First floor gutters, fascia and roof tiles complete

It's been raining a lot in Sydney the past few weeks and we've been concerned about the massive soaking the house has been getting since there's no roof. Anyway to our surprise they have finished all the first floor gutters, fascia and roof tiles. Just as well, the rain just hasn't stopped. The ground floor still doesn't have any roof tiles but at least the main part of the building is covered. Most of the first floor hebel panels have been installed.

Picture of the back of the house. The garage, rumpus and outdoor room don't have roof tiles yet. I forgot to take a picture from the front, so this is the only external photo I have for now.

The roof tiles we chose, Boral French Terracotta (unglazed) in Eclipse colour.

The front door frame

Sarking on the first floor. This should keep most of the dust and dirt out of the roof and allow us to use some of the space for storage. 

The first floor is pretty dry considering the rain we've had prior to the roof installation

Some misguided screws which should be holding the yellow tongue boards down. This will need to be fixed otherwise we'll have creaking floors.

Some hebel in the garage not sure how much more will be needed to finish the walls, but I'll ask if we can keep any left overs.

Portico complete

Scaffolding installed

After the driest May since 1859, the last week has been rather slow due to the rain we've experienced. Scaffolding has been installed for over a week now and they have made some progress with the hebel installation on the first floor. Once this is complete the next stage will be the fascia and gutter.

18/05/2012

We happened to be there when the scaffold was delivered.

Hebel complete on ground floor

29/05/2012

Ground floor pretty wet, was told by the SS that the materials have a three month guarantee by the supplier that they can be exposed to the wet. Really hope it stops raining so we can get the roof on.

The hebel waste so far, it's very low when compared to bricks

The tree at the front is starting to look very unhealthy, the arborist report identified it as "having reduced vigour and very poor structure" and should be removed. 

Hebel installation started

09/05/2012
Received a call from our SS to say that

• the window installation is now complete
• internal plumbing completed
• site cleaned up and the hebel panels will be delivered the next day

11/05/2012 and 13/05/2012

As expected they had started on the hebel panel installation and from what I can tell they've only spent a day putting these up and progress is very quick. One disappointing thing is that the builder never told us about the option of the blue wrap that goes on the building prior to bricking or in this case hebel installation. Really not happy, we just assumed this was standard building practice, if we had know we would have asked for it.

Hebel off cut, it's very light compared to brick.

Sitting room wall, nice straight lines

From left to right, gas, water and electricity

Plumbing for the hot water heater, from top to bottom, hot water, cold water and gas.

Family and rumpus room walls

Garage wall

Sitting room, yellow hose is for gas

Plumbing in the powder room and the hot water heater

Plumbing for the shower in the powder room

Plumbing for the laundry and powder room toilet

Plumbing for the butler's pantry and kitchen

Outside butler's pantry

Gas, cold water and hot water hose

Goop has be applied to protect all the windows during construction. It gives the glass a frosted look but once removed it will be clear. 

rain water tap

Bathroom mixer

Kitchen island bench plumbing

Frame complete

28th April 2012

We dropped by on Saturday afternoon to a pleasant surprise that they has started the framing. Our nice neighbour said that they started around 7am this morning and finished around 3pm, playing their "very choice of music". We didn't expect to be any activity today but we thought we should just drop in and check how the soil removal went. It was nice to see so many frames up and so quickly.

The sitting room frames seem to be complete and the they had already started on the joists

1st May 2012

With the great weather, there was no interruption to the frame install, the guys were already starting on the first floor. With no electricity on site they had to use their own compressor running off the car.

2nd May 2012
Got a call from our SS to say that:

• the frames would be completed this week 
• windows would be delivered and installed either tomorrow or Friday
• they would start installing the Hebel panels on Monday
• we should expect another big invoice for Stage 3 payment very soon :(

All great news to me and it's happening at a nice pace, weather forecast is also looking pretty good, just a few possible showers here and there.

3rd May 2012

Dropped in this morning to find no one onsite and all the framing complete, all the excess waste placed in a nice neat pile. We noticed the pile was very small, probably due to the fact the frames were pre-built reducing waste. The trusses are now installed which gives us a better perspective how large the building is going to be. Very happy with the pace and really looking forward to the hebel panel installation. I've been told this should take approximately two weeks to install (excluding rendering and painting), compared to bricks which takes 8 weeks.

Main bedroom

  A broken drain pipe