Went past the house today to see the water has been connected (I assume - there is a black tubing now connected to our water meter), bricks and sand have been delivered and our power pole has been erected. The placement of this left me boiling..
More on that with the pics:
Hello mountains of lovely brown bricks! Its hard to see the colour at that angle but they are a chocolatey brown with hopefully little or no variation in batches. I chose 'Orpheus' from Australs Whitsunday range.
Sand ready to go.
This grew from our water meter today. Probably fairly vital for the brickes to have water on site. :)
This is where the electrical contractors (who will remain nameless) chose to plonk our
private power pole. Extremely close to a very beloved tree that I literally planted with my own hands soon after we bought the original house over 5 years ago. I LOVE that tree. It is a Mop Top Robinia and has a gorgeous HUGE beautifully round canopy. They put the pole so close to the tree that it now has a delightful metal trunk right next to its trunk and they cut at least one big branch off right in the middle to make way for the pole.
Now there *may* be a valid reason for this placement but I am furious they didn't bother to contact anyone to inform me & perhaps discuss where it needed to go. I have spoken to an Electrician friend who said they probably just put it in the easiest spot rather than having to cut down more shrubs to make way for it, and that generally they are placed as close to the boundary as possible. This could definitely have been placed closer to the boundary and would have cleared the tree if it had been. Even behind the tree would have been better.
But no, its smack bang infront of it and it ruins the whole effect of such a beautiful feature tree.
In the middle of Summer when the leaves are all back on the tree they are very dense and lush - now there will be a huge hole right at the front GGRRR.
What makes me even angrier about this is that I was told, during the planning process that the power pole would go on the opposite side of the property - as the meter box will be on the opposite side of the house. So I assume now they will have to dig a huge trench all the way across the front of the property to connect the electricity to the meter box. Seems like more work for them in the end.
Originally Metricon had our driveway drawn in this exact spot and I asked them to move it to preserve that tree!!!
To the credit of our SS he said he will find out why it was placed there and get back to me - he didn't even know they would be there installing the pole today. Communication is key people!!
I know things like this are bound to happen when building but sometimes I think tradesmen don't stop to think that this is someone's home - not just a building site.
Next time I am there I will get some better photos to illustrate the placement of the pole in relation to our boundary.
Bricks placed all over the yard ready to go..
I also asked our SS today about the roof, which will happen after bricks. I've noticed on some builds the roof comes first, other the bricks first. I also asked about our timber sliders and stacking sliders and he said he likes to keep them offsite for as long as possible as accidents do happen, which I am very happy about, don't want them to be damaged or stolen!!
Ok, back to packing :) Hope all of you building have a week filled with progress!
Shayne, its starting to look like a real house! It looks like you've got lots of room to the right (the right in these photos) of your house, plenty of space, I like it! A bit sad about your tree - I'm glad at least the SS cares enough to look into it for you. Is your SS Dave?
ReplyDeleteIt is isn't it? I still can't believe it, LOL!
ReplyDeleteYou mean the right as you look at the house from the front or the back?
Honestly, if I did it again i would get a quote to actually widen the whole house a metre or two but its plenty big enough as is, I just love the really open feeling as you walk into the Nolan and a few of the other slightly bigger designs (just being greedy,haha!).
Yes, our SS is Dave - is he your SS also? He was very good about it all even though really he has nothing to do with it. My customer service person also got an email thismorning from me (before 7am..haha) about window winders and why our are black and some others have matched ones..
Are your frames starting any day now??
We're hopeful our frames are being put up as we speak, we spoke to Dave on Friday and he said the carpenters would be there early this week - so we'll have to wait and see - I'm sure they are though. From memory, ours are black too - so let me know how you go, and whether its worth annoying them about! We haven't met him in person yet - but will eventually I guess!
ReplyDeleteLooking from the back of the house, is what I meant. It will be nice for your little one to have some room to roam around outside. If we have little ones, they're at risk of rolling down the back yard into the house! We've got some landscaping ahead of us, thats for sure!! Our house had to be wider rather than long because of the slope of the block - so there were things we would have done differently too - but in the end, once we're moved in, I don't think we'll even think about that!!! Glad to see its all happening quickly though!
Lauren looking forward to seeing some frame pics from you guys soon!
ReplyDeleteLOL, we both have lots of landscaping ahead!! Hopefully we will scrape up some funds to at least do some basic landscaping soon after moving in or our poor son (and dogs!) will just have dirt to run around in,haha.
I am really pleased we will still have room at the side - it will be great for entertaining whilst still leaving some grass for kids to run around on.
You are right - I think things that bother us now will be really insignificant by the time we move in and get settled!!