TomCat's new digs!

[TomVexille]

Running Cat cable yourself is a piece of cake. I've built a few new homes and when I knew nix about home theatre I ran HDMI and rear speaker cables myself in the walls at stud stage, covered plugs with plastic and marked what they were and shoed the builder info on were they were to poke out in case the Gyprockers left em in wall.

Later our guests and siblings loved seeing Foxtel in their room when visiting. For a couple years I sold new homes, owners and builders had not even thought about it, but sure were happy to know and do it.

I actually have a data licence... but the problem is we can't afford a small builder who will let you on site and do your own work.

 

[Limewood]

Id be speaking with the builder whoever it is, made their money on your house call for a favour IMO to deal direct with sparky..

 

[TomVexille]

Big issue is site access

 

[Limewood]

Buy the Ca6 cable ask your builder if you can have his sparky instal take max 1 hour to place in walls, its madness not to. Ask and sometimes get.

 

[blackcat20]

Id be speaking with the builder whoever it is, made their money on your house call for a favour IMO to deal direct with sparky..

The contract actually forbids us from "instructing" any of the trades onsite.

 

[Bundy Bear]

It will depend on who is the actual builder, some people will appreciate the help and let you add extra things others will ask you to stay away and won't want any help.

Love reading this thread, good to read how things are progressing.

 

[Pushka]

Buy the Ca6 cable ask your builder if you can have his sparky instal take max 1 hour to place in walls, its madness not to. Ask and sometimes get.

I'd imagine there are issues with being able to sign the necessary compliance certificates if builders allowed owners to do as they wanted. While TomV is qualified there would be many others who just tinker and think that they are. There are also Insurance and liability issues. Establishing responsibility if something went wrong and the builder could brush off all their responsibility even if it was their fault. Like opening up Pandora's box.

 

[Flying mermaid]

I think it does depend on the builder, but also things have changed enormously over the years. Much more focus on Heath and safety compliance. Some builders are more amenable to people onsite - I suspect the bigger ones (and more cost conscious ones) are more rigid, but they all have to comply with regulations.

When we built our current house (17 years ago now), we were at the site 3 times a day checking everything. We had taken quite a lot of things under our control though e.g. electrical (everything was smart wiring and Clipsal controlled, so for e.g. we can change what lights get turned on by what switch, which has proved very useful over the life of the house as patterns changed), kitchen, windows and other bits, so it was a partnership between us and the builder.

 

[SponsorSFC]

If it is not too late you may be able to get the builder to put conduit in the walls for the electrical.

When we built our place 4 years ago this was a cheap compromise to getting the builder to run the Cat6 and other cabling to our theater. made running our own cables later a piece of cake.

$1,500 variation fee is huge, ours was $400 (in WA admittedly) but we avoided having to pay it when we had to make some small changes by negotiating a bit and agreeing not to complain about a few very minor things that had changed to our signed plans like an 180mm shower nib wall instead of 200mm as per the plan.

A friend had a similar experience with a minor bedroom room being a few cm narrower than plan and agreed to have the house painted instead of the wall demolished and rebuilt.

Hope you have a smooth build, ours was pretty good but have heard some horror stories.

 

[Denali]

For a pantry, I wouldnt go this far: This woman’s pantry is total #goals

But I already had shelving similar to this for my baking trays and tins on my "must have list".

 

[blackcat20]

Well our expected title date has been and gone...

 

[Flying mermaid]

Well our expected title date has been and gone...

bit sad - but remember keep your expectations very very low when it comes to dates and building a house and you won’t be disappointed

 

[blackcat20]

bit sad - but remember keep your expectations very very low when it comes to dates and building a house and you won’t be disappointed

Oh my expectations were always low, but it was a date provided by the conveyancer so it was pretty solid info. Just want settlement done before xmas so we can hand it over to the builder.

 

[love_the_life]

Well our expected title date has been and gone...

Bummer
Do you know what's holding things up?

Hopefully done in the next few days.

 

[blackcat20]

We're officially delayed until January. Id say they are struggling to get the services tested, which needs to be done before Compliance and Titles office. So by the time we settle we'll be almost two months behind schedule.

 

[Flying mermaid]

We're officially delayed until January. Id say they are struggling to get the services tested, which needs to be done before Compliance and Titles office. So by the time we settle we'll be almost two months behind schedule.

Sorry to hear that - seems to always happen. Ours took 6 months longer than anticipated. We ended up moving in and they finished the house while we were living in it!

 

[blackcat20]

Sorry to hear that - seems to always happen. Ours took 6 months longer than anticipated. We ended up moving in and they finished the house while we were living in it!

Just frustrated that the land is ready, its literally just red tape holding it up. Its been ready for weeks. You'd think they would have planned ahead and booked the testing in rather than waiting for the pre-christmas scramble. Though our broker also suggested they would hold out till January to get a nice bit of money on the books at the start of the year.

 

[Flying mermaid]

Just frustrated that the land is ready, its literally just red tape holding it up. Its been ready for weeks. You'd think they would have planned ahead and booked the testing in rather than waiting for the pre-christmas scramble. Though our broker also suggested they would hold out till January to get a nice bit of money on the books at the start of the year.

very frustrating, but the red tape can be crazy. Our plans took 9 months to get approved and OK initially there were some objections which we had to work through, but in the end it took months to get the various areas to sign off on things. Mr FM literally walked the plans from one area to the driveway people and then back again, because the plans were stuck in someone’s in tray and not being processed!

 

[blackcat20]

Just had a call from the developer who explained the delay is due to an issue with one of the services. They now expect compliance by the end of the year, then titles and settlement in January. While the delay is a pain, at least we know why.

 

[blackcat20]

Now its become clear that the problem is actually with the stage before ours. Ours has been signed off but council won't release them out of order, so until 14 gets fixed, 15 is held up It does mean though when 14 goes through, 15 will be issued immediately.