2021 came and went so quickly! It’s been over 6 months now since we paid the deposit to Porter Davis. Things are going a lot slower than I expected. Our contract date is coming up in just under 2 weeks and we have almost finalised everything.
Kitchen Culture has only gotten back to me once on December 2 and I haven’t heard from them since I replied with changes. Till now, I still don’t know the cost and the final design of the cabinets and benchtops throughout the house. Our building coordinator is really nice though. I’ve made quite a number of changes to the plans for colours especially and have also made changes to tiles and electrical (both of which also took a couple of weeks to come back to me). However with contract date just around the corner, I’m getting a little nervous with Kitchen Culture as it is likely that there will be something incorrect with their plans.
I’m also now trying to organise demolition of the old house. There’s so many things to think about. I got the quote from our chosen demolition company, Melway Demolition as they had pretty good reviews in the forums. They are not the cheapest, but you know what they say about the cheapest. They’d take shortcuts and you’ll end up paying more!
When asked about demolition, here’s the response I got from them:
Current lead time for demolition is 4-6 to allow for the following
– Demolition permit (2-3 weeks). Melway apply for this permit on your behalf
– Service abolishment’s including power, gas and telco (20-40 days)
– Asset protection permit from council (1-2 weeks). Owner will need to get this
– Asbestos assessment and removal
– Roof tile removal etc etc
So that means worst case scenario, it will take 40 days to demolish. Melway don’t start work till January 10, so that means February 19 to start demolition. Letting it sit for 6 weeks before foundation means slab date is around start of April. That’s pretty close to the April 1 date that Porter Davis predicted in the tender documents.
So I submitted the forms a couple of days ago to abolish power, gas and NBN. Then I called Telstra today (on 1800 810 443, available Monday – Friday between 9am – 5pm AEST/AEDT). I didn’t actually know that I had to call Telstra because I never had any Telstra connections until I called them, gave my address and they told me that there were Telstra owned infrastructure in the overhead cables connected to the house. They’re going to send me an email confirmation with a quote to remove the cables, which I’ll gracefully accept (since I have no choice) so they can start work on the abolishment. They can’t start work until January 10 either and it will take up to 15 working days to complete.
To abolish power and gas, I had to find who the last retailer was as abolishment is submitted via the retailer to the power company. I found out from MultiNet gas that our last retailer was Simply Energy. I assumed that the last power retailer was also Simply Energy. I called them and was told that I needed to fill in their contact form with supporting documents which includes the rates notice for proof of ownership, photos of the meter to be abolished and VESI document for power abolishment (same document if you are under United Energy) to start the ball rolling. I confirmed that they were the power retailer by getting the NMI from them which is an optional field in the VESI document. Had to submit the contact form once each time for power and gas (can’t submit them in a single form).
NBN was much easier, just fill out the online form and submit. Unfortunately for me, none of these utility companies start work till Monday next week.
I also called Yarra Valley Water for the procedure and they have advised that I need to fill out the form… however the form is not very user friendly. Had to call them to find out if I’m doing anything wrong with the form as it is requiring me to upload supporting documents for a demolition (which they admitted on the phone that it is not required). In the end they said to just upload any document. Payment of $77.06 processed at the conclusion of the form. Fingers crossed I filled it out correctly. This one has a 15 day period to get my PIC number, but they did say that it is usually much faster than that. Once I get that PIC number, then I need to organise for a plumber to come in to cap the sewage.
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