Delayed due to rain, the crew of Oak Construction Ltd started inserting Underfloor Polystyrene Insulation between the Floor Joists.

By Monday, 24^th May we all noticed “I'm just a little black rain cloud ~ hovering under the Pōhutukawa tree”.  And by Tuesday, 25^th May “the rain rain rain came down down down in rushing rising rivulets”.

Delayed due to rain, the crew of Oak Construction Ltd began pouring the Concrete Slab for the garage foundation and around the Support Posts for the porch roofs.

Our new bathroom is painted.  For those of you a few players short of a team……this toilet is for the various contractors and crew of Oak Construction Ltd

Well hello folks, Matthew H. here.  I know it’s been a while since you have heard from me on this blog and I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to Matthew Ritch for having filled in for me.  He has shared small bulletin updates and lots of pictures with you, but now its time to get more details.

As you may have picked up from his earlier blog entries, we finally got Consent (both Resource and Building) to build our house, and so now it begins!  Today we actually start work on the property in line with the consents given to us by the council (“consent” is the kiwi equivalent of “permit” for you residents in the Colonies In Rebellion).

So now I can get back to detailing for you the construction of the house.  Our current Schedule looks like this:

Monday May 3rd, initial site survey, Final and Real positioning of the house outline on the site.  Previously we went up and put in preliminary stakes, twine for the house, but on Monday Oak Construction Ltd will with great accuracy laydown an “final” permanent unit outline accurate to within 3 mm (I believe).  All further construction will work from this final positioning.

Tuesday May 4th, Foundation Perimeter, and Holes for footings for Piles and Piers will be dug.  The Foundation Perimeter will have to be a bit more complicated then originally thought by Oak Construction Ltd, due to Consent requirements of the Council.  As you may know, if you have followed the blog from the beginning, there was a slip on the hillside in front of our building site, back in the eighties during Cyclone Bola.  Consequently the Council is very concerned to make sure that any future slips have a low possiblity of causing our damage to our house.  Basically they are requiring that all foundational items be dug down to level that a Geotechnical Inspector designates as “stable”; roughly 1.1 meter (3 feet for you provincials).  The idea being here that any slip of top soil loose dirt will leave our house still standing, just sticking up in the air.  As originally planned the foundation would require only digging down a bit, and setting a concrete anchor pile on exterior of the foundation form, building up from there

The council however REALLY wants to make sure the house won’t move, so they are requiring for the perimeter, we also dig down to stable land, lay a concrete footer then tie the foundation blocks into that concrete with an iron tie rod.

Same for all our Piles and Pier foundations.

We will also dig all the services trenches

Wednesday May 4th, The Geotech Engineer from RDCL will certify the foundation holes as being deep enough, then we fill them in with Concrete.  We will also lay metal down around the site, and again for you provincials in the colonies in rebellion, it’s not Really metal, it’s just rock aggregate.  When we first moved here and I heard that we would be driving on a Red Metal road, I had finished of a really strange drive.  Turns out Metal is just the word they use for Gravel.  Not sure why, no one I have asked has been able to tell me either.  Anyways we are laying metal down on the whole site because it’s winter down here, and it’s going to rain!  We want construction to move easily and cleanly forward, and given under my top soil is sticky globby clay, this seemed like a good idea, so the construction works and tools can get around the site without getting stuck in the clay.

After the house is built we will scrap up all the metal up and use it to create our new drive way (more on that in a later post), then restore the topsoil, that we put to the side back on the ground.

Thurday and Friday May 5th and 6th will be building the foundation forms.

Stay tuned for more exciting details!

Well today was a big day.  Our Building Vendor, Oak Construction Ltd, met us up at the property today and helped me to stake out the new EXACT position of our house on the building pad.  As you may know from Following Matthew R’s posts we have begun earth works, and not to give too much away… wait until you see what we have done to our pretty paddock!

Anyways, the big issue is we need to have the house placed EXACTLY on the site, in order to determine how close it is to our property boundaries.  I’ll explain why that is important in a moment but first I think I need to provide you (and more importantly the drafter of the blue prints) with the measurement / placement diagram:

So here is the skinny on why this is so important.

Back when our plot of land was sub-divided from its source the rule of house placement was that the house had to be 6 meters (that’s 19.7 feet to you folks in the Colonies in Rebellion) from any property boundary.  Unfortunately in the intervening years (last year in fact), the District Council changed the zoning laws and changed the positioning rules.

Now your house must be at least 15 meters (49.25 ft) from any property boundary!  Well you can’t see the measurements of my building pad, but trust me when I say that given its shape and other placement restrictions, there is no way I can put a house on the pad and have it be that far away from every boundary unless I make the house a short hallway.

The problem is that if you are NOT at least 15 meters away, you have to get permission from your neighbors (and their tenants as well if the land is rented out) for the placement of your house, and they have to review the blueprints and put their signature on a copy of the layout.  And if you move the house so that the measurement might be less, you have to go back to them and get more signatures, and approvals, and it all has to be resubmitted to the council again for permits!  Oy Vay!

So we had to know FOR A FACT, EXACTLY  where the house (and porch) were going to be in relation to the property boundaries, so the drafter can update the blue prints to make them “perfect”, and I can get all my signatures to authorize me to build the house.