We finally have a portico! Apparently someone said Bunnings and someone heard Bowens, or something like that, and the result was a 2 week delay while no-one knew where the wood was. They've also straightened up the trusses and added extra studs where the gaps were too wide.



The portico! At last.



The bi-part door sitting in the backyard was finally installed. Not before being covered in mud though.



This is where the spa bath will go.



Our inspector is enthusiastic about the latest developements at the mud house.



Our laundry door. We didn't know it had a window in it. Apparently it does. The pipe is so water can drain out through the floor when something overflows.



Here's the side of the house. It's supposed to be 1.77 metres between the side of our house and the fence, I'll be measuring it tomorrow to make sure. The bricks are the side of the garage next door, presumably a 0 offset one.

UPDATE: Distance has been measured - it's more like 1.8 - 1.9 metres from the edge of our slab to the edge of the garage next door. And it's about 10 metres to the back of the property, which is also about right (the plans say 10248mm).



Extra studs have been added where the gaps were too wide underneath these windows.

Frame Inspection

We had Mark down for a frame inspection on Thursday 13th May. He found only two issues that he labelled as defects, with a number of other more minor things that he pointed out but didn't say they needed fixing. Defect 1 was that some of the roof trusses (the triangles supporting the roof) were at an angle, leaning toward the front of the house. Defect 2 was that some of the windows were supported by studs over 600mm apart, as they had used 2 studs in a gap where 3 were needed for the right spacing. He also had me take photos of a number of other things, in case there were problems later on.

Site supervisor said they will be fixing the defects when the carpenter comes down to do the portico, which will be as soon as they get replacement wood to build it.

Overall Mark said the frame was pretty good, with a lot of common mistakes avoided. He was expecting worse from a volume builder.



These are our roof tiles. Still lying in the back yard as they are waiting for the frame to be completed, after someone decided the frame wood would be better off in their house than ours.



He also suggested I document the windows lying in the water, as the reveals (the visible part of the window frame) aren't designed for this kind of exposure.



A bit too much cut out of this joist, he said. But not a disaster, especially as it wasn't in the middle of the joist where it would have caused more trouble.



The pipe here is off-center. Not as bad as some others I've seen! One pipe I saw in someone else's slab was in the entrance of the toilet instead of at the back, and they had to dig up the slab and lay some more pipe to fix it. The site supervisor said they have a little rotating attachment that will let them adjust it to the correct spot.



Mark pointed out that water collecting here wouldn't drain away. The site supervisor said they'll soak up the water before closing it off.

Even more frame!

We went down to the block again and saw we now have a wrapped ground floor, and quite a lot of roof frame. No garage though. I have managed to get truss layout from the builder and am chasing a frame layout as well.



The front left corner of the house, where the garage will be.



The back left corner of the house, looking into the outdoor room.



Our rear door sitting in the back yard, endangered by the fence that keeps falling over.



Gisele certifies the building site to be free of wild pokemon.



Meanwhile, Charlotte inspects all the empty tuna cans, making sure they are safe for handling.