Our Contruction Journey finally set on Friday, Feb 17, 2012

On Wednesday Feb 16 I were emotional as I saw our SS on our site. It was first time after 18 MONTHS that FO have done on time (the schedule) for us.

On Friday Feb 17, I saw the most beautiful FENCES in the world on our site

On Tuesday Feb 21, we again got a pleasant surprise to see our long-waiting peg-out and even small rock for our driveway.

The remaing last job for the gum tree

We had emergent contractor to come over with small excavator to remove the wood shaves and leveling the ground on Feb 22

On Feb 23, the below pictures show the contractor must use bobcat to clean up the shaves and leveling ground 

Finally, the "pool_holes" mistakenly made by the crane has roughly been cover up

The below picture show as the wood shaves have removed, we can have a real picture of our last job for stump

The second lefover last job for the gum tree

As said in the previous entry, besides the need to roughly leveling the big holes,  we 
was naive to think that we just need to remove the wood shaves from stump grinding around the rear year as showed in the picture

Sumary of all Terrible Issues on our Gum Tree

We had waited for the Tree People to come over to clean up as they had promised many times over the phone and meeting not only by Mr. S but also by 2 other ladies.

On Thursday, Feb 16, as our site was dry enough to get clean up, we call Mr. S requesting him to do it, then Mr. S said he would do on Friday, Feb 17. Nothing happened on Friday, Feb 17. Mr S said he would do it on Saturday, Feb 18 but he never do it.

So we have to organize another arrangement, but we couldn't do anything on Monday, Feb 18 as the site again returned into wet condition. While the forecast said it would wet on Tuesday, Feb 19 but we had almost dry day so we decided to clean up the tree's shaves yesterday. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the job done yesterday as the excavator was broken.  And we had found out very bad news that the stump was not completely grinded. Then we need to organize another tree people to complete that job.

The following is a summary of  our Gum Tree saga.

The above picture show how terrible the crane has sank into our ground soil.

This crane driver's fault on the tree removal day (Jan 31) has actually made ALL miserable troubles for us.
1) it made a big holes on the lower land area so that rain has made a very annoying "pool" there.
My DA and I have spent 6 hours for two late afternoons to get water off these big holes with a hope to help the soil there dry out  a bit quicker
2) the tree people started around 2 hours later than schedules as they needed to get the crane off . Initially, we thought the tree people couldn't' finish their job for us by removing the wood shaves from stump grinding because they were behind the schedule due to the crane problem. However, we has just come to recognize that they have been all cheating on us because they never really grind the stump and have a plane to remove the wood shaves on the same day!!! Big lesson for us!
3) we have to spend many phones call to request the tree people to come back to clean up the site. That mean we have really waste our valuable time and effort because after 3 weeks they never show up particularly on the good weather days (Feb17 and 18)
4) after remove the wood shaves and roughly leveling the ground by another contractor on Feb 22 and 23, we found out with shocking that the stump is almost there. And the stump is really big so that only big contractor with big machine can do that job. Certainly, they need big money for that job too. Furthermore, we need to get the stump job done in emergency manner due to tomorrow site cut.

 What huge the tree is. The tree is classified as a heritage tree. Yes, we love green and tree that why we bought our first home here in 2004. But everything has its life-span so it is a time to say good-buy for our tree. The council's tree on the street with similar size and age tree like ours was removed 3 years ago!

  For cutting the tree, this people did a good job. Obviously, we were right to choose them for just cutting the tree because they are big company and they have done such big job with risk and insurance everyday!  However, we should never have them in the contract for common jobs such as remove the rock before cutting the tree, grind the stump and remove the shaves.

Regarding the tree issue, we also have another anoying problem which is a sharing responsibility with a joint-owner.
It is true that the tree had grown from our land but these above pictures have obviously show that less than a half of the tree stump belong to the neighbor. Then, the tree had its joint-owners.

Uncompleted tree job

I just talked to Tree Company with regards to their cleaning up the site.

They said they couldn't do it now as the ground is still too wet to use machine. Of course the ground can't be clearly dry but obviously they can do their job. All building company are doing their jobs with the machine out there. They just want to do their cleaning job on their convenience.

It happened that we  rushed so instead of waiting for a good company, we  gave our business for a  unreferenced  company. Should never do it again!

By the end of the week date for stite start is still ALIVE

Called our CSO and got the following news:
1) if the nature mother hold on the rain, then our date for site start BY THE END OF THE WEEK is still alive
2) CSO will ask the SS call us with regards to our site start info (we really doubt that we will get that phone)
3) Will get the quote for cold water tap behind our Fridge. That means we are now waiting for 3 items quotes
including retaining walls and air-conditioning
4) we will get weekly update from CSO
5) New OM from FO

Finally, we got the CC but can't increase FRIJ's width

Called CSO and got news:

 - Officially got the CC

- got beautiful help with mirror mistake with the Family stack door's height

- date for site start is not decided and CSO told me to phone CC to get that important date

- We can't increase Fridge's width and have 2 more  stack door panels for Family next to Afresco due to redrawing and delay

- Still waiting for quote and contract for air conditioning and 2 planned retaining walls

We now need to get a site start but with such unreliable weather our date seems still away from us!