Queenslander relocation and residential subdivision

[brendio]

House is on its new site!

The house is now in site. She lifted and moved very well for an old girl. No major issues at all. Almost lost our phone line when they were pulling out the stumps. I think it may be damaged slightly, because the internet is running very slowly.

Lots of neighbours were out watching. It all went very quickly. It was on site and lined up by 9 am. It was amazing how much it swayed up and down. It almost made you feel sea sick. But it didn't creak at all.

Annie, we did see that Grand Designs episode. My brother had recorded it and we went over with mum to watch it. It made her quite worried seeing the corner falling off, but we had no such problems. We put a lot of stuff towards the centre of the house to avoid too much weight at the edges. There was a bit of bowing of the house when they lifted it up, but there are no major cracks to bee seen, which is great. It was a good episode to watch, but I don't think we will be going to as much extremes with ours.

Photos to come. It's taking too long ...

 

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Development application approved!!!

Lots happening today.

They started digging the holes for the stumps yesterday, but they had troubles with the dingo, which took a few hours running around to get fixed. They finished the holes this morning and started lowering the house. The building certifier came to inspect and gave the go ahead. All the bolts are in place under the bearers and the posts are in the holes ready to be hung. The cement truck is booked for midday tomorrow.

Mum got a call this morning to say her loan against her IP has (finally) been approved. The mortgage documents will be ready to sign tomorrow and she can draw it down from tomorrow. That will take a bit of pressure off our finances.

I then got a call from our town planner to say that council has approved our DA for the subdivision. Woohoo! That was a lot faster than expected. It took only three and a half weeks from submission to approval. We were told it could take up to three months. I guess there's probably not a lot of other development happening to keep them busy.

There were no major surprises with the conditions imposed. One that could be costly is to replace the water main where the subgrade level of the approved pavement is within 300 mm of the top of the water main. Our town planner thinks this is just council trying to cover themselves if the existing main is inadequate. It will require "pot-holing" to check the existing level of the main.

They are some other minor ones that seems silly, like the requirement to remove the existing water meter and invert crossings (why not leave them for the new allotments?). We need to install a concrete footpath, but only on two of the three street frontages.

A potentially nice surprise is that council have miscalculated the parks contribution by using the wrong catchment area. This may save us just under $12,000!

So all up, pretty good news. I now need to hurry along the rest of the family to get statements of their financial positions to get the ball rolling applying for the development loan.

I went into the house this afternoon. As it is still sitting on blocks, it is quick out of shape and lots of doors and windows won't shut or won't open. We went out onto the veranda and will have to get used to the new view of houses across the street instead of grass and trees. The landing at the back where the toilet is has come away slightly from the main house at the top. This section was added on after the house was first built, as it is not there in some early photos. They will cut the nails before they lower the house into place, which should square it up again and then they will screw it back together.

Photos: House halfway moved to new site. Panorama from street before and after.

For more photos, check my Facebook album.

 

[Annietom]

such fantastic photos on FB, what did you think when that bearer fell off! I would have panicked!!! extraordinary photos, and when the truck takes off with the house onboard, just amazing! Interesting your stumping guys use that bobcat kinda diggers for post holes, my guys are doing it by hand!

 

[brendio]

such fantastic photos on FB, what did you think when that bearer fell off! I would have panicked!!! extraordinary photos, and when the truck takes off with the house onboard, just amazing! Interesting your stumping guys use that bobcat kinda diggers for post holes, my guys are doing it by hand!

It probably helps that they can dig them before they lower the house so they can fit the dingo in. With a low-set restumping job, this would not be possible. I also notice on your blog that you are using timber stumps. Are you not worried about possible termite damage or rot? We are using the old original timber stumps from our house for firewood. We have steel stumps and I was told today that the minimum stump height is 600 mm for termite protection because it is reasoned that termites cannot climb that far. To go lower would require a lot more expensive termite protection measures. Our new house site slopes a bit over 300 mm over the length, so the front corner is just over 600 mm, and the opposite rear corner is a bit over a metre. If more than 90% of the house is greater than 900 mm, you need cross bracing on the stumps.

 

[Annietom]

Yeah the guys I'm using asked my budget, when i told them they suggested redgum, I will be getting it termite protected in about a week, and beyond that I'm not worried. If I were to keep the home for me to live in I probably would pay more for concrete, but they assure me I will have no problems.

I don't know if we need cross bracing... not sure about that one.

 

[brendio]

Well, I guess some of the original wooden stumps on our house lasted until the mid-nineties, so that's a good 70 plus years.

The height you are at from memory from one of your photos, you will not need cross bracing. You are further away from where cyclones live so you have less to worry about with strong winds.

 

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Stumps poured.

Today they hung and levelled the stumps and nailed bracing on between the vertical beams and the bearers. They had to take the bottom couple of rows of chamferboard off in places to nail the bracing on.

They then had a lie down under the house for a couple of hours while waiting for the cement truck. It was a stinking of a day. I spent most of it out under the awning in front of the fan working on my laptop.

The cement truck and concrete pump arrived and they concreted in the stumps and made sure they were vertical. It seems they don't always have the concrete pump but were quite appreciative to have it as it makes the job a lot faster and easier. They ran out of concrete and had to order another minitruck. By this stage, the concrete pump left, but they only had outside stumps to go so they could pour straight from the truck. They had a bit left over, so we made a little slab under a corner of the house to use for storing stuff like firewood on out of the dirt and rain.

They'll lower the house onto the stumps tomorrow morning.

Photos: Stumps hung ready for pouring; pouring the stumps; slab we scored out of leftover concrete.

 

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Bolted down!

Just a short day today. They lowered the house and bolted it down. They will leave doing the cyclone tie downs on the roof until Monday because they are worried about possible thunderstorms. That would not be too good when part of the roof is off. They'll also organise with our sparky to get him in on Monday to run the wiring down from the roof when they have the sheets off.

I went inside and a couple of windows and doors do not close properly. Some will require planing, others we will have to more the locks or latches up or down a few millimetres. There is still a bit of a gap at the top of the landing to the toilet. The toilet section is sitting a lot straighter now though.

Photos: Front view of house; view from over the road (cf. before view); new view from verandah (houses instead of trees and paddock).

 

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Just got home this afternoon from a weekend away. They've started on the roof and done one side of the house from what I can make out. They are putting in insulation for us while they have the roof sheeting off.

I have left a message and an email for our engineer to get started on the civil design and to let the surveyors know what detail they require for the survey, which the surveyors will do shortly.

 

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The house relocators have done half days the last couple of days, as we have had some light showers late mornings and today it has been blowing a gale, which doesn't mix well with taking sheeting off the roof. We hope it doesn't rain too heavy, because we noticed there are numerous holes in the roof in a section where we have no ceiling. I'm not sure if they are holes from where the old screws were or new holes they have drilled, but they will need to be plugged. Hoping there are not holes all over in sections we can't see.

The sparky has the new circuit board and bracket for the overhead power line set up, and mum has rung up to set up a new account, so we should have power back on in two or three days.

The plumber is starting on Monday or Tuesday, and we are getting the solar HWS installed on Tuesday. Once we have the power back on, we can arrange to get the photovaltaic system installed. We can't arrange it until we have the new meters because the installers need the number off the meter or the board to supply to the power company for the feed in tariffs.

The engineer is working on instructions to the surveyors and reckon they will have their plans done within 6 weeks or so of receiving the survey data. I will liaise with the surveyors to find out when they are coming out so I can let the neighbours know beforehand, because they will have to survey three adjoining properties for where the new sewer will go.

The big cost unknowns at this stage are power (whether a new transformer is required) and whether the water main need to be replaced. Council have not given specifications for the road widening, so we need to engage a geotechnical engineer to do testing and make appropriate plans for that. The condition of the subsurface will determine what depth of pavement is required, which in turn will influence whether there is the minimum 300 mm distance from the water main to the road sublevel. The planning for the road widening will also be a variation of our contract with our engineers.

We are also require to put in pram ramps on a couple of the corners. On one corner the current foot path is quite a bit higher than the curb, and ideally I would like to lower the footpath. However, there is various Telstra infrastructure in the area, including a pit, which might result in a height mismatch that requires relocating some of the Telstra services.

Here's a funny story: Council have required us to install concrete footpaths on only two road frontages. Our engineer was talking with a council contact about some of the conditions, and was told that council didn't require a concrete footpath on the third frontage because there was one on the other side of the road. The funny thing is that there isn't one on the other side. This other side was developed about 5 years ago, so it was either just before council started requiring developers to install concrete footpaths or the developers didn't comply with council conditions to install one, but there definitely ins't one there.

Council also have not required us to replace the rear fence with a privacy fence as we were originally told by one of the town planners, but we may well do this anyway for aesthetic reasons.

So, so far we have saved about $12,000 in infrastructure charges because of a council mistake, and will save $5-6000 on 50 m of footpath, but will be up for the cost of a geotechnical engineer and may be up for replacing 180 m of water mains ($50,000?) and relocating Telstra infrastructure ($?).

 

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The structural engineer is booked in to come on Monday afternoon to inspect the cyclone upgrade. The house relocators should be finished with that by tomorrow, so will come back for the inspection to lift a section of the roof for the engineer to see.

The surveyors will be out tomorrow for the detail and level survey. I rang and popped in to see neighbours to let them know we will need access. The engineer has requested a survey of a 2 m strip of the property adjoining where the sewer will go in case there are any major trees whose roots would be cut during the sewer construction. There are only shrubs, so it shouldn't be a problem.

The neighbour I went to see is now in her eighties and has lived in the street behind us for over 60 years now. She would have bought the land off my great grandparents. She said when she moved in there was no road and they lived in a tent until their house was built. She remembers when it was farmland all around. It looks very different now.

As I was walking back, I got to chatting with other neighbours. They have lived there for 50 years (they celebrate their 50th anniversary tomorrow) and knew my grandparents well. I think the average tenure of residency in this area is quite high. Further down the street, where it was developed in the 1970s, there are also numerous original owners still there.

Photo: Roof sheeting off to allow cyclone upgrade of roof (it's lasted 90 years no problems, but now needs to be brought up to "current standards").

 

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The house relocators finished up this morning and were going to bring the final bill around this afternoon, but never came. The engineer will inspect the roof on Monday afternoon, so the house relocator will come back to lift a section of roof panels for him to inspect the cyclone upgrade.

The plumber dropped around to see what materials he needs for the job and will be back to start on Monday.

The surveyors completed most of the detail and level survey. I was talking to them in the afternoon and they still did not have the specific survey instructions from the engineer. The survey instructions arrived in my inbox this afternoon, after the surveyors had gone home. One issue is that the engineer has requested "potholing" of the road verge to determine the level of the water main. The surveyor was not aware that they were required to do this. Mechanical digging is out of the question. What you can get is a high pressure water sprayer that digs the hole and an attached vacuum sucks up all the mud produced. That way, the infrastructure is not damaged and the surveyors have a neat little hole to plonk their stick down to measure the level and you can then backfill with gravel. I will have to sort out on Monday whether I need to organise this or the surveyors will. The surveyor was unsure whether an operational works permit would be required, since the road verge is on council land.

I had a real estate agent ring up after seeing my little flyer. He offered his services, but said he was also interested in a block. I now have over 10 expressions of interest as a result of my newsletter, website and drive-bys and most interest is in the four available "quarter acre"* blocks.

I need to rustle up the family to get their statements of financial position back to me so I can make another appointment with the bank to try to get a loan. So far we have sunk just under $80k into the project, including the $19k council bond.

* 1006 sqm, so just under quarter acre.

 

[brendio]

Busy day for a project manager

The plumbers started today and have completed most of the work under the house to get the water back on and will dig the trenches for the sewer and water mains on Thursday. They have missed a couple of things that I will have to get them to do.

The tap got knocked off the old rainwater tank when the house relocators were disconnecting it. We had planned to reuse the tank (and mum spent a few hours yesterday cleaning it up. We would have to get the tap fibreglassed back on and the plumber said we would also need a food safety certificate for it, so we have decided to just get a new tank. We will try to have a slab down for it by Thursday when the plumbers are back.

The handyman came around to see what we need to get him to do: refitting the stairs and battens under the house, concreting a mower strip and making the tank slab, as well as a few odd jobs. He might be able to start tomorrow, depending on how he organises around his other jobs.

I checked with the surveyor and engineer about the potholing of the water main and have arranged for a cable locator to come on Thursday with a vacuum digger to locate the level of the main. Council has two different, conflicting sets of plans for the stormwater drain that we will connect our interallotment drainage into, and they don't know which set was used for construction, so while we have the cable locators out, we will get them to use the ground penetrating radar to locate the level of the drain and also the location of a nearby riser to make sure we stay away from it. We'll also get them to locate the Telstra cables to allow design of the pram ramps and possible reshaping of the footpath.

We got the quote back from the geotechnical engineer, who will come out to perform soil tests in four locations along the road verge after the cable locators have marked the locations of the services so he doesn't dig them up when doing the soil test.

In the afternoon, the house relocator came to lift a section of the roof for the inspection, and meanwhile, Ergon turned up to hook the power back up. So, we have power on again to the meter board, but nothing is hooked up from there yet. I rang the sparky to let him know that Ergon had been, so hopefully he'll be back tomorrow to give us at least one circuit and some lights so we can stop borrowing it from the neighbour.

The house relocator had some paperwork for us and the final bill, but it was getting really blowy and starting to rain, so he helped us tie the old tank up, which was starting to blow away, and then left and will come back in the morning. In our contract we had a clause that allowed a deduction of $25 for each of the old stumps they reused, but they haven't included this in the final invoice. Will have to query that. We got them to transport away and dump the old concrete stumps (site clean up was not included in the contract) as a variation, so the deduction for the stumps should cover most of this extra cost.

When the rain came, there was a lot of water coming out of the rust hole in the gutter on the awning of the back windows (a lot for a small area), and I noticed that the gutter from the main roof above it has sagged down and is empting out into the awning, so will get the plumber to fix that on Thursday as well.

I don't think tomorrow will be quite so busy.

I was talking to our developer friend at a BBQ on the weekend (the one who we initially approached about a JV but who encouraged us to go it ourselves). He asked how the project was coming along. I told him we had our DA already and he was quite surprised. He currently has an application in with council that has been there four months and he is still getting info requests. Our was approved in three and a half weeks!

Photos: Getting power hooked back up (x2) and pump and plumbing work.

 

[Annietom]

well it's movin along nicely I see!

why does the copper go into that white box (pump???)?

 

[brendio]

well it's movin along nicely I see!

why does the copper go into that white box (pump???)?

The pump for the rainwater is plumbed into the laundry and toilet and automatically switches to mains when the tank runs out. The tank is still to be installed, so once that is in there will be two pipes in and one out.

Another busy day as the building site today. We had some heavy early rain, so the handyman rang at 7am to see how conditions were, and then came around 9 am after it had fined up. He and his offsider got the slab done for the tank and have started on the mower strips.

The sparky is still working away at hooking our circuits up to the new switchboard. Apparently, we had about 80% of our power running through the one circuit previously, so he will distribute it a bit more evenly now.

Solarhart arrived in the afternoon with the solar HWS. They lifted it on the roof and had fun installing it with the raked ceilings and copper pipes. Late afternoon reinforcements were brought in and there were four guys working away at it when I had to leave for a meeting at 5pm. Mum said they weren't done until after 6 pm. They had a special price on this month for installation, so we are glad we got them to install rather than just plonk on and get our plumber and sparky to hook it up. I think we got our money's worth, and hopefully a better job, since they would be used to installing them all the time. We've put in the application for the solar PV, but it will be March before they can get around to installing it. Seems they are quite busy with the mad rush before all the incentives run out.

 

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Today the handyman continued concreting the mower strip. He had not long got it done when it started raining and exposed the aggregate and sand on top of the concrete. He managed to render it back looking good. About 2 hours later, it rained again. This time, we tried cover the still not completely set concrete with tarps and planks of wood and the handyman rendered the surface again as best he could.

The plumber will be back tomorrow to dig the trenches and hopefully fix up a few other loose ends.

I have not heard back from the cable locators. They were going to ring today to confirm that they are still coming tomorrow. Not sure if that means they're not coming or they just forgot to ring.

The handyman will have the day off tomorrow and come back on Friday to finish off the mower strips after the sewer and downpipes are in, and will start on the stairs and battens. Mum or I need to check with council whether it will pass the final inspection with just the one set of stairs, as the old rear set of stairs she wanted to put back on are a bit worse for wear and would not be up to current building standards. We will soon put in another building application for the deck, which will make the old stairs obsolete anyway, so we hope the council inspector will be lenient in light of that.

Photos: Concreting the slab for the rainwater tank; lifting the solar HWS onto the roof.

 

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We have running water and sewerage again!

We got our water to the house back on today. A load of sand and the tank were delivered early, and then a mini-excavator dug the trenches. They dug down to the old clay sewer pipe in what will become the neighbouring allotment and dug a trench from there to the new house site and ran PVC piping. When the new sewer main is constructed, they will then just need to do a dog leg to connect into it. They did the same with the water. It now does a right angle turn just after the meter and runs along the property boundary before turning to the house, so it will just be a short run from where they will put the new meter once it's subdivided.

There was a mix up with the council inspector, because the plumber had booked him and didn't have the compliance permit number, someone ended up down at Burnett Heads, where there is another street by the same name. Our property though has a different address on the title to the one for post and where we drive in. Apparently, they almost weren't going to come, but they did make it. The plumber tried to save face by laying the blame on me, saying he'd been asking for the compliance permit from the start (which he hadn't). I didn't say anything. I have a good rapport with the inspector, as he lives in the estate across the road and was very enthusiastic about our development when I went in to council with questions beforehand. I gave him a copy of the newsletter I did up for the neighbourhood, and he said he'd give it to his neighbour (who incidentally, we know), whose daughter is interested in a block.

The cable locator is coming tomorrow and the surveyor has arranged with him to be there when he digs down to the water mains to take a level reading before he backfills.

The handyman will be back tomorrow. We have various ideas to run by him with making some of the panels of battens removable for easy access under the house. I have bought some sample parts from Bunnings and we go back to buy more parts if he likes our idea and returns the unneeded parts. I will have to check the weather forecast before ordering the concrete for him to finish off the mower strips.

Tonight, I enjoyed being able to stretch out while having a shower, unlike in the cramped confines of the van shower. The water was warm enough, despite only having since about 3 pm to heat up from the sun.

Still no lights. No sign of the sparky today.

Photos: The trench for the sewer line; trenches for the stormwater and mains water; green features: rainwater tank and solar HWS.

(I'm glad I came to post to SS before bed, because I realised that I'd left my camera outside.)

 

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First bit of potentially bad news yesterday, and another busy day on site. The cable locator got a reading on the water main with the radar of 500mm depth and was very happy with the accuracy of the signal. That's very touch and go with our council condition requiring us to replace the entire water main (ca. 190m!) if it's less than 300 mm below the road subsurface. Generally, road widening is done to a depth of 200 mm, so we are right on the borderline of whether or not we need to replace it, but we need to wait for the geotechnical engineer to tell us how deep we need to make the road subsurface. We have good soil on our house site, so hopefully that will translate to the road verge and we will get away will less subsurface required. Because the depth reading from the radar was close to the critical value, the engineer wanted a more accurate reading from visual sighting of the main, which the cable locator did with a high pressure water jet and vacuum pump. His radar readings turned out to be quite accurate, and the depths came back between 500 and 580 mm.

The cable locator couldn't find the storm water under the road where we had planned to hook into with our drainage, plus there is a lot of infrastructure in that vicinity (Telstra copper, Telstra fibre, water main, sewer riser main), so we would have to dig out into the road looking for the stormwater drain while avoiding all these other cables, and we would have to dig manually within a metre of the Telstra fibre. The engineer will look at a couple of different alternatives to see if they are feasible and simpler. The simplest would be to drain our interallotment drainage straight into the curb, but we may have to install something to control the flow rate of the stormwater to keep it within acceptable levels.

The geotechnical engineer called around to see the site and will do the tests on Monday or Tuesday, depending on the weather.

We got our mower strips finished off and will soon start on the battens under the house. We also go our lights on. The sparky will come back on Monday to install the smoke detectors and fans required by our building permit.

Photos: The hole down the water main (it didn't turn out very good with the contrast in light levels); measuring the depth to the main; photo from the roof.

 

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A snag on the building front

We've hit a little snag on the building front. The house relocator sent mum an invoice for the engineer's inspection, which had incorrectly been sent to him. Attached to it, however, was a noncompliance notice from the engineer stating that the speed brace was not present in the roof when it was inspected. We had some of the relocators back today to fix the gutter at the back, which was dislodged when the toilet landing shifted. We mentioned it to them, and they stated that they do not do bracing and it states that in their contract. That turns out to be true, but it is not very helpful at this stage. Certainly it was not brought to our attention that we would need to get someone else in to finish off the roof. We now have a solar hot water system sitting on part of the roof that will need the bracing installed in. Our handyman used to be a registered builder, so we will get his opinion when he come tomorrow on what our options are. It would have been a lot easier to install the bracing while the relocators had the roof off for the cyclone tie downs!

 

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I finally got onto the structural engineer to clarify a few things about the bracing. Thankfully, he is not going to make us take the roof off again and will not require the raked sections of the ceiling to be braced as he drew in the plans, but we will need to brace the middle section where the roof is really high. He said instead of using speed bracing, we can use 75 by 38 mm beams on the underside of the rafters. I'm not sure which will be easier. The sparky is planning to come back later in the week, when it is predicted to rain and will be cooler, to get up in the ceiling to install a couple of fans. I might go up for a looksee in the ceiling while he has the ladder up there. I don't know if the engineer will require another inspection once the bracing is done. I might send him some photos when it is done and see if he is happy with that to save him coming out and charging us an inspection fee. I also reminded him that we still haven't received the plans for the footings and roof for the new deck.

We have front stairs again and the handy man and his offsider have the battens on three of the four sides done. At first they had them spaced really far apart and it didn't look too good, but mum had a word the next day and they redid with less gaps. It looks heaps better (see photo). We are not too keen on the thin steel post look, so plan to cover them with either a thick board of wood, or possibly hebel to make them look like old fashioned fat stumps. We with even put ant caps at the top. We at still working out exactly how we will do this, but that explains the gaps in the battens around the posts.

Mum has marked out in chalk on the floor of the new en suite to the front bedroom where everything will go. This is the room that my brother started making into a nursery when he was living there, but it never got finished and he eventually bought elsewhere. The plan now is the have it so this the front room and en suite can be self-contained and possibly rented out separately to a boarder. The front room already has a separate front door off the verandah.

Photos: Front view of house with stairs (old ones put back on temporarily) and battens; view of new en suite layout from door to front bedroom; view of new en suite layout looking towards front bedroom.