need is a few sunny days so we can really reap the benefits and claw back what we have paid to have the system installed. Finger crossed we can generate more electricity than we use so we can sell the surplus back to the electricity company.
We also had the roofers come and replace all the broken tiles and recheck the roof so hopefully everything is water tight and leak proof again.
The cost of the hard landscaping has been renegotiated and we have booked them to start as soon as possible as we are very keen to get the garden finished and have a shed so we can move all the stuff for the garden out of the garage to free up some space. We are having paving and gravel with concrete steps out of the laundry and garage.We have gone for a dark paver and light gravel which hopefully compliments the house and the rest of the colour schemes.
Next door on the left, as you face our house, picked up their keys today and are moving in a week once they have had the flooring done. Our other neighbours build has ground to a halt this week due to bad weather but they did get their bricks delivered - as far as I can tell they have gone for the austral zinc which is quite a dark almost black colour. Should look good.
Looking forward to a lovely weekend catching up with friends and family and taking the dog to her first obedience class.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
No More Ponds?
The drains are in, all 4 have been positioned exactly as requested and they have done a neat job. All we need now is a heavy downpour so we can see if they have made a difference and whether we will get big ponds of water despite our efforts to prevent them. The land levels will need adjusting so that they fall towards the drains and perhaps a couple of ag pipes wouldn't go a miss either. The hard landscaping can commence now but we are after another quote first as the one we have does seem very expensive and I'd like to have something to compare it to. Pavers and concrete don't come cheap I know but even so I'd just like to double check first before committing another $15k of our hard earned cash.
Next door the build on the left as we look at our house looks ready for handover, their driveway is done and the temporary fencing is down and they have had their pool shell poured so we will be getting new neighbours very soon. The house on the right has been blue wrapped and their air con is being installed, wonder when the bricks will be delivered?
On the estate several houses have been completed in the last few weeks and now have families living in them plus 2 new builds have commenced. We still love watching the builds and seeing peoples homes take shape. The 2 most popular builders here are Metricon and Plantation Homes so its a nice mix of modern homes, mainly 2 storey houses that sit on the entire block leaving just enough room for a small garden and a titchy pool. Glad we opted for a larger block of land as I love that our garden has lots of run for the boy and his dog to play and go wild.
Next door the build on the left as we look at our house looks ready for handover, their driveway is done and the temporary fencing is down and they have had their pool shell poured so we will be getting new neighbours very soon. The house on the right has been blue wrapped and their air con is being installed, wonder when the bricks will be delivered?
On the estate several houses have been completed in the last few weeks and now have families living in them plus 2 new builds have commenced. We still love watching the builds and seeing peoples homes take shape. The 2 most popular builders here are Metricon and Plantation Homes so its a nice mix of modern homes, mainly 2 storey houses that sit on the entire block leaving just enough room for a small garden and a titchy pool. Glad we opted for a larger block of land as I love that our garden has lots of run for the boy and his dog to play and go wild.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Drained
The plumber hopefully came yesterday (Friday) and installed the 4 additional land drains as recommended by Metricons building manager. We won't know for definite if its been done until we get home as we are away in Vietnam for our annual pilgrimage/family hoilday to one of our favorite places ever the beautiful town of Hoi An.
Metricon also supplied us with some spare roof tiles but they only had 6 so we have ordered 30 from a local tile supplier along with some ridge capping tiles so if any tiles need replacing over the lifespan of the house we will have some in stock. Boral are reducing their production in Qld hence why they have discontinued the linea tiles perfect timing Boral seeing as we only completed our house 4 months ago! Better we found out now while we could still get hold of some rather than in a few years time when stocks had been exhausted.
As for the solar we are waiting for Energex to do their bit now that all the paperwork has been completed which could take up to 40 days. My mom has had her 1.5Kw system for a year now and has accrued a nice amount of credit and it looks like her system will take around 2 years to pay for itself. Lets hope ours will have the same productivity.
Our next project will be to get the hard landscaping finished, get a shed and commence our vegetable garden - assuming the drainage issues have been sorted that is.....
Metricon also supplied us with some spare roof tiles but they only had 6 so we have ordered 30 from a local tile supplier along with some ridge capping tiles so if any tiles need replacing over the lifespan of the house we will have some in stock. Boral are reducing their production in Qld hence why they have discontinued the linea tiles perfect timing Boral seeing as we only completed our house 4 months ago! Better we found out now while we could still get hold of some rather than in a few years time when stocks had been exhausted.
As for the solar we are waiting for Energex to do their bit now that all the paperwork has been completed which could take up to 40 days. My mom has had her 1.5Kw system for a year now and has accrued a nice amount of credit and it looks like her system will take around 2 years to pay for itself. Lets hope ours will have the same productivity.
Our next project will be to get the hard landscaping finished, get a shed and commence our vegetable garden - assuming the drainage issues have been sorted that is.....
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Solar and Cracked Up
The boys from FreeSolar were up on the roof for most of yesterday in the blazing sun installing the solar panels for our 3kw solar system. From what I can see on the ground they have done a neat job. The inverter has been positioned over the electricity meter box so as to keep thinks looking tidy as we didn't want a random box just anywhere with loads of conduit running here there and everywhere. A few roof tiles paid the price during the fitting and apparently there were 3 broken ones up there anyway. So the asked if we had some spare tiles to replace the damaged ones - well the answer to that would be NO as Metricon didn't leave us any. Oh hang on I'm not being fair there - yes they did lave us some but....... they were all smashed so they went in the bin. Quick call to a couple of tile stockist who told us they'd need to order them in, followed by a call to Boral who told us that our tiles have been, wait for it wait for it, DISCONTINUED. Shock faint horror! You build a new house, have no spare roof tiles and the ones your builder used are discontinued. What to do now. Phone Metricon explain the situation and now they have promised to see if they have any that they can bring over, I reminded them we are still under our 6 month service and maintenance period so they better come up with the goods. In the meantime we have ordered 30 tiles from the supplier as there is stock but no more being made. That'll cost us around $175 (might send M the bill and see what happens ha ha).
The solar guys have moved all the broken tiles to the front row of the garage and sealed them up with silicone for now so if it does rain heavily before the replacement ones arrive and we get a leak it will be over the garage and not into the main body of the house. Also it will make it easier to swap them out.
Oh now I come to think of it we better order some ridge cap tiles too as we plan to live here a long time so don't want to get to the stage where we can't get hold of what we need if something gets cracked or dislodged.
The solar is all installed and on but we are not yet connected or is it producing electricity until Energex do their bit whenever that will be. Sorry to be so vague but I had some much other stuff happening yesterday that I didn't fully take it all in. I'll have to give FreeSolar a call and double check the facts.
Sometimes you can be generating power but not yet selling it back to the electricity provider and when that happens it actually makes you meter run backwards so your bill is smaller but you aren't getting the extra credits yet - not sure if that is true or whether the solar fitters were pulling my leg and having a joke at my expense. Time to do some research.
The solar guys have moved all the broken tiles to the front row of the garage and sealed them up with silicone for now so if it does rain heavily before the replacement ones arrive and we get a leak it will be over the garage and not into the main body of the house. Also it will make it easier to swap them out.
Oh now I come to think of it we better order some ridge cap tiles too as we plan to live here a long time so don't want to get to the stage where we can't get hold of what we need if something gets cracked or dislodged.
The solar is all installed and on but we are not yet connected or is it producing electricity until Energex do their bit whenever that will be. Sorry to be so vague but I had some much other stuff happening yesterday that I didn't fully take it all in. I'll have to give FreeSolar a call and double check the facts.
Sometimes you can be generating power but not yet selling it back to the electricity provider and when that happens it actually makes you meter run backwards so your bill is smaller but you aren't getting the extra credits yet - not sure if that is true or whether the solar fitters were pulling my leg and having a joke at my expense. Time to do some research.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Metricon Visits
Finally after a couple of increasingly more urgent and slightly more irate emails to the service and maintenance dept at M the Qld Building Manager paid us a visit this morning to assess the drainage (or lack of) issues.
After listening to our concerns, looking at the photos of a water logged yard and examining the site he agreed that we actually need 4 more gully/land drains and a retaining wall between us and out right handside neighbours (who are at frame stage now with M). The retaining wall was originally included in the building plans but was never constructed so M will install this at no cost after discussing the potential land levels with the site supervisor to assess how high it needs to be. As for the land drains Metricon's plumber will come and do these for us and Metricon have agreed to split the cost 50-50. We felt this to be a fair arrangement as if the engineer had recommended additional drainage in the first place we would have had to pay for it all anyway and if we hadn't got M involved we would have also had to foot the bill. Hopefully the plumber can come and do the drains for us the week after next and then at last we can finish the landscaping.
The moral of this story is always get the builder to come out and look at potential issues, stay calm and be reasonable, state your case clearly and tell them how you would like to see matters resloved and then hopefully you get a win win situation.
After listening to our concerns, looking at the photos of a water logged yard and examining the site he agreed that we actually need 4 more gully/land drains and a retaining wall between us and out right handside neighbours (who are at frame stage now with M). The retaining wall was originally included in the building plans but was never constructed so M will install this at no cost after discussing the potential land levels with the site supervisor to assess how high it needs to be. As for the land drains Metricon's plumber will come and do these for us and Metricon have agreed to split the cost 50-50. We felt this to be a fair arrangement as if the engineer had recommended additional drainage in the first place we would have had to pay for it all anyway and if we hadn't got M involved we would have also had to foot the bill. Hopefully the plumber can come and do the drains for us the week after next and then at last we can finish the landscaping.
The moral of this story is always get the builder to come out and look at potential issues, stay calm and be reasonable, state your case clearly and tell them how you would like to see matters resloved and then hopefully you get a win win situation.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
100 Days
Its been 100 days since we got the keys to the new house. On one hand the time has gone by really fast and on the other it feels like we have always lived here as we have settled in very quickly and have been busy making the Nolan 45 our home. We still need to add some interior design bits and pieces and put pictures up on walls but we are in no hurry to finish everything off and have it looking like the lovely show homes that Metricon display. However a few more personal touches wouldn't go a miss. The garden is maturing and once we get some feedback about the drainage issues it will be nice to finish it off and get the shed in.
Inside we have noticed some small cracks appearing at the architrave joins, one of the plug socket covers has come loose and falls off every time you use it, the powder room toilet half and full flush are the wrong way round so you get full flush when you use the half button, one of the cavity sliders on the ensuite is stiff and there is a chipped door that we picked up at handover that wasn't touched up. Otherwise the house is working beautifully.
The weather is fabulous so we will celebrate out 100 days splashing about in the pool
Inside we have noticed some small cracks appearing at the architrave joins, one of the plug socket covers has come loose and falls off every time you use it, the powder room toilet half and full flush are the wrong way round so you get full flush when you use the half button, one of the cavity sliders on the ensuite is stiff and there is a chipped door that we picked up at handover that wasn't touched up. Otherwise the house is working beautifully.
The weather is fabulous so we will celebrate out 100 days splashing about in the pool
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Metricon Have Gone Deaf
Apparently the plumber was coming out on site Monday. Never saw him which is odd seeing as we specifically stated we wanted a meeting to discuss the issues and show him the photos of where and how the water is pooling around the house. I also asked M why a retaining wall next to the garage along the boundary has been omitted from construction, it is clearly marked on our plans and in our contract. We feel this 325mm high retaining wall would have helped deflect some of the water run off from the adjacent block and we have paid for the wall as part of site fees. So far it has all fallen on deaf ears so now its time for an annoyed phone call......
Next door now have a steel frame up they completed the ground floor yesterday and it all ready looks massive. Once the upstairs is on the little Soho at the back of us is going to be totally dwarfed. There have been two more site scrapes, a low set is going in across the way which means we will still be able to see some lovely tress over the tops yippee and up the road they are having what appears to be a traditional Queenslander up on stumps, might look a little out of place amongst all the modern rendered houses.
Breakfast first then on the phone to Metricon, the problem though is who is the best person to speak to as service and maintenance don't seem interested and we no longer officially have a site or construction manager?
Next door now have a steel frame up they completed the ground floor yesterday and it all ready looks massive. Once the upstairs is on the little Soho at the back of us is going to be totally dwarfed. There have been two more site scrapes, a low set is going in across the way which means we will still be able to see some lovely tress over the tops yippee and up the road they are having what appears to be a traditional Queenslander up on stumps, might look a little out of place amongst all the modern rendered houses.
Breakfast first then on the phone to Metricon, the problem though is who is the best person to speak to as service and maintenance don't seem interested and we no longer officially have a site or construction manager?
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