Our Acreage Dream . . .: DAY 5 - It seems near enough is good enough . . .

It's been a HUGE week and I'm exhausted. Day 5, Monday 20th August was very stressful. On the weekend we went and measured our house as it seemed so small, and particularly the garage wall didn't seem to line up. I thought a measurement could be wrong. It turns out the house is on an angle.

We had gone to great lengths to request the house be inline with the back fence. That darn fence has caused so many problems. See it's not on our property so the builders don't measure from it, they measure from our boundary which is about 2m forward from the fence. But for us, it's easier to go by the fence as we can see it, whereas the boundary is some invisible line between 2 pegs hundreds of metres apart and on opposite sides of the hill. Really hard to pinpoint!

Our plans have always had our boundary running parallel to the fence, so when we found the house was 'crooked', we believed something had gone wrong in the marking out. After 1 1/2 hours of measuring with the site supervisor, it looked like the house was in fact not quite in the right place.

About 5pm a very grumpy surveyor came back out to check the positioning of the house, and by his measurements, it would have turned the house further in the 'wrong' direction of where we wanted it. He was friendlier after he had shown us he hadn't made a mistake.

I believe the original survey of our site was incorrect. The plans have our boundary running parallel to the old fence, when in fact it runs at an angle to the fence. So now our house does too. Correctly, our house is positioned the appropriate distance from our boundary. But the boundary is not where we thought it was. The original surveyor never searched out a boundary peg which would have shown a greater distance from the fence at one end of the block. And maybe because the angle is gradual and it was easier to draw it straight. And add to that, they have an acceptable allowance give or take about 500mm from the plans position. Did I miss that advice?

It's actually not that bad, but it's not what I had imagined for months. We had been meticulous (so we thought) with the plans, but things still get missed. I have always thought I could read maps and plans pretty well... but it helps when they're correct!

To cut a very long story short, our choices... live with it, or Plantation would start over. This meant taking up much of the work done on Day 5 (below), and a couple of weeks delay until trades could come back in. At the end of a very long day, we decided to push on with the build and not start over. I think much to the relief of all parties.

So what happened on Day 5? The drainers came in and did all the under slab plumbing. They arrived onsite at 5.30am! Not because I was there, our neighbour told me. They came in early to draw lines between all the pegs that had been put in, and mark out where all the pipe work goes. Then they start digging. It's really a huge job and took all day as all the pipes are cut to size and glued together. But I didn't take a whole lot of pictures as I was too stressed thinking 'what are they doing... the house is not where we want it!'

When the drainers had finished their pipework, a council inspector came to approve the drainage works before the trenches were filled in.

Another bit of stressful news, he wouldn't approve the pipework we laid in the trench with the electricity for future trickle feed. It should have been inspected when the trench was open to ensure it was a safe distance from the electricity. Even though it's all in conduit. The plumber had advised me it would be ok and he could tell council what he had done. Not so from the inspectors perspective. Thankfully I took lots of photos which I've emailed to him and hopefully that will suffice. We may also need to dig up the trench in several section to show the separation. Grrrr!!!

Also today, the electrician came to run the power across to the slab and put in the meter box, ready for connection.