It rained on our parade...

Monday - Nothing. I drove past after work and all that I could see that had been done was the wooden crossover protector thing.

Tuesday - We were very excited to find that all the boxing had been done in preparation for the concrete to be poured. The guys must have worked at it pretty hard to have the whole thing boxed out in one day.

Wednesday - Concrete (WOO HOO)! Because the boxing looked complete, we had our suspicions that the concrete would be poured today. We decided to leave for work early and do a drive by, and sure enough the concrete truck was there with the pump, hose, etc and they started pouring the concrete as we drove past.

By the time I got back after work it was all done and looking fabulous. I was a bit surprised that all of the boxing (wooden boards) had been removed already, but after a closer inspection of our new pad I found that the concrete was hard already - which was a lot faster than I expected. The only down side is that it rained (showered?) for about 1hr this afternoon so it got all wet, but I'm not worried that it will affect the concrete - I just couldn't get a decent pic!

Current Photo

Taken this afternoon - the backhoe did a good job of shifting the dirt around all the pipes!

Something in the pipeworks....

Our visit on Monday was a pleasant one as we noticed that we now have a temporary fence - haha. No more hoons on our block!

When we went on Tuesday we had our power connected, so we thought that something should be happening soon.

Yesterday I went and I noticed the presence of concrete - they had put in the 5 concrete piers in readiness of the slab, and a blue swirl spray painted on the dirt that I have no idea what it means!

Well, after our regular check today, we have pipes. The backhoe thing was there finishing off moving the dirt, and all the pipes were sticking up - although I am a bit concerned about the one in the middle of our driveway...

I am a little concerned that the front of the house is too close to the footpath. It is supposed to be about 2.4m from the footpath to portico, but judging by the scrape and pipes etc, it looks like it will be about 1m! I sure hope they measured right!
There is still no portaloo so I hope it comes soon, or that the tradies have the ability to hold on!

We finally have something to look at!

With our house start date of yesterday we were eagerly awaiting something to start. Wednesday evening I drove past to get some final "before" photos, and was surprised to see that the water tap and meter had been installed at the front of our block. We had something to see 2 days before anything was supposed to start. Thursday I again drove past and was very shocked to see that the excavators had been in and scraped our site ready for the slab! A day early. It was soooooo good to finally see where our house will go and we spent about 45 mins on Thursday evening (until after dark) walking on the scape site working out which room we would be standing in.
Friday we thought maybe we would get some of the boxes or something in preparation for the slab, but (insert cricket chirps) nothing. It all happened before it was supposed to and then nothing.

On a not so happy note - we have had people drive through the scrape site. It was the second thing we noticed (after the shock of seeing the dug out dirt). When we were there on Thursday night there were 2 cars that attempted to drive through our land and I think it was only for the fact that we were standing on the block that they drove around and went through the next block. One of the cars that had come through, came back again to go back the other way and decided to be smart and came really close to our boundary on the block next door and then cut through the back corner of our block - where unbeknowns to them (there are weeds covering it and it was dark) the sewerage/easement drain has sunk as the dirt from the development has settled, and as the wheel dropped into the hole there was a crunch as the underbody of the car hit the ground. We had to stop ourselves from laughing - but it serves them right for coming back!
We have sent off a letter to Vic Roads as we found out from the council that they own the land behind us, and it is a traffic issue. We have appealed that they put some sort of barrier at the end of the service road to prevent cars driving through. We'll see if anything eventuates from it.
Metricon have said that we should have temporary fencing up early next week so at least that should stop them driving on our block.

These are some of the tracks on our land and to the rear, prior to the scrape. The first pic is of the driveway, the second is taken from the rear of the block, and the third is looking to the left of the second photo towards the service road.

We have a date!

We have been given a date of next Friday 7/9 as our site start. They will need to mark out the block (although by some rare fluke most of our markers are still there and all of our pegs are visible). They also need to do a slight scrape of the ground and may have to fill and compact a couple of shallow holes that have been created by people driving through our block. We are considering contacting the water authority who owns the land behind us and asking that they block off the access to the service road where they are cutting through. My guess is that they will continue to try and drive through there, and they will just go around our house through the block next door until the new access road is connected when the last subdivision is done early next year. It's just people being too lasy to drive all the way around (which is a fair bit longer), so they cut through the closest point - our block. We've seen a few hoons rallying along the back of our block and past the other blocks in the subdivision, so I'd like to see that stopped well before we are set to move in! Alright, enough said...

We have had unconditional approval for our finance so all we need to do now is go in and set up the accounts in a branch.