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....

Inconsistent prices

This blog post is more for EBH to read (!) and for me to have made a note for when/if they ask for feedback at the end of the process.
There has been discussion on the forum I participate in lately about inconsistent pricing. I don't know why but this makes me an angry Kerith! So clients were saying that they received a price for an item at tender which differed to the price they were given at their HOG selection appointment eg. overhead cupboards, pot drawers etc. Sometimes the tender price was more, sometimes less. Surely, an overhead cupboard is the same price with the same company whether you request it in tender stage or just after. Comments were made that it seems like the tender presenter just guesstimates. This does not inspire confidence in the EBH process at all.

Further to my post yesterday about the cool website from one of Eden Brae's competitors....I sent a link to my lovely Manager Bev. She forwarded it on to the Home Option Gallery Manager who was quite interested. They can see the benefit for EBH & their clients. A company has done something similar for a few builders and it has only recently gone live. Maybe next time I build an Eden Brae house....;-)   (Brad doesn't read this blog, does he?!)

Cool website

I stumbled across this website today as I navigated through some other HomeOne threads

http://www.studiom.com.au/envisage

I have maintained all along that this is something that Eden Brae should do for their clients to assist with complete satisfaction. It is so difficult to select colours from tiny swatches and know how they are going to fit together in your house. How good would it be to sit at Home Options Gallery & to finalise your colours based on a program like this? Interior & exterior. I am a highly visual person and need to see my colours working together. Hopefully in the future, it will all be computer aided - too late for us though.

Loan approved conditionally

Our construction loan has now been approved with conditions - the standard bank valuation on the land we are building on and that the redraw balance on one of our other loans is reduced. I don't understand the concept at all but Brad does. I was hoping it meant that I could go & spend $50K on something other than a new house ;-)  Brad seems really happy with the way that Mortgage Choice have structured our loan - important that he is happy when it comes to money!

Miscellaneous stuff

* Fencing - The demolition company have sent me details of the fencing company they use and costings today. I asked Eden Brae whether we could use the company they use for temporary fencing and extend the length of time forward to include the demolition period. NO was the answer.
Is it only me or does it seem crazy that we use one company for temp fencing for 2-3 weeks, they have to return to disassemble  & then another company comes to erect their fencing for the build?

* The tenants called me yesterday to check whether the letter they received from the property manager was fair dinkum. Do you really want us to clean the house from top to bottom upon leaving? LOL I confirmed that they didn't need to. I could hear the sigh of relief from my end of the phone.

* I received the approved plans today via the Council's website.  Any tree (apart from the neighbours trees in question) can be removed. We do need to plant 4 indigenous trees to maintain canopy cover.

* The valuer is going to visit the property soon for bank loan purposes.

Things are moving along nicely.....

3 out of 3 APPROVED!

After 3 long months, all 3 applications to council have been approved. Ahhhhh.......  We can demolish, build and put in a pool. One neighbour in particular is not going to be happy - they objected to the pool (acoustics & loss of privacy) and the house (privacy & loss of sun).  

"An objection was received in regards to the two storey dwelling-house resulting in a loss of privacy to the adjoining property in Gxxxxx Avenue. The first floor windows serve bedrooms and bathrooms only, in accordance with the prescriptive measures of the Privacy element. The single window on the first floor facing the objectors property is setback over 26 metres from this adjoining property.

As a consequence, the development would have negligible adverse privacy impacts, the proposal meets the objectives of the Privacy element and is considered acceptable."

"An objection was received in regards to the two storey structure causing a loss of solar access to the rear western property. The shadows cast from the proposal would allow at least 4 hours of sunshine to the private open space required for adjacent and proposed dwelling-houses on 22 June (the winter solstice). The shadows cast from the proposal would allow north facing windows to living areas of adjacent and proposed dwelling-houses to receive 3 hours of sunshine over a portion of their surface on 22 June. The proposal meets the prescriptive measures and objectives of the Solar Access element and is considered acceptable."

Fortunately Council didn't seem to think they were legitimate reasons to protest. Can't wait for our first pool party!

Hornsby Council themselves did have a concern over the design initially-  -->

"The proposed 12.9m unbroken wall length of the northern elevation does not comply with the prescriptive measures of the Design element which requires that walls not exceed 10m without a physical “break”. A balance between solid walls and openings and variations of roof form has been incorporated into the elevations to avoid a monotonous or symmetrical design.

On that basis, the proposal would have negligible adverse visual or amenity impacts to the adjoining properties, meets the objectives of the Design element and is considered acceptable."

Eden Brae can't move onto the next step until they have a hard copy of the determination. Grrrr.... This paperwork took 2 weeks to be put in the mail for the pool DA. I wonder if I can print it off and send it to them rather than waiting for Council to do it?? The information is all on the website for public record. Not sure why they don't accept it.

Anyway, happy days here until the next hiccup! Enjoy your weekend. I am celebrating 11 years of wedded bliss with my wonderful husband. Awwwww....