Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT New home and 3 car garage in Melbourne, Australia

Geoff289 · Mar 3, 2019

Danshell said:
Nice update Geoff. It is all starting to make a lot more sense.
Beautiful outlook, I love looking at tree's rather than suburbia. We have had a couple of high 30 degree days here as well and I think down south they hit 40 or so.

What is the flooring material they are using? It looks like some sort of waterproof particle board?

I have to wonder if you will ever wish you had dug some more out under the front of the house and make it a usable storage area?

Yeh I spent a bit of time watching the v8's as well over the weekend, albeit inbetween fitting the youngest sons suspension lift to his 4wd and building my dear old mother a fence and gate!
It was good to see Scotty Mac taking all the glory. He is one of the nice guys. The mustangs in supercar guise are growing on me but they will be a lot nicer when they can have the real body shape on them.

Yes, the reserve at the back with all the trees is the major reason we bought the property. Given that we are actually right in the middle of suburbia it's pretty special.

The flooring is just common yellow tongue, particle board as you say. My understanding is that its waterproof up to a point but you couldn't just leave it exposed for ever. It's perfectly OK for it to get wet between now and when the roof goes on. Given how dry its been here I actually hope it does get wet this week.

I've ended up with more space under there than originally intended. I think I said in an earlier post that the retaining wall would be continued once they'd finished with any need to get machinery down there but the builder suggested we didn't bother since there's really nothing to retain and it would have meant more expense to get the wall guy back and then bring in backfill behind it for no purpose. I'll have more storage space than I will ever need.

Another good day at the office for Scotty yesterday. I reckon its just fantastic that **** is having this success as he's been such a stalwart of the blue oval no matter what.

hewey said:
View from the bedroom looks great!

Thanks Hewey.

anth · Mar 3, 2019

Looking good, love the (future) view. Can I ask where you picked up your bathroom fittings from? We're currently in the research/fantasy shopping stage of our reno (awaiting first rough sketches from architect)

Geoff289 · Mar 4, 2019

anth said:
Looking good, love the (future) view. Can I ask where you picked up your bathroom fittings from? We're currently in the research/fantasy shopping stage of our reno (awaiting first rough sketches from architect)

Thanks anth.

We've bought stuff from various places over the last few months, just picking up bargains when they've popped up. All of it is quality stuff but we've saved quite a bit. The recent purchase was a couple of hand basins for the powder rooms (why are they called that?). We needed something no wider than about 280mm but with some style and this place https://www.zigell.com/ had a wider range of suitable ones than anywhere else we looked.

A couple of weeks ago we got some larger basins in a similar style for the ensuite and bathroom from this place https://www.arova.com.au/ again at good prices. We will probably get our floor and wall tiles from them too as the sample we took away was exactly half the per m2 price of the identical tile from a major tile specialist chain.

We are currently evaluating a quote for all the tapware from this mob http://www.absbuilding.com.au/ for particularly high quality Australian made tapware with lifetime warranties.

Outside of bathroom stuff, we got the kitchen and pantry sinks from https://www.homeclearance.com.au/, again quality items at less than half the RRP.

Our ovens (apparently we have to have two) and dishwasher came from https://www.miele.com.au/domestic/unboxed-outlet-3026.htm at about 60% of RRP.

Avoid the big bathroom shops with flash showrooms is my advice.

anth · Mar 4, 2019

Thanks for the links, I'll be saving all of those. Yes we need two ovens as well, I don't ask questions any more. Currently looking at the Siemens line (we even went to a cooking demonstration at E&S, what a great way to spend a Sunday, what even is a garage?)

I'll definitely check out homeclearance.com.au. Have you been to Western Distributors in Sunshine? That's where we bought our tiles when we did our laundry reno a few years back.

Geoff289 · Mar 5, 2019

anth said:
Have you been to Western Distributors in Sunshine? That's where we bought our tiles when we did our laundry reno a few years back.

Western Distributors rang a bell so I trawled through the mountain (well, mostly an electronic mountain) of doco we have and found we got a quote from them last year for supply of our tiles. It is attractive pricing.

I may or may not be the only one around here who had forgotten about this quote but we haven't really been up to tiles yet and have only started looking at them again in the last week or so.

I met with the builder and the lift company guy on site today to make sure everyone is on the same page. They were putting up the upper level framing but my phone battery decided to die so I didn't get any photos today.

Yesterday I went to the solar roof vent people and finalised the specs and placed the order which I'm picking up on Thursday. I'll post something about the specs and some pics once I've got it. They very helpfully suggested that if I bought it on Ebay from them I could take advantage of an Ebay 10% off deal. I don't have the Ebay app on my phone so they let me use the computer in their office to do it. Always like to save money!

Danshell · Mar 5, 2019

One thing we quickly learnt about our builder is that he is not really open to us doing anything ourselves in the build or supplying any of the fit out.

He was a little flexible but for the most part he had his own suppliers that we of course could choose anything within their range of products (at our extra expense if it wasn't within his standard inclusions) but that was a s far as it went.

Our future plans are to build a 'retirement' home on the coast over a period of time while we are working and living in our near completed new home. This of course is a part of the longer term end game but one of the things I am looking forward to is being able to source my own materials and fit out as I am a great bargain hunter. And there are a lot of great bargains in this area to be had as Geoff is showing.

However this time around we couldn't afford that luxury, or at least not with this builder.....you live and learn I guess.

Keep the great info coming.

Geoff289 · Mar 11, 2019

I've been AWOL for the last week or so, mainly because I had some screw up with the photo hosting site I've been using and couldn't upload any pictures. Seems to be all sorted now.

So while I've been away things have been happening on site and the frame including roof trusses is now complete, which means another invoice, of course!

Here's some pics. It was a bit hard to get far enough away from it to get the full effect, and the builder's shed is cluttering up the frontage, but anyway starting to look like a house. So far, not much in the way of sinking feelings from seeing the actual size of rooms etc.

This one is taken standing on the upper level deck

This gives a vague sense of coming in the front entry door and having your eye drawn through the house to the view of the trees at the back (well I hope it does)

This is the actual view from the main bedroom

I said earlier I was picking up the solar roof vent. Here's a few pics of it. This unit is far superior to the plastic toys sold by the big green hardware chain. It's all metal construction, has a 24 volt 40 watt motor so draws only about 1.7 amps. I got them to add a mains AC back up which is wired to kick in if there's insufficient sun but the whole thing is manually controllable with a switch I'll have mounted in the garage.

It ***** 3,200 cfm at full power. I calculated the volume of our roof space and theoretically it would change the air in their every four minutes. In practice it won't be anything like this because it won't have full power all the time and the roof space isn't hermetically sealed, but it should still make a substantial difference to the temperature up there, thereby reducing heat soak into the house and reducing the challenge for the air con system.

I've got to buy a bunch of stuff in the next little while so its ready for when its needed, including pump and related items for the rain water tanks, hot water diverters, range hood ducting and the data/tv hub.

The windows have been delayed unfortunately so the next phase which is lock up will be slowed down but the builder is going to do some things a bit out of normal sequence that can be. Roof is supposed to go on next week ( so we'll have to stop changing our mind about the colour).

Danshell · Mar 12, 2019

Nice update Geoff, it is really starting to take shape. Will you be in before winter?

Our roof just has one of those whirly birds so no doubt Ill have to look into something like you have bought at some stage. Again, this sort of this is the difference of being able to be very involved in your build and simply being at the mercy of what the builder has chosen in a lot of instances.

So what colour did you end up choosing for the roof?

Geoff289 · Mar 13, 2019

Danshell said:
Nice update Geoff, it is really starting to take shape. Will you be in before winter?

So what colour did you end up choosing for the roof?

No, should be good for Spring. That said, there is a bunch of stuff we are doing or getting done after the builder has finished and the Occupancy Certificate has been issued - carpets, window furnishings, garage doors, lift install, solar system, driveway, landscaping. There is merit in getting all this sorted before we actually move in but on the other hand we'll be itching to just get in there. We'll probably delay moving in until at least the first 3 of those items are done and in any case we can get a lot of it scheduled in advance.

Roof - I am dreaming in Colorbond these days. We've sourced some sheets of various colours and been holding them up against the bricks and generally agonising over this for the last couple of weeks and have just pinned it down today as its being measured and ordered on Friday. We ended up with Windspray on the roof itself and Monument on the guttering etc. Frankly, I'm still not sure but the saving grace is that with the gable on the streetscape not much of the roof will be seen and what can be seen from the street on one side will be largely covered in solar panels. Anyway, its done and it'll look like whatever it looks like.

Geoff289 · Mar 21, 2019

Things have slowed down a bit with our build as there's been a delay with the windows which in turn holds up other aspects, the brickie in particular, so I don't have much to update.

The roof guys, however, pretty much have the guttering and fascia done.

We've been buying a few more bits and pieces so we have it ready when the builder needs it. This includes range hood ducting (bit boring), those redwater diversion valves I mentioned in an earlier post, and the pump and related equipment for the rain water tanks.

I got this pump and electronic controller https://www.whiteint.com.au/pumps/d...built-in-automatic-control-45l-min-42m-804782

and this mains diversion gizmo https://www.whiteint.com.au/pumps/r...p-changeover-rs4e-clean-water-100l-min-805617

I freely acknowledge being a proud cheapskate and I've been going on about chasing down bargains but these items are illustrative. In total, I paid 54% of the combined RRP indicated in the above links. This included getting the pump on Ebay and taking advantage of a 10% off deal there. Our builder and his plumber subbie wouldn't be able to put the time into chasing down the best prices, it would just come from the plumber's usual supplier, at a trade price of course, and then have the plumber and our builder both add their margin.

Notgrownup · Mar 21, 2019

Geoff, I just stumbled on this thread, nice progress, I know you are excited to see it Advance...Congrats.

Geoff289 · Mar 23, 2019

Notgrownup said:
Geoff, I just stumbled on this thread, nice progress, I know you are excited to see it Advance...Congrats.

Many thanks far taking an interest.

The roof guys were putting the roof sheets on yesterday and had a drone in action briefly so here's a couple of overhead shots. There's also a short movie from the drone but I don't think I can put that up here can I?

1/2 Cup · Mar 23, 2019

Geoff289 wow :thumbup:

your build is looking fantastic. :thumbup:

Notgrownup · Mar 23, 2019

Movie? I don’t see why not...we love freaking movies dude...lol.
Those roof sheets,,,,are they an insulated type, I’ve never seen them before....
That solar vent is the Shiznit for sure

Geoff289 · Mar 23, 2019

1/2 Cup said:
Geoff289 wow your build is looking fantastic.

Thanks, I particularly appreciate you taking an interest 1/2 Cup

Notgrownup said:
Movie? I don’t see why not...we love freaking movies dude...lol.
Those roof sheets,,,,are they an insulated type, I’ve never seen them before....
That solar vent is the Shiznit for sure

OK, as I can't figure out how to do it any other way I've put the movie up on YouTube here. It's only 20 seconds so don't get too excited. It does show the nature reserve at the back of the property.

This has got me interested though. My son in law has a drone so I'll put it on him to come and get some more footage (I'll probably have to promise to stop giving it to him about the Ford dominance of the Supercars so far this year, him being a Holden man).

The roofing material is a product called Colorbond - https://colorbond.com/products/roofing - it isn't insulated but the green material you can see them laying under it is reflective foil insulation and then there is of course bulk insulation on top of the ceiling, in our case about double the R value to what is usually used.

Off topic for a minute, yesterday the Mustang Owners Club participated in the Association of Motoring Clubs American Motoring Show and picked up the best club display award for the third year in succession. For those interested, some pics are here

http://www.mustangclubvictoria.org.au/clubphotos/20190323_AOMC/imgpages/image000.html

rixtrix1 · Mar 24, 2019

Very interesting build. I really enjoyed the write-up.

Geoff289 · Mar 24, 2019

rixtrix1 said:
Very interesting build. I really enjoyed the write-up.

Thanks so much Ric.

I've just started to repay the favour by reading your thread. 36 pages will take me a while, though. I see a couple of things that resonate already.

1. You're in Phoenix - I found my Mustang in Scottsdale back in 2011, where it had lived all its life.

2. You're a drag racer - drag racing is my main motorsport interest and I've spent nearly 50 years as a passionate spectator and sometime crew member. I've been to NHRA events many times, including a 6 month period back in the early '80's basically following the circuit.

Thanks again for taking an interest.

Geoff289 · Mar 24, 2019

reon said:
cool story and pics, i envy you

Thanks Reon. This project is exciting and stressful in about equal measures. Off to play Grandad for the day today so a day away from it will be therapeutic.

Danshell · Mar 24, 2019

Nice work Geoff.

We bought a DJI Phantom 3 standard when we first bought our land so we could document the build from the sky.......I dont think we have any footage of the build from the drone yet!
But it has been a valuable tool for arial photographs when plotting out the best place to build though.
You can buy them very cheap second hand and the footage quality is very good. They also have all the gps gadgets so they come home on their own etc Very easy to use.

Heres a sample around our place

It was great to see your footage it gives a far better perspective of the build than still shots IMHO.

Geoff289 · Mar 25, 2019

Danshell said:
Nice work Geoff.

It was great to see your footage it gives a far better perspective of the build than still shots IMHO.

Yeah I kind of wish I'd thought of this myself before now. Oh well, if that's the only thing I wish I'd thought of once it's finished it'll be a good result.

It's been as windy as here today so I don't know how they went with finishing the roof. I wouldn't want to be up there trying to wrangle 6 or 7 metre sheets of Colorbond in a howling gale.

In case anyone was wondering, the two grandchildren I hung out with today were an excellent way to start the week. The new young bloke is coming up to 4 months old now and was all smiles and gurgles (and a little bit of chucking) while his 3 year old sister knows a sucker when she finds herself in a toyshop with one.

Danshell · Mar 25, 2019

Geoff289 said:
It's been as windy as here today so I don't know how they went with finishing the roof. I wouldn't want to be up there trying to wrangle 6 or 7 metre sheets of Colorbond in a howling gale.

We had a very wild storm with very high winds ourselves for around 12 hours. I was thinking to myself that it'll certainly let the builders know up on the mountain if they have all the sheeting screwed on properly or if there are any leaks!!

And ironically the builders wife (she does all the selection stuff) called me at work yesterday and "said we have a problem".........my immediate thoughts were something to do with the big storm

It just turned out to be the rangehood we wanted is longer available so we had to pick another one :lol_hitti

Geoff289 · Mar 27, 2019

Not a lot to report but the roof is pretty much done and there are a few more photos from the drone and another short video. If you look closely you can see the solar roof vent installed at the highest point. Have to say it looks tiny compared to how it looked on the ground.

Had a site meeting with the builder and the heating and cooling guy I have been working with for a while to fine tune what were going to have.

wasfast · Mar 27, 2019

What's the deal on roof ventilation there? I see one on yours at the peak and NONE on the neighbors properties. With all the heat, I'd expect to see full ridge vents or multiple peak vents to pull the heat out of the attic space.

Geoff289 · Mar 27, 2019

wasfast said:
What's the deal on roof ventilation there? I see one on yours at the peak and NONE on the neighbors properties. With all the heat, I'd expect to see full ridge vents or multiple peak vents to pull the heat out of the attic space.

You'd think, wouldn't you?

Probably the most common roof historically in my part of the country anyway is cement or terra cotta tiles as the houses each side of our's have and which the old place we knocked down had. This approach does provide some inherent "breathing" as there are effectively air gaps between each row under the overlap of the tiles. If you get up in the roof with a wind blowing you can feel it.

This approach is a poor substitute for an active heat extraction system like we have though. You can't see it but the house on our left has a wind powered extractor fan and these are common because they're cheap but they're useless if there's no wind and even in a gale only extract a fraction of what our electric one will do.

The builders don't go to this trouble because it costs and home owners just don't do the research into these things, preferring to put up with both ineffective air con and high running costs. Go figure.

wasfast · Mar 27, 2019

I'm a fan of ridge vents but they're not compatible with all roofing material types. You get amazing amounts of area that is nearly invisible and only requires that you provide adequate intakes in the soffit panels.

Geoff289 · Mar 28, 2019

wasfast said:
I'm a fan of ridge vents but they're not compatible with all roofing material types. You get amazing amounts of area that is nearly invisible and only requires that you provide adequate intakes in the soffit panels.

Yes, I follow what you mean. We'll have vents in the eaves as we call them (I think this is what you call a soffit) so the vent doesn't just create a vacuum in the roof space.

The advantage of the thing we have is that it can be turned off in the winter so, if the sun's out the roof space can warm up and make the heating more efficient because the ducting in the roof space isn't losing as much to heat to colder air up there. In summer you want to **** the heat out so the same ducting isn't losing as much cool to the surrounding air.

I know it gets plenty hot in San Diego where you are but maybe not as cold in the Winter. We regularly see 105-110F in the Summer but in Winter its often down in the low 30's or even lower first thing in the morning. Your latitude is about 5 degrees closer to the equator than Melbourne, about the same as Sydney where they don't worry about effective heating as much as we do in Melbourne.

wasfast · Mar 28, 2019

The majority of my experience (and life, 51 years) was living in Portland Oregon. Asphalt type shingles there, mostly tile here in SD. Anyway, enough picking at your project. The house looks great and I'm sure you're anxious to get in!

Geoff289 · Mar 28, 2019

wasfast said:
The majority of my experience (and life, 51 years) was living in Portland Oregon. Asphalt type shingles there, mostly tile here in SD. Anyway, enough picking at your project. The house looks great and I'm sure you're anxious to get in!

I didn't regard your posts as picking, on the contrary I'm grateful for the interest.

Portland would be a different climate all right. Those asphalt tiles that seem common over there are not something you see here at all. We have this tv channel here that screens US "house" shows 24/7 and I've been surprised at how common that type of roof is.

Thanks again for taking an interest.

hewey · Mar 29, 2019

Really interested in how well the roof vent works. Our last place the garage was under the same roof as the house, the ceiling mustn't have been insulated and it was always significantly hotter than the main house. Really pushed home how hot the roof cavity gets. So I can see those vents would be great.

Geoff289 · Mar 29, 2019

hewey said:
Really interested in how well the roof vent works. Our last place the garage was under the same roof as the house, the ceiling mustn't have been insulated and it was always significantly hotter than the main house. Really pushed home how hot the roof cavity gets. So I can see those vents would be great.

I'll let you know next Summer. I was going to put some sort of temperature monitoring gizmo up there so I can see what difference it makes.

Our garage ceiling will be insulated as will the walls between the garage and the house. Also, the garage doors will be insulated, something that is not that common in this country. Our present garage door faces North and you can feel the heat coming off the (uninsulated) door. It's not just the heat from above or the heat of the cars themselves that heat up a garage. The new garage door will be facing West.

I have a vague plan for after we move in to look at a second smaller solar roof vent over the garage but actually have it sucking hot air out of the garage itself via some sort of fabricated shaft or maybe a very large diameter bit of plastic plumbing pipe between the roof and the ceiling. Sort of like one of those solar tube skylight things but with the fan on top and a vent in the ceiling. I haven't thought it through fully and will probably let the first Summer go by and see what it's like before doing anything.

Danshell · Mar 31, 2019

Geoff how come the extra carport/garage at the side is not using custom orb for the roofing like the main house? Is it because of the pitch?

Geoff289 · Mar 31, 2019

Danshell said:
Geoff how come the extra carport/garage at the side is not using custom orb for the roofing like the main house? Is it because of the pitch?

That's right Dan.

We are height restricted on the boundary wall for that third garage space. I can't recall all the details but the wall on the boundary can't exceed 3.6 metres or an average of 3.2 metres above natural ground level which, given the slope of the land, was tricky.

Then there is some other requirement about maximum height within a metre of the boundary which dictated a pretty much flat roof over that section which didn't meet the minimum pitch for the custom orb so that's a kliplok profile over that part.

I don't like it at all, which is why we don't have it over the whole place but you can't see it from the ground so not a big deal.

This wet stuff fell out of the sky over the weekend which I vaguely recall is called rain or something like that. Good to have the roof on but the site is now a quagmire again as the underlying clay is all on the surface after excavation. I was a few inches taller after walking around on it in my gumboots yesterday.

Geoff289 · Apr 6, 2019

No action at our building site over the last week or so while we wait for the windows. I've been looking into a suitable cabinet to house all the NBN gear, data and tv distribution etc. The plan is to mount it between studs in the garage out of the way. I'll post some details once I've made a final decision.

In the absence of any new build photos, I thought I'd put up some aerial photos that show the historical development of the location. The council here has these up on their website and I think they're pretty interesting.

We start in 1951 when it was pretty much farm land.

1963 and suburbia is taking over. The original house on our property is yet to be built but it looks like its about to start.

1972 and the area is still not fully developed as you can see some market gardens or something on the other side of the nature reserve

1982 and our street is complete

1992 and we now have colour. I think the green paddocks are surrounding an original farmhouse, you can see what is probably a tree lined drive

2001 and those paddocks are now incorporated into the reserve. In a couple of spots along our street you can see redevelopment starting with the original houses being replaced by newer larger ones as we are doing.

This is 2008 and the last one I'll post. There are some later ones up to 2016 but they don't show anything very much different and still show the original house on our block. I presume that in due course the council will put up some newer ones that show our place under construction and eventually finished.

I hope this didn't bore too many of you. Hopefully I'll have some updated construction pics before much longer.

Danshell · Apr 6, 2019

Geoff289 said:
I hope this didn't bore too many of you. Hopefully I'll have some updated construction pics before much longer.

Not at all, I find that sort of thing very interesting especially when it dates back like that. I hope you don't mind but I think Ill pinch the idea for my build thread.
Not that I have too many people following my thread but it is still an area where I am able to document things regardless of the audience size

Having a nice reserve behind you like that is a game changer for me. It is always so much nicer than having neighbours.

Geoff289 · Apr 8, 2019

Danshell said:
Having a nice reserve behind you like that is a game changer for me. It is always so much nicer than having neighbours.

Yes, that's the major reason we bought the place. As they say in the real estate world, location is everything.

As I said early in this thread, we think its pretty special in the middle of suburbia in the second (for now) largest city in the country. As well as the advantages of the view at the back, we are 700 metres from a good shopping centre, train station and other facilities and a couple of k's from Melbourne's freeway network which can take you anywhere.

In 20 or 30 years I'm going to be shooting up to the shops for a long black at the café of choice in my hot rod mobility scooter.

anth · Apr 8, 2019

What I would give to not have neighbours :bounce:

dchance · Apr 8, 2019

It was interesting to see the changes and how trees have been added and have grown in the development.

Dwight

Geoff289 · Apr 13, 2019

Well, after a bit of a hiatus things have started moving again with our build.

We have windows, and some of them have been installed. Wrapped up in the white plastic protection they don't look all that flash but its another step towards having an actual house. They've also started wrapping the lower level in preparation for the brickie to come back, and the start of some plumbing has been put in where it penetrates the brickwork on the lower level. Next week the air con guy is coming to put in the plumbing for that.

The windows are what you'd expect - double glazed, aluminium frames (black) with thermal breaks and argon filled with a low emissivity coating on the appropriate face.

Living room on main level

Study/office from inside and outside

Some insulation

Here's a few pics taken from out in the reserve at the rear of the property. Main bedroom on the left, main living and deck on the right (and the boss breaking in through the back gate).

Geoff289 · Apr 22, 2019

I haven't had a chance to either take any new pics or put them up here for a little while but can now remedy that.

The windows are all in and the brickies have been busy with the lower level now nearly wrapped up. I see I'm giving our builder here some free publicity with his company name on the insulation wrap.

Meanwhile, inside we have some framing for the lift

and stairs

The Mustang Owners Club had a cruise today from Mustang Motorsport https://www.mustangmotorsport.com.au/up into the Dandenongs, including a rendezvous with Puffing Billy https://puffingbilly.com.au/

Pics here for those interested.

http://www.mustangclubvictoria.org.au/clubphotos/20190420_MUSTANG_MOTORSPORT_CRUISE/index.html

HOTFR8 · Apr 22, 2019

Great progress photos. You will have to tell us more about the lift.

Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT New home and 3 car garage in Melbourne, Australia

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