Hebel Almost Finished

Met our site supervisor on-site this afternoon and it's great to see that our house is almost fully clad. The whole ground floor is clad as is most of the first floor. The hebel looks good and you can now clearly see how they are installed and how each block interacts with both the house frame and the other blocks.

We're told the next stage is to complete the carpentry for the eaves and then to render the hebel to the first floor. Then all the scaffolding will come down at the end of this week. With the scaffolding dismantled, the roof trusses to the remaining areas of the ground floor under the roof-line (includes the garage) will be installed, the roof completed and the ground floor hebel rendered. This should all be complete by the end of next week and we presume this will essentially get us to lock-up stage.

We didn't comb through the house today to check off the schedule of building defects, as it's difficult to move freely through the home with all the scaffolding around the site. Once the scaffolding is down and the site cleaned, we will meet again with our site supervisor on Nov 2 to go through the schedule and to ensure everything is order before proceeding to the next stage. We imagine that the pre-plaster inspection will occur at this point too.

We had a friend on-site late this afternoon (who's father is a builder) too. He picked up a few areas where questions may need to be asked. Again, if you've never been exposed to building before, you'd never even know to ask the question(s).

Hebel - Progress Report

Not much progress made on the actual house this week. As mentioned previously, the hebel to ground floor is almost complete. The bulk of the work this week has been to erect the scaffolding, which has proved to be quite a job in itself, around the perimeter of the house. This scaffolding will be used to install the hebel to the first floor. It must be quite a job as the hebel blocks are certainly not light. We hope now the scaffolding is up, that the hebel installation will complete next week. Looking forward to seeing this home fully clad. Once this happens, our understanding is that the next stage is to render the hebel cladding.

While on-site we also noticed that the faulty concrete slab beneath the steel post at the front right of garage entrance had again been worked on. It looks much better now. The concrete does not appear honeycombed. It looks more solid with complete coverage. A length of timber has been added to the inner side of the steel post. The post itself and the timber frame no longer overhang the concrete. We hope that it will now comply with the standards and satisfy our building inspector when he returns for the pre-plaster inspection. See the photo below.

The slab rectification works have also been completed. See photo below. Our site supervisor is happy with the rectification works, which have also been signed off on by the relevant building surveyor. The edge of the slab certainly looks much better now, and we hope these works ensure the long-term performance of the slab and the house.

Hebel Stage - Ground Floor

These photos were taken on the weekend. It's great to see the ground floor hebel has almost been finished. Only some of the walls facing east remain to be completed. We really like hebel as a product. It should look clean, sharp and modern when fully rendered.

Hebel is lightweight steel-reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The hebel is supplied in large blocks which are attached to metal studs with bolts. The photo below shows two of these metal studs (running horizontal underneath the window). Hebel as an external cladding is supposedly easier to work with than bricks and therefore much quicker to install than laying bricks. We are told that using hebel as our external cladding will shorten the overall build period. Coupled with the other documented benefits of hebel (highly fire resistant, high acoustic absorption, excellent insulative properties), we are very glad CG use hebel as a standard inclusion rather than a paid upgrade.

CSR Building Products Limited manufacturers Hebel. They produce a Design & Installation Guide that describes the benefits, design approach and considerations when using hebel (and specifically hebel powerblocks) for your home. If you are using or considering to use hebel for your home, we would recommend being familiar with this guide.

Preparation for Hebel

Yesterday we noticed the hebel had been delivered to site and that various works had been done in preparation for installing the hebel. A material (like foil, could be insulation) is attached to the house frame to create the sensation of walls surrounding the house. The material is silver from the inside, and green (branded Carter Grange) from the outside. We're told the guys will start installing the hebel tomorrow and that ground floor is done first, then scaffolding erected before the hebel is installed to the first floor. It takes about 3 weeks to complete the hebel. We're interested to see how it's installed.

Slab Rectification Works 1

It appears slab rectification has commenced. It looks like they've cut back the concrete in the areas where the steel was exposed. They've then treated and coated the steel with something. rather large sections of the slab have been affected and given the slab is integral to structural performance of the house, we will need to ensure this is all being done correctly and that it meets the standards.

Our site supervisor has confirmed that the relevant building surveyor has inspected these works and that now, everything is ready for repair. See photos below.

Windows & Sliding Doors Installed

The windows and sliding doors to our home have now been installed. One of the big attractions to CG house designs is their use of windows - big, bold and visible. You can see the big windows at the front of our home; we've also opened up much of the back of the home with large sliding doors and stacker doors. This house will be flooded with natural light, and we love the thought of this.

This photo shows the view to the street out of the windows from our first storey. This is the view that will greet people when they walk up the stairs. The windows form the rear wall of the upstairs leisure area. We are unsure what window furnishings to use for these windows - perhaps shutter blinds or roller blinds or maybe just a one-way film or tint. We have some time to think about this and get it right. Any suggestions?


Also, through the week we received the engineers detail regarding the slab rectification. It states, "remove rust from exposed reinforcement. The exposed steel and general concrete area must be cleaned, scable surface & reo and use Barrafer A (or equivalent). Completely cover steel and general concrete area. Apply concresive 2525 epoxy binder (or equivalent) and provide 30mm Emaco S88C mortar (or equivalent)." It also states, "edge beam repair to be inspected by a qualified building surveyor prior to concrete poor".

Our site supervisor has confirmed that his concretor has engaged a specialist at rectifying these types of work and that he will be on-site on Monday preparing the works. This sounds encouraging. Once the works have been prepared, the surveyor will come out to inspect, before the actual rectification works. Our supervisor feels that only one inspection is required.

The framers also came back out to attend to the other rectification works contained in the schedule of building defects. We noted most of the items had been attended to. Hopefully we can touch base with our site supervisor through the coming week and certainly when the slab works are complete. One of the defects that is still concerning us is the base rail of the timber frame at the front of the garage. At last check, it had not been changed to treated pine, and potentially this is work that still needs to be done. This is on our list to ask the site supervisor.

Meeting with our Site Supervisor

We had a good meeting with our site supervisor this afternoon to discuss the schedule of building defects in the frame stage inspection report. He explained his understanding of each defect and then how CG will rectify the defect. He seemed very confident that the items listed as defects in the report were easy fixes and that CG will have no problems rectifying every defect listed.

The defects we were most concerned about were the slab defect, the inconsistency between the actual frame works and the documented engineering design and the untreated pine timber frame for the front porch pier wall and front of garage.

1. Slab: our site supervisor has advised that the defect will be referred back to the original design engineer who will formulate a 'detail' (which I understand to be an approved rectification method for the slab defect). This is then sent to the concreters who are responsible for rectification of the slab in accordance with the detail and under the supervision of the relevant building surveyor (this is to be advised by our site supervisor).

2. Engineering design inconsistency: occurs for just about every build mainly due to "old school framers" not being familiar with the new ways of framing (which I'm told are often over compliant) OR the framers simply missing things in the engineering report, such as lintels across spans that require a lintel, missed bolts, studs not being screwed together and plywood brace that has not been installed. These defects are simply a matter of the framers going back over each item identified and doing the work that should have been done per the engineering. The next building inspection will ensure these items have all been rectified.

3. Timber frame for front porch pier wall and front of garage: problem here is that they will develop timber rot over time from moisture migrating in under the Hebel (if left as they are). Our site supervisor has advised these frame areas will either be made to comply with the Australian Standard through addition or re-construction using treated pine or timber adequately treated with a preservative.

So it was a good meeting because we get the general feeling CG are confident they can and will rectify all building defects identified. This gives us confidence in them as our builder.

While on-site today, we also noticed that the plumbing (gas and water) had been roughed in. See the photos below. Drilling holes in the joists and posts to run the pipes appears to have been no problem at all. Also the first floor scaffolding had all been taken down. Apparently, tomorrow the windows and sliding doors will be installed along with rectification works commencing. Most should be complete by end of the week.