Week 1 - There's A Hole On Our Block....

Week One 20-21 Sep

Cut and Footings

Its very exciting in two days we have a very large hole in the ground, the makings of a driveway and even some concrete footings.

This image is how the cut is being done on the block.  The blue dotted lines are the retaining walls that will be built next week and the red ones are ones that we will build later.  I have also included the neighbours position.  The vest view from our verandah is to the N / NW so our neighbours so we should have a pretty unobstructed view.

Before the block was cut it was a gentle slope from east to west but quite a severe drop from south to north. 

The next view is looking up the block from the covenant area to the north.  The block will basically two flat areas and then slope down to the rear boundary.  The driveway slopes down the west side of the block.

You can see this more clearly in the 2nd image.   The stepin the middle is to support the retaining wall which holds the top slab.

Day 1 - the cut begins at 6am.   They removed about 100m3 of soil.  The site manager has two other properties on the estate just a couple of blocks from ours further down the hill that are probably going to need fill.  With any luck he is going to be able to arrange to move it down to those blocks which should make the cost to us considerably less for the removal.  If you are building on a slope just be aware that in most contracts the cost of bringing in or removing fill is usually additional to the contract price.  Fortunately we were clear on this point beforehand but our site manager said they have a lot of clients who do not realise it.

Day 2 - the cut is finished and the first footings are poured.