We bought in Stage 2, and moved in November last year. Our site costs started at about $15k but dropped to $10k later. However, we did then spend another $30k…

It probably also needs council approval. You should check with your local council on that as well.

It's not true POTS. It's just a "normal" phone connection provided over fibre. The ONI is installed with a UPS to ensure the phone service is operational even if you…

Nope: get your land surveyed. Once you establish that the wall is on your property, the neighbours will have to pay to get the wall moved. Or, you would still…

No, a private surveyor can do them as well. Ours were done that way, as was our certificate of occupancy, IIRC.

The fill is the cheapest part by far: the wall itself was the most expensive. Those steel posts sit in 1.8M deep holes to retain the fill, given the weight…

Privacy and commercial confidentiality are absolutely correct: you have no right to know which tradies the builder uses as they are sub-contractors to the builder. Your contract is ONLY with…

Answers, as I've just finished doing exactly what you want to do:
1. No.
2. It cost us ~$25,000 to build our wall. This includes engineering plans, council fees, construction and fill.
3.…

Why are you going to Clipsal if your builder is doing it for you? Either way, speak to your estate/Telstra about the cabling requirements for Velocity and make sure your…

This would replace the standard Clipsal points and is known as "Smart Wiring": Essentially, instead of your phone/TV wiring running to an antenna or phone connection, it all runs to…

That depends -- if the wall is higher than 1m, you need to get it engineered for approval by your council. If the engineering says that treated pine is sufficient…

A word of advice: get this in writing. We also got permission from our Site Supervisor to build both front and rear retaining walls, and then the SS was replaced:…

Sorry, I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek, but you can't see my tongue or my cheek across the Intertubes.

True, if you don't upload much data. If you do, then your cap on BigPond will be chewed up faster. But I'm hoping for some pricing/quota love from Internode in…

Yes, but it has nothing to do with "Smart Wiring", which I suspect is the major issue with the topic title. It should be "BigPond Velocity Quota/Price Changes" if you…

I would so love to give up my day job and do this instead. Sadly, I don't think you guys pay enough. :p

Yes, but it keeps filling as you use water: So, if you start washing your car, it'll keep running mains water until you're done. There is no way to tell…

This is why I included my contact details -- I was paranoid I hadn't included enough stuff on the form (which is so bloody tiny anyway) that I urged the…

It's to the date of the issue of your Certificate of Occupancy (or at least, it was with my liquidated damages claim).

Yeah, we have the same problem with the tanks installed by Simonds. We now have 5000L of mostly useless water, considering it's only used by two toilets. Eventually we hope…

We had to issue protection notices to our neighbours: they're used to notify adjoining properties of works going on close to/on the boundary. We built a retaining wall at the…

This. In fact, I was in the house when our valuer arrived. She checked the whole place to make sure that everything on the contract had been built/installed. She also…

Ours are also on the long wall, with a niche in the short wall:

The semi-frameless door opens towards the bathroom door that you can see in the picture.

Agreed. Our final stage took 6 months (June - November). The rest of the build up to that point was only about 4 months. *sigh*

Our Simonds build in Bundoora (down Plenty Road from South Morang) took 311 days, or just on 10 months from site start to handover. And that's for a single storey…

Ours took about 2 hours to complete. I would recommend letting your Site Supervisor know how long you want to take just so they don't schedule a conflicting appointment for…

Our base house price was $165k. Our final contract price was $260k, which still didn't include landscaping/window furnishings. We've already spent an extra $35k just on retaining walls and we…

When we bought at auction, we were given the proposed engineering diagrams and were told that we had a 3-month period in which to notify the developers if we wanted…

I know Porter Davis will re-purpose the garage space, because my neighbour has done this: Their house actually faces a different road from their cross-over, so they'll be building a…

If it makes you feel better, it has cost me over $5000 in council and services fees to get permission to build a retaining wall at the back of my…