I knew the electrical work would happen soon and since I wanted a few extra lights and a power point put in I have been driving past all week in the hopes of catching the electrician on site.
Nothing happened Monday. Tuesday saw two lads out in the rain cleaning the bricks with a high pressure sprayer. Wednesday came the delivery of the fibro sheeting and timber for the eave infill (if that's what it's called) and the insulation batts were delivered on Thursday.
I cruised by Friday morning around 8:00AM and it was all go. The electrician was onsite as well as several other blokes installing the eave infills. Heart pounding, I ventured into the forbidden zone of the construction site (where no customer is supposed to be!) and sought out the electrician. I asked if I could pay him directly to add the wiring for seven downlights and an extra power point. He needed to call his boss who agreed as long as I paid up front, which I was happy to oblige. It was actually handy talking to him as he wanted to clarify some of the locations for switches and things. It turned out where I had put the kitchen light switch was an impossible location due to a thick solid structural pillar so we worked out a better position. I also wanted to put in pendant lights in the lounge room (in the centre of the raked ceiling) so he fixed a couple of bits of timber in the ceiling to support them from. So all in all it was a good outcome. Now all I need to find is somebody good at woodwork who can make me a couple of angled wooden things to secure the lights to!!!
What follows is my little rant about Allworth's inflexability at times. You can safely skip down to the photos. I would have been more than happy to pay Allworth for these extras (including their markup) but they are very strict and won't allow any changes once the contract is signed. Unfortunately I didn't think of these things until well after contract signing and it was too late. I know I could have waited until after handover and had them put in but they were right at the edge of the roof line and impossible to reach without removing roof tiles and cutting through the sarking and I didn't want to do that. The annoying thing is there have been a few extra material charges and Allworth raised an alteration for those so why can't I add a few extra lights and they raise another alteration??? I can understand no big changes but come on, lights and power points are minor. The moral of this is if you are building with a project home builder who won't allow changes then make sure you think of absolutely everything you need beforehand.
These pictures are from Friday night when everybody had gone.
Back wall of garage. This is where the Hills Home Smart wiring hub will go. I wanted the house wired with data cables (I know wireless networking is popular these days but I like the reliability of wires) so included the option from Allworth's vast list of optional inclusions.
This is what I call eave infills. Not sure of the correct term but it sounds good!
The bricks look 100% better now they have been cleaned.
Forgot to mention the downpipes were also installed today.
See how much better the bricks look cleaned. Scroll down to previous posts if you don't believe me!
