Hi all. We got handover of our lovely house in October, and we're out of maintenance period.
Tonight our DS had a bath (upstairs), and when he let the water out,…

We didn't have this issue, as our house was built on strip footings and screw piles. Never thought about how they got the right level, assume the surveyors set some…

Our oven and rangehood went in before handover. HWS, rainwater tank, gas cooktop, external aircon unit went in about a week after handover (we weren't in a rush, they would…

I am so glad now that I didn't give notice on our rental place until we had the house keys in our hands - cost us a few extra weeks…

Shame that they appear to have changed so much with the takeover. They were very flexible when we built with them last year (literally hundreds of variations made by us…

Sounds like it - and that your finished floor levels will only need to be 10cm off the ground, which is much nicer than the 100cm that we had to…

Sorry, to summarise - you should be able to order a report online, which you'll have to pay for, but which will give you your AHD, before getting the surveyors…

Are you in the Special Building Overlay (SBO) for flood prone areas? This will mean that you'll need to have your floor 30cm above the 100yr flood level.
You can…

Looks like surfmist to me, which is what we've got on our place:

Can be really hard to take photos of Surfmist, as it takes on the colour of the sky,…

Basically, you end up with both a mortgage and rent! Real good fun...
Progress payments are made along the way, at the completion of each stage, which means the amount you…

Good luck! We've just finished on a 10.7m x 45m block in suburban Melbourne. Here are a couple of threads on it:
https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.p ... highlight=

The issue with the ventillation relates to another part of the building code, which says that the windows have to have at least the same area as x% of the…

Why?
They are certainly not perfect, but in talking to Kevin and some of the tradies, they appear to be better than your average volume builder. Of course, depending on your…

Hi, the top render matches Colorbond "Sandbank", which is our fascia and downpipe colour. Rendering was done by Unitex, who also did the the top floor cladding, which is foam…

Here you go:
https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=13490
and if your space is a bit bigger, go for some different stone in different sections - ours was a bit small, and being…

Hi, the render is meant to match the Colorbond "Deep Ocean" colour, which is what our gutters are done in. The photo probably doesn't properly represent what the colour of…

I reckon a quick spray of Round Up once a month should do it!

Austral Settler Lawson - these were a category 1 brick, so no extra cost...

Just an update, photos of the front landscaping are in the landscaping forum:
https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=13490

Hi,
After moving in during November, our front yard still looked like a building site. (See this thread: http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=12591&highlight=)
We wanted something that was very low maintenance, wouldn't require plants straight…

we had around $40-$50K provisions for things like - extra strip footings and screw piles (which was slightly overspent on), double handling charges (for a narrow block on main road,…

I'm ex-Telstra. In these cases, generally the estate developer tenders out construction of telco services, paying a carrier to provide "future proof" netoworks. Appears Arise has won the tender in…

At the very least pick up the "Deck and Pergola" book by Allan Staines from Bunnings - it has a wealth of info on specifications, construction methods etc, which should…

Its just some garden edging that I found in Bunnings. About $7-8 for a pack of 4 pieces from memory. Pretty cheap and nasty stuff that I don't think would…

Thanks guys - yes, we really like the dining area too - not something we would have thought of ourselves, but it works really well.
Bel - the letterbox was…

After an 18 month journey to rebuild on our narrow block on a main road with tramlines in a flood overlay area, I think we're finally done! We've been in…

Will depend on size and location of deck. For example, our council (Glen Eira, Melbourne) only requires a permit if any of these conditions aren't met:
1) Less than 800mm high,
2)…

Yep, we had to deal with this. Our floor levels have to be 100cm above the ground level, implying that the 100yr flood level is 70cm above the ground. This…

Weez - good luck - agree with comments about your CSR - I found that emails didn't seem to trigger her into action. Probably best to send the email so…

And I got "moved on" in September, just as we approached handover! Luckily, I'd been at that company for over 14 years, so got a pretty decent payout, which hopefully…