And now for some real action....

...albeit too early! Demolition is not meant to start until Monday December 31. Maybe that means with the heavy machinery?? Brad drove past this morning on his way to the station and rang to tell me demolition had started on the roof! I quickly jumped in the car and went to visit. I was worried about not marking the trees yet. The guys there couldn't tell me when that was booked in for. Made a note to stop in at Bunnings on the way home for some tape to wrap around trees.

Incidentally, do I look Russian? The guy working on the house swore I looked of Russian descent???? I did say to him....do you mean Scandinavian LOL?

OMGoodness!

We have temporary fencing ALREADY! My friend and I were off to the city for drinks & dinner at the Opera Bar and drove past the house at 6:45pm. I felt a rush of adrenalin when I saw the fencing up and a tingle of excitement. Obviously a motivated site supervisor! We were SMSing (no language barrier that way) at 4:45pm when I gave him the OK to go ahead so within 2 hours the fencing was ordered, delivered & installed. I have had to quickly organise the notification of neighbours and council; organise the protection of trees on council land and will need to mark somehow the trees that are to stay.

Now to go back a little for you. When I spoke to the site supervisor this afternoon, we worked out that the only thing stopping the demolition for starting early was the temporary fencing. I told him that if he could find a company willing to get it done now, it should be fine. He came back with a cheap price with immediate delivery so I gave him a AOK. I panicked a little about the temp fencing company that I had organised to deliver early in the morning of January 7 knowing that the office is  closed down for 2 weeks. Crossed my fingers and sent them an email. Received a response in 5 min from the administration officer letting me know that she would cancel my order and that there would be no charge - YAY!

So.......demolition should start on Monday with the real action day (ball through the house) being Thursday January 3!

 

Advice needed please! How do you read point 4)?  Trees will be lopped but need to pay for green waste at tip? Need to pay separately for lopping & tipping?

I have also just reread that our 'special offer' means they pay for the site fence?? Not once has this being mentioned. Grrrrrr.....

More demolition news....

1) I was reading the quote last night (as you do when there is little on TV) and discovered I had misread the document. I thought block clearing including all vegetation was included.  Trees incur a separate charge. I will need to negotiate what is a tree & what is a very tall shrub with the demolition company now.

2) I, in fact, received a call this morning from the site manager for our demolition job. He actually wants to start earlier than January 7. This would suit us apart from the fact that the temporary fencing is not arriving until the wee hours of January 7 and there is a requirement for fencing. I asked him if he could meet with me next week to go through the backyard & discuss the issue of trees VS shrubs. I also told him that we would be on holidays during the demolition period. He will contact me next week to arrange.

3) According to the work plan, the main day of demolition is on Wednesday January 9. If you have a child who may be keen to watch, mark it in your diary and get the camp chairs ready! Free school holiday entertainment!

One man's junk.....

.....is obviously another man's treasure! I posted on FB yesterday afternoon offering things from our house that will be taken with the demolition company in early January. Well, I was bombarded! In 24 hours, we have had curtains, blinds, security door, air conditioner and vanity taken with someone returning to take a gate & dismantle the carport. Oh and roof tiles might disappear if they somewhat match someone's roof! One guy wanted to take the windows if he could work out how to take them home with him (visiting family for Christmas)
Really glad that others can get something from our house rather than it all going to recycled waste. I felt a little like Santa!

Gardens

My dear friend, Lucinda, and I took a stroll around the garden this afternoon to try & work out what can stay and what can go! The demolition company will lop whatever we want and we have permission from council to take down anything on our land. Pretty much we have decided to leave the palm tree in and 4-5 camellias for privacy along one boundary fence. Everything else can be lopped so that we can start from scratch with a more uniform look. Happy with that.....

Some more bank requirements needed

I received an email from my Mortgage Angel (sweet, eh?!) this afternoon to say that CBA required a further 2 documents and then they would release their Authority to Commence Construction. CBA need.....

1 )     Builders Contract of Works Insurance, showing:-
        Insurance amount equal to or in excess of the Building Contract Price.
        Name of property owner and / or the Building Company
        Construction site address or stating `Anywhere in Australia'.
        Expiry date of policy.

2 )    Builders Public Liability Insurance, showing:-
        Minimum $5 million.
        Expiry date of policy.
        Construction site address or stating `Anywhere in Australia'.




Now of course, the timing of this was not great. EBH were not contactable at 3:30pm this afternoon via phone or email so I can only suspect their well deserved break started before COB today! We will now have to wait until EBH are back on deck on January 7 to forward to the bank. At least we know, CBA will send the Construction advice to us as soon as they receive these documents.

Santa brought me a present!

My lovely Santa bought me an early Christmas present today  - a new camera to take loads of house photos with! A camera shop had an unbeatable price on a Canon 650D so I am about to delve into the world of SLRs.

Site start appointment made

I received a call from Rania, our CSA, today to schedule our site start appointment. I was hoping for one before Christmas to finalise everything but the earliest time they had was Friday January 18. EBH, from my understanding, then have 21 days to start building or at least the contract period starts then. All the final plans & documents have now been ordered and will be checked over for us to sign on that date. We are still waiting on our loan documents to come through from our mortgage broker and be signed before the Authority to Commence Construction letter can be given by the bank.
Looking forward to demolition & the start of the build in 2013!

Boring update

Nothing really exciting happening just yet but thought I would post whilst watching Grey's Anatomy.
Silly me mentioned to a few people this morning that I didn't have much to do today. Work is finished for the year, children at preschool or school, Christmas shopping under control, gym workout done. Well....from the time I got home just before 11am until school pickup time, I was on the phone bar a 10min break to eat salad.
Started off with the most frustrating call to Energy Australia to try to organise gas disconnection. Being the owner of the property I have no right to any information as to who supplies gas to the property (I am not the account holder, the tenants are!) I asked questions like how I was supposed to organise disconnection if I can't know who supplies it. The answer was 'I can't comment on that'. After nearly 2 hours on the phone, I have set up an account and I am moving into the property on December 24 AND I want the gas disconnected as soon as possible after that. OMGoodness, I cannot believe it is so hard. Tears were nearly flowing at one point.
Next call was to the temporary fencing company who I have emailed 3 times but never heard back from. Under normal circumstances, I would forget them but as this company is the one EBH use, I was getting a discount as there is no need for them to come & disassemble & reinstall between demolition and start of building. All sorted though there was a hiccup as they close down for Christmas on December 21 but the tenants don't move until December 23. Hopefully they can get the fencing installed before the demolition company start in January 7.
Miscellaneous calls to the mortgage broker to follow up on the loan documents, from my mum and a friend followed.
I have been having issue for the last 6 months with Telstra and internet drop outs. Countless hours & a fair bit of money has been spent to try & rectify the issue. Yesterday's call of hour duration left me very hopeful that the issue was finally fixed only to have more dropouts today. I needed to call AGAIN. This time, I asked for the same technician I had yesterday to try to shorten the call. He worked out that the modem I bought from Telstra 2 months ago in an effort to fix the problem is faulty. Please repackage & return it with a receipt to the place you bought it from. Hmmmm....this is where I wish I was more of a hoarder!! No box kept, no receipt kept. Oops!

Anyway, even though the day turned out to be much busier than I thought, it was productive with a few important tasks dealt with.

Unconditional approval

Music to my ears! The new house has been valued, our current house has been valued, we have attended to a special condition placed on the loan and it has been rubber stamped today. Still waiting on the paperwork to complete (loan offer) and to send to EBH but good as done.
From what I understand, we are waiting on a construction certificate and then our final construction drawings, colour documents and final variations. A site start appointment will herald the end of the admin stage and the start of the construction stage.
In the meantime, I am desperately trying to find out who our gas provider is??? I am on hold to every company I try. I am also attempting to get quotes from fencing companies to get temporary fencing for the very short phase of demolition.
Soon photoless posts will be a thing of the past....