Excavation Pics

From the back

From the front of the block

Anyone want some Sandstone?

Start of Side cut. Location of retaining wall

Rock saw at work

Excavation starts

Just found out they have started excavation already!! Had a call from the supervisor not long ago saying they had hit sandstone(we knew that was coming) and asking whether I was happy with them to remove the sandstone and take the fill.
I wasn't expecting them to start the same day they assigned us a supervisor.

Construction Certificate approved and we have pegs

We received a new hydraulic plan a few weeks ago to fulfil council requirements. Basically we had had to add more trenches to hold more runoff. Not real happy about the extra 7k variation that was added to the contract but what can you do.
Thankfully no major issues getting the construction certificate approved which we found out about last week.
We went out to the block on the weekend and noticed they had done the pegout. Sorry no pictures. I wasn't expecting them in yet.

Demolition begins

Demolition started Monday this week and is supposed to finish Wednesday. I will upload some pics when I get them.
We are hoping that our builder will be lodging the Construction certificate this week, but are waiting on the engineers to update the hydraulic plan with some extra detail as per councils condition.
Another condition from council is that we have to build retaining walls as soon possible after excavation. 
The only other condition that really affects us was we needed tree protection for the Gum tree out the front so I had to organise a fence guy to place a fence around the tree for the duration of the build.
We are using an accredited certifier for the construction certificate so hopefully it won’t take as long as council to get approved.

DA Approval Granted

Finally, after 13 weeks we have been told that approval consent has been granted.

After the neighbour submissions and the months it spent in the engineering dept at council we starting to think it would never get approved. The assessing officer mentioned we will have a few special conditions such as tree protection for the Gum trees on the block. We will find out more details about these from the builder next week. Hopefully nothing major.

Demolition is booked in for next month so now I can start ebaying the appliances from around the house.

Getting sick of waiting

We'll it's been a little over six weeks since we submitted our DA now and we are still waiting on approval. We found out last week neighbour notification had concluded however they had received 2 letters. One neighbour has concerns about trees. The other neighbour has problems with runoff. Bugger.
The Accessing officer will be looking into these at the end of the week.

Kitchen Design

I thought I would post the 3D design we received from the kitchen company. We are pretty happy with the layout.
The island will be filled mostly drawers and the microwave. We will also have a few drawers in the pantry too to give us better access to items near the back. The right most cupboard next to the dishwasher will contain pull out bins so we no longer need ugly bins standing on the floor.