Week 3: Digging, dirt and demolition

This week we were lucky to continue to have amazing Brisbane winter weather, meaning that things have continued to tick along well. Things that happened this week...

The 'jenga blocks' that were holding up the house temporarily have been removed, with all the steel posts now in situ. We have some timber posts still to arrive once the concrete footings have been poured.

Basically all the concrete (except the driveway) has now been removed to allow the site to be levelled and prepared for the concrete footings and slab to be poured.

We also got to get up the ladder and see the inside of the house for the first time since it has been raised. We got to get a preview of what our views will be like from the back deck...

And also check out how some of our future rooms will shape up, as some of the internal demolition and wall removal has already happened too!

This is the kitchen prior, and the kitchen currently (window to go where the stove was). This will be a staircase in the future.





This is the bathroom as it was on the left, and the bathroom currently (asbestos still needs to be removed from the roof). This will form part of the future living room and the wall on the right will become sliding glass doors out to the future deck!

 


What did we learn this week? Definitely how many decisions we haven't made yet! Despite thinking we're super-organised (we have already purchased most of our bathroom fittings for example), certain key decisions need to be made now in order to keep the build on schedule.

Examples:
- colour of aluminium window frames (cue drive to the showroom!)
- final decision on upstairs windows (so the house isn't left exposed for too long when the cladding is removed)
- toilets (so the plumbing can be laid appropriately under the slab, which should be poured this week)

Thanks for reading, and as usual, please feel free to comment below! :-)

Week 2: She's up!

This week was a big week for the West End reno. On Monday - the house was lifted! Can't wait to get up there and see what our views will be like when the scaffolding goes up. I've attempted this with a phone and a selfie stick previously but nothing like getting up there for real. I suspect we'll get a great view of Mt Coot-tha and possibly some city glimpses (thanks to 1 William St for going so high).

We've been planning this renovation for a year, so it's been exciting to see some real movement on site!

Firstly the house raisers installed some structural steel on the underside of the house, and then jacked it up, putting it on what looks a lot like temporary jenga blocks...

The next step was to drill some holes (bored piers) in which the steel posts were placed along with reinforcement, and the holes filled with concrete. This basically re-stumps the house and allows the jenga blocks to be removed (once all the posts are in and the concrete is set). The house will 'drop' a couple of centimetres onto the top of the posts.

Michael has some questions about how things will proceed from here as our site still needs to have fill imported to enable it to be levelled. He has also been keeping a close eye on the engineering details as per the structural drawings and will check with our builder that this part is all going to plan.

So what did we learn this week? Probably the biggest thing was getting the services disconnected in time for the house raise. While we had the builder's electrician come in to disconnect the electricity and gas from the house, the service itself to the house has to be switched off. Our tenants had moved out and therefore Energex had disconnected the electricity at this stage.

The gas turned out to be a little more difficult. The gas distributor (who owns and maintains the network and pipelines) in the south of Brisbane is Allgas, part of the APA group - https://www.apa.com.au. When I rang them however, it turns out that all inquiries go through the gas supplier (in our case, AGL). Once we contacted AGL, they contact Allgas, and they turned up only a couple of days later to remove the gas meter and supply line from the street (only around $64, and to reinstate a gas line/meter in QLD is free!). However we had been warned that disconnection (what the gas company calls 'abolishment') can take up to 20 working days so we were fortunate.

Services can be a real problem when raising a house, take a look at these FAQs from Raise My House here: (note that this is not the contractor that our builder is using, however I obtained a quote from them and their service was very prompt) http://www.raisemyhouse.com.au/faq/

In summary, lots happened during week 2 and we are cautiously excited! Thanks for reading, and pop any questions or comments below :-)

Week 1: And we're off!

The past year has been been an flurry of activity of:

• developing a design we could agree on
• obtaining a site survey
• developing the structural engineering
• seeking town planning and development approval
• obtaining building approval
• negotiating with builders
• buying supplies and
• seeking finance...

It's hard to believe that it took two people (who love efficiency) a whole year to plan a renovation, but I'm glad we took our time to get it all right. Hopefully it means this blog won't be a written reenactment of  all the Grand Designs cliches (I'm thinking, being stopped due to town planning issues, variations due to continually changing our minds, running into financial trouble, getting pregnant...)

So this week things finally kicked off! Stuff happening this week includes demolition, services getting disconnected, and preparing for the house raise. Oh, and Kate having a small meltdown on the phone to AGL. Good times.

So, to the progress this week! Here is our kitchen before we started, note the stove area at the end (where the original wood stove would have sat in ye olde days).

If you turned around where this kitchen photo was taken, the bathroom is directly opposite, and looked like this...

The old stove 'nook' has now been knocked out, and looking through this, you can see that both the kitchen and bathroom have been demolished. 

Mucho demolition rubbish in the backyard...

In addition, preparation for the house lift has taken place, with structural steel and many blocks of wood.

House liftey things, otherwise known as jacks! (thanks Dad! - Kate here!)

We plan to provide weekly updates now that the fun part has begun. Keep an eye out next week when hopefully the house will be lifted! And as always, feel free to post questions or comments below.