The build starts.

There is movement at the site this week as the earthworks have finally started.  When we last posted we had expected the demolishers any day but due to illness  and mechanical failure it took a good couple of weeks before the old house was totally demolished.  The house came down eventually and are pleased to show you a clear site.

Our empty site looking from the front to the back of the block.

....And looking from the back corner of the block to the front.

The electrical pit is also in and we have a new water meter due to our old leaking meter finally giving up after it's protective front fence came down.

 After demolition CG needed a second site survey before they could deliver a more definitive site cost and final plans.  When the final plans came there were a couple of things for us to query.  The most important being the excavation cut and fill line which seemed to have moved to a more cut and less fill option.  We were surprised when we realised this change had been made as we had voiced our preference for a less cut/more fill option from the beginning. In fact our tender and contract agreements had made provision for more piers along with other concrete works that allowed for the less cut/more fill scenario yet no one had mentioned the change from contract to final plans.

After a relatively quick disccussion with the CG team we sorted it out and have our cut/fill line where we want and a variation that includes some additional earthworks.  We were told that we would not have to re-engineer the slab (we feared we would) which leads us to believe the line was moved by mistake on the drawing and the post-demo building variation  had assumed there would be and excavation with less cut/more fill all along.  In any case it was all sorted before the CG team came on site. I mention it here to illustrate the value of looking over everything carefully and many times before you start construction.

Hopefully earthworks and set-out will be complete by the end of the week with drains and concreting next week.

This week's lessons:

• If you are starting a new house and have never been the kind of person to keep organised paper work now is the time to change your ways.  The process of signing off final plans and checking building variations has required quite a bit of back and forth on older and newer versions of the same document.  You need to have some kind of system to keep it in-line.  Ours is just a simple lever arch file with the contract, specifications and plans all separated out but even our simple system has made the process of checking off documents easier.

• Check the plans, check the plans and then check them again.  Have a look at the whole plan then have a look at each part.  Read the side notes and the notes at the bottom and figure out what every symbol means.  Read the building variations and compare it to the original tender and contract documents.  And when you think you have checked it all... check one more time tomorrow to be sure.  
  
  Here is part of the list of things that were discovered by both CG and us in the time between the contract signing and final plan signing:  a window that should have been double glazed marked as only single glazed; not enough room in the kitchen joinery to accommodate the depth of a large fridge (we added it in); provision for only one external water tap (we added another 2); not enough kitchen cabinet handles allowed for; the water tank we chose was discontinued and replaced with a smaller one (we found out when we double checked the size on the drawing); our preferred meter box location was out of regulation; our final cut and fill line was further down our slope than we had agreed on in our contract...etc, etc.  You get the picture.  CG do their best to  marry contract with tender and then again with final plans but you can't assume they will catch everything. 
  
  And if you get sick of checking have a think about how much it will cost you to make changes once you're in the middle of building....