Sub Floor is On!

Finally we have reached the tail end of the Sub Floor - Freddo and the gang have completed the lot!

Now we have to endure the painful wait until the 12th of January 09 when the framers will return from Xmas leave and start on the framing and the roof trusses.

We Have Bearers and Joists!

Here they are finally - and bloody hell they are huge - we are so high off the ground it is not funny. Aparently the old dude across the road from our new house asked the builders today;

Is that going to block my view of the West Gate Bridge???

Im thinking theres a good chance it might - have a look at the height of this...





The following wall is 3 metres high - our neighbour's garage - standing on the wood
I am at eye level....







Tomorrow Freddo is coming back to finish the verandah and then council will be coming out to approve the work. Then Craig will be coming along to start doing some plumbing work before the yellow tongue can be put up - approximately the 28th of December - this Sunday..... see you then and Merry Xmas from Yarraville Dreaming :)

Completion of Posts

After all the initial posts were drilled, the dingo was brought back in to drill the 8 remaining holes for the larger central posts. These are the main load bearing posts for the house - things are coming along now.





Come Monday - the subfloor will commence.....

Let's get a stumpin

First stage of stumping is done - Freddo and the dude from the engineers who designed the subfloors met at the lot at 10.30 Tuesday to confirm if the engineer was willing to sign his name against the depth on the holes - fortunately he was. After sending through a copy of his approval to the council it was a day and a half before the boys could get back to doing the job. The photos are the result from working all day Thursday.

Where is Fred Flinstone when you need him...

First real hurdle of the build thus far..... the rocks buried underneath the soil are providing complete chaos for our friendly neighbourhood diggers - after throwing 2 jackhammers and a tractor with a drilling device at the holes, still the holes are not deep enough to satisfy council....





This has meant that our hopes of a standing frame before Xmas have been dashed - at this point in a perfect world we would have been standing on the sub floor, however the time taken trying to cultivate the rock field has severely impacted our progress. So now the Jones family is looking at actually taking a holiday during the Xmas break (instead of me spending 3 weeks painting weatherboards) and picking up again for frame installation week commencing 12th of January 2009. Freddo and the boys will be back out on Monday (pending council and the footing engineer being able to sort out their 'issues') and ripping back into getting the sub-floor ready for the new year. More photos will be uploaded in the coming days.

Look at the size of this baby - it's bigger than Mitch

Lets Get DIgging... Sub Floor Footings commence

Finally with the demolition finished Freddo and the boys came out to checkout the fun instore. Freddo rocked up at 6.15am Thursday morning to commence setting up the hurdles in readiness for drilling the holes....



Freddo called me in the afternoon mentioning that he needed to hire a jackhammer - seriously - as he had struck rock and not oil... The surprising thing is that we had to get a special design for our floor stumps, as the soil was rated as 'moist'...



And this is what a hole looks like:

Mini update - Situation All GOOD!!

Our novice knowledge on setting up in readiness of stumping is on display - the markers put into the ground were to show the stumping folks where to tie the string to get the parrallel lines correct for drilling - there is no issue - just us being dopes :) Photos of day's progress to come tonight.

Day 8 - End of Demolition

Today has been an interesting day. After Alex had finished his work the guy who was to mark out the stumps rocked up. After Kaz tried to explain to him what was going on with the plan, he set off to work. This was where he discovered that some of the trees that we had down the back of the property had to be cut down.... aparently the house stretched out WAY past even our rough estimates, so we are now without 2 plum trees and a nectarine tree - DAMN. Fortunately Alex was still about when this discovery was made so he made light work of cutting them down.

When I arrived home I got the tape measure out, to discover the measurements made by the mark out dude were a tad confusing. Our house totals 21.3 metres in length, taking into account a 1.4 metre verandah. The guy has marked in from the footpath 6.5 metres, and from the back fence another 6.2 metres as the length of our house. Seeing the block is 39.5 metres long, rough mathematics suggest he has measured out for 26.8 metre house - 5.5 metres more than it should be!!! Hopefully tomorrow when we move to the next phase of the build then everything will come together fine - however we are now fearful our fruit trees (around 20 +years old) have been cut for no reason........

Day 7 - Now to the business end

Today we were not let down - the big machinary meant big
action - getting home from work I could not believe how far
Alex had gone in a day


This shot shows where the toilet used to be


Here's the shed....



And here is the main offender


Tomorrow the lady who is sizing up the measurements will be coming out, hopefully she will be able to access the points of the yard she needs. The Fencing has been delayed an extra day as we didnt want the demolition guys falling over the fencing as they worked away.

Lets see how it all pans out...

Day 6 - Day of rest

Not much was happening at the house today - only 1 guy was around uprooting various planks from the subfloor in readiness for the beast below which arrived at 7pm....



Alex told Kaz this arvo that he should be finished by Wednesday at the latest - after this beast hits the block. Aparently the truck to dispose of the waste wont be here till Wednesday morning so should be all done by the Arvo.... Things are running tight