No power

The Siemens guys turned up on time and upgraded the pillar so we could all hook on but he told me our box had not been inspected or signed off, I said it had and called the electrician, he said it had too. The Siemens guy took the cover off our meter box, and not only had it not been certified but it had no meter in it!

My electrician called the inspectors to arrange that and I left for work, Alan the electrician assures me it should be now a 5 minute job tomorrow.

You would think they don't do this for a job normally wouldn't you.

Letterbox

Apart from spending some time in the hardware store today (we seem to be hanging out there alot lately) looking for stainless steel screws for the fence, we got some numbers for our letterbox! So George stuck the letterbox on the post that Tim put in a couple of weeks ago and I stuck the numbers on. Pretty flash huh!

This photo shows the bobby shed - in the old days they used to put bobby calves in here for the truck to pick up. You still see alot of them around the place.

Friday

Ok I know - I haven't updated you for two days. But the truth is there was not alot to report yesterday - there was a severe lack of vp (visual progress).

But today of course is a different story - man - look at that - we have a barn!!

And the grass is growing now that the temps have come down a little.


So who wants to hear about my Power saga - or should I say continuation of the power saga.

• Beginning of the week I call Jim Cato from Siemens to ask what is happening - he said he is waiting for an estimator to get back with a price. I said what happens after that - he said if there is anything to pay we will let you know. I asked how he would do that? He said I will write you a letter. I asked how he would do that because he does not have our mailing address and we have no letterbox at Hutchinson rd yet. (Well we do but it's in George's car - he's been wondering why there has been no mail). He said oh. So I asked that he call.
• Midweek I call again and leave a message. Call his administrator Chanti and her message tells me she is at home.
• I call Alan the electrician - he doesn't know what else to try.
• I call another Siemens guy called Dave - who just does faults but seems to be the only one who cares that we still don't have power. He says he tried to call Dave and even went to his office and he couldn't find him.
• Dave calls back and says that he went to the site and spoke to his boss about it - spoke to our builder who said that a guy came and went but no one got out of their car.
• Dave suggests to try Jim one more time. And to perhaps try to get the retailer on board from another angle.
• Today I call Mercury Energy and get some dim wit girl that keeps asking me (even though I have told her we are building) what the last owners name was. We have an account already I say and we are moving on April 18, and we are building and need power now. She says "so you want to open a new account?" "What?" I ask incredulously - hoping my sarcasm would give her a clue... but know - she persists in asking the same question over and over. Then proceeds to tell me - after I explain very very slowly - that I need an ICP number or a meter box number and when I have that I should call her back and she will put me through to new connections.
  
• So I call Alan again and explain it all to him, and that I need an ICP number - says he will call me back.
• - he calls Jim and gets him. Jim says we are doing it today. Alan asked why Jim had not returned my call. Jim says he spoke to my husband on site yesterday. That's odd - because George was (and still is) in Apia. Must have spoke to the builder. So I call Jim and leave another message saying while George is a good builder - he's not building our barn, and when are we getting the power.
  
• He called back -OMG - he exists!!
• Says the installer is afraid of the German Shepherd dogs next door and can't do it till we arrange for the neighbours to restrain the dogs.
• I call back and ask why they need access to neighbours property - he tells me they have to upgrade the pillar (plinth) and need to disconnect everyone and then hook them all back up and test everyone to make sure they still have power afterwards. I asked for a time - he said the morning. So I am thinking - how will the neighbours like having to spend a whole morning off work??
  
• I call back and ask for a time on Monday - Chanti yells out in the background 10am, after some persistence on my part. I think they must be together those two.
  
• So I need to find the neighbours name and number and call them to arrange - either that or take two very big bones up there at 10am on Monday.

Lets take a poll to see who thinks we will have power on Monday 11am?


Oh - we have a new phone number?!? Where should we plug the phone in I wonder.?

Telstra tells me we should be able to get Broadband - even though no one else in the street can - hah! We'll see.

Wednesday

Here is today's photo.. Neil has been hard at work making framing!!
He wasn't there when we took this shot - we presume he had gone to get someone or something to help him lift them up!

You can see Kaipara Harbour today in the distance.

Fence post painting

Easter Friday and Monday were spent putting two coats of dark brown paint - I think it was called Black Magic, onto the fence posts. Did the first coat on about three hours, and today's coat in about 2 hours.

They look so cool! Don't ya think!? Oh yeah - we were supposed to get showers yesterday and today -but none seen yet.

We did a bit more weed spraying along the fencline and George raked out the rest of the stuff he had chopped, and added it to the pile in the middle.

So - that was that today - oh the concrete has lines cut in it now - that happened yesterday apparently. We walked on it today - the area we are going to live in is quite small... but we will cope.

Slab down

We got a very exciting text from Warren this morning at 9.30.

"Concrete all in and ready to start framing on Tuesday"

Fantastic work on his behalf to wangle the concrete guys to deliver before Easter when they were booked out.

Made our Easter too.!

All ready for concrete

Wednesday

Well the footings are all done and the boxing for the concrete slab done too. Neil the builder is 'lightening fast' as Warren from Econobuilt says. We decided not to get the plumber to put the pipes for the shower and loo into the slab because there was too much of a risk that doing that would delay the pouring of the slab.

The tall post you see is the peak of the roofline of the barn.


Oh - here's a video of Neil the lightening bolt builder supervising the concrete pour of the footings. Warning -loud. Ok so he doesn't look very lightening-like there - but I caught him at his least lightening moment.




So Warren is trying his best to get the concrete company to fit our slab in tomorrow or Saturday - after they already said it would be Tuesday (after Easter) - go Warren!

David said they would have the frames up ready to clad by April 4th at the latest.

We found a 900 x 900 shower today plus a tub, and a loo - all for $1400 - didn't buy them but measured them up to make sure they will all fit.

Loft House

The universe works in funny ways. I was looking everywhere for an office, and couldn't find anything small enough, and for just one year. Then one day I saw a road in Kumeu I had not noticed before, and noticed it had for Lease signs down it, followed it and found Loft House. It had a 47sqm office for lease and they were happy to lease for just one year. Well I had forgotten until George told me but his late first wife's maiden name was Lofthouse.

So here is a photo of the teeny office - but it's perfect - here we are all moved in.

Footings in

Sorry for missing a day - spent the rest of the weekend fixing up the office ready for Monday.

So - today we got to go and check on progress and the fence posts for the track look great!


And the concrete was being poured for the footings while we were there.


Spoke to two, actually three people at Siemens today - to try and get them to cancel the neighbours quote request for upgrading the plinth because that is stopping us connecting! A lady called Chanti appeared to be the one stopping things so I spoke to her boss and hopefully that is sorted now! Touch wood.

We need to find a shower tomorrow and measure where the hole is for the plumber to be able to lay pipe before the concrete slab is poured - which has been delayed till Tuesday because they are booked out till Easter.

One month today till we move in!

Track

For those of you unfamiliar with the track system - it's basically a track round the outside of a paddock in which the horses wander around all day eating instead of standing in one spot. The narrowness of the track pushes them along as they are keen/curious to see what is round the corner. This is a much more natural way to keep horses as it mimics what they do in the wild - wander for food. Once a day I will let them have a play round in the middle but there are also wider corners like this where they can chill out, roll and sleep etc.

It means they move more so naturally keep fitter and also keeps their mind interested too. We will give them ad-lib hay around the track also.

I am also going to have some riverstones in one area to help keep their hooves healthy, and some sand for rolling, and a log or two.

Hay pick up

Picked up 20 bales of hay today from the lady I bought 200 off. I hired a truck as it seemed easier than getting the float all dirty and going all the way up to get the float, and back to Dairy Flat.

While I was driving said truck to and from hay my phone was ringing non stop with;

• the plumber
• Telstra Clear re the phones - disconnecting the home office and connecting the office and swapping the internet over - you'd think this was the first time they had done it!
• PABX people trying to get access to set up PABX - office door downstairs at the office was unlocked - apparently it is now locked again
• George landed in Auckland after a Sydney all over night and checked to see how it was all going, he was going to head to the office to set up the network and internet (wireless).

Anyway - some of the bales were mouldy which doesn't give me a good feeling about the longevity of the 200 I have bought - they feel damp - even the non mouldy ones - kind of sticky almost. So - on the look out for new hay and need to get my money back for the rubbish stuff that I have already paid for. Feel like a money tree at the moment!

Sunday

Well - I think the best way to detail today is in bullet point - a bullet for each task!

• Got up about 8.30am and fed the cats - we were keeping Cino in because he got himself into a scrap with the neighbour's cat - he was not too happy about staying in - we turned the air-con on
• Went into Atlas for breakfast -and two coffees - gosh that feels like a life time ago now!
• Got home to discover Dante and somehow weedled his way out of one of the top storey windows - so since he was out we let Cino out too.
• George unplugged my computer and I loaded more boxes in the car - more brochures really.
  
• Went to Dick Smith to get a Wireless Modem and Router for the office
• Went to Mitre 10 and got 5 sets of shelves. George didn't think I would fit them in the car - but I did -mt Jeep is very understanding!
• Unloaded the whole Jeep into the office - up stairs again - my calf muscles are feeling it today!
• George unpacked the modem to find that we had a router but no modem so I drove back to Dick Smith and picked up water on the way back too
• George played around with the computers trying to get the network and internet going but as always when you have time constraints - it didn't go very well. I unloaded /unpacked boxes and made up shelves and tried to get the office looking as normal as possible for Monday.
• Of course on the way home, George figured out what may have been the problem with the network - but he needed to go to work - darn it all. Telstra have also not given us all the passwords and settings for the internet either - hence that not working.
• Drove home, locked the cats in, then I went to the farm - Wendi's - to see Garbo - gave him some hay, and a big brush, then played a bit in the paddock. Fed him, then went back to the office for a few hours to set up more shelves (only one more to go now) and unpacking more boxes so we can find things tomorrow. I must say it's looking pretty good. The office is perfect for us - just really hot! Up two flights of stairs too.
• Bought a fridge and kettle.
• Went home about 8.30pm and fed the pussycats and myself and watched the Sunday theatre and now I am typing this and about to hit the hay!
  

Office move

Today we hired a 2 tonne truck and moved my work to an office in Kumeu.

Arrived at the truck hire place and George handed over his licence and the guy hands it back and says it's expired! It had expired on 29th Feb!

So - I was the driver..



Got the hang of it after a while - in fact I booked one for Monday to pick up 20 bales of hay - easier than taking all the dividers out of my float.

So - we moved all the stuff into the new office, had some lunch and then I took the truck back. We headed back to the office after tea to start setting it up. PABX man didn't show today!

Tomorrow we have to figure out how to set up broadband. My desk doesn't arrive till Monday. It's looking good so far though - I forgot to take a photo - I'll take one tomorrow.

Tim was putting the fence posts and gates in today at the block - so looking forward to seeing that tomorrow - and to maybe ride or play with Garbo as well.

We have lift off - I mean - consent

Never before have I been so pleased to be woken up by the phone at 7.30am - the council guy calling to say the consent was done - then he asked if it was too early - and that he had been at work since 6.30 (that was supposed to make me feel better that they had taken 25 business days to grant consent?)

Yaaaaayyyyyy

Texted Warren from Econobuilt and emailed David.

Then we headed off to Kumeu to meet the new office landlord and get the key - then got some keys cut, then had some coffee and food, and headed to the block to mark out the fence posts. We marked them with pigtails so we could get a good idea of what it would look like. $4 each and I bought 60! Oh well - I am sure they will come in handy.

Two hours we did it in - quite impressive - rushed home to meet the PABX man and he had already done it all.... Shelley has her leg in plaster...

Started packing up some of the office stuff tonight and watched 3 catch up episodes of Coro St.

Tomorrow we hire a truck to move the office stuff to Kumeu.

David from Econobuilt said today "You will be impressed with how fast Neil the builder will get the building finished. He is our best and fastest builder and we have managed to shuffle all our other jobs so we can have the best chance of having him finish the job as soon as possible for you".

We have changed the colour steel colours to brown tones instead of greens and creams - yay. Glad I spoke up about that - both George and I wanted brown all along! Doh!

No photos today sorry.

Fence posts going in tomorrow.

Still no consent

The bloody council - good grief. On Monday they told us the engineer needed an original of the engineering report (not just a copy) and they wanted us to indicate where the bund was to go. What is a bund you may ask. Well apparently - if we get one in 100 year rains the water tank may overflow and we need a raised area of dirt to collect and pool the overflow.

Hello - we are in a drought!

So - Econobuilt go all the way there to drop it in, in person and they guy is away till Wednesday at 1pm. Well they go back today and he's still away!!!! Unbelievable.

So Econobuild guys Neil, Warren and David arrived to mark out the barn so they can do the profiles and footings (expecting the consent out today) and we realise that we had not allowed for the battering of the friggin great big swimming pool - I mean water tank hole - so we had to move the whole thing to fit behind the viewing corridor line and not into the hole. Yikes - it was touch and go there for a bit.

This is them negotiating with the engineer trying to figure out how to dig the footings closer to the swimming pool. Woops - water tank I mean. George has the hat on. Beautiful morning hey!!

After they all left we started on the weed eating around the boundary. Hired a weed eater/scrub cutter thingy - George has all the safety gear - good man!
This is what is left after the scrub cutting before I came along and picked it all up and put it in a very large weed pile in the middle of the block.

Getting the scrub cutter between the grisilinias was particularly awkward - but George did a great job - poor trees were being suffocated by grass and thistles - now you can actually see them.
Wow - doesn't it make such a difference to the fenceline. This is about 1/8th we think - of the boundary done today.
We were knackered after a few hours of that in the boiling sun so we knocked off at about 4pm. Oh - we had to get Clifton back to re level one corner for us due to the movement of the barn again...he is a darling - his wife is about to have a baby and he came out and did this for us at short notice. He's getting a case of beer at the end of all this.


So - tomorrow I move work offices to the new office, go to the post office and post a whole pile of stuff we have sold on Trade Me, meet the new landlady at 9am, get some more keys cut, have breakfast, do the banking, meet Telstra Clear to hook up phones, meet PABX guy to un-hook PABX at home, meet internet guys, be there for office table delivery, organise some more hay, see Garbo, oh - and the most important job of the day - mark out the fence posts for the guys to do in the weekend. I have 60 pigtails and some tape so I can see how it will look. We started with spray paint today but the grass is so long...think this way will be better.

Hay dilemma

On the 1st of February I spoke to the local horse hay farmer about pre-ordering some hay - he said don't worry we will have lots left in April but it will be more expensive (it's $4.50 behind the baler if I wanted to get some that day) - well I didn't have a barn built at that point - still don't, so said I would call again in April.

My current Yard where Garbo grazes - the owner comes up to me last night and tells me her 1500 she ordered from Annandale have now been sold to Waikato Dairy Farmers because of the drought and that Jonkers (horse hay farmer man) has sold all his too - she had just bought the last 500 @ $12 each.

Yikes

So spent a little time last night and some of today finding some hay - found 200 bales on Trade Me for $7 a bale - she can store it for me in her barn till April 20 - phew crisis over. And she is in Dairy Flat too - not South Auckland.

George figured out how many bales we could fit into the shed last night - he's so clever. I would not have a clue where to start in working that one out!

This is the piccy from the ad - looks ok - lets hope it is.


Other good news - Scribble is coming to live with Garbo and Maraschino.

Plans

About 5 seconds after George got the house plans out Dante appeared. Helping he was.

Day before it all starts

Dante perusing the plans for the house today....

Day before it all starts - Fingers crossed anyway.

David from Econobuilt told me this morning that the engineer from the council that requested the additional information on Monday - about the bund, well he was away until 1pm today so all progress stopped yet again waiting for him to return. I called up another person at the council but he could not tell me anything because the file was in another department.

Anyway - got a call from David this afternoon and they are going to start work tomorrow (YAY) and will go collect the consent tomorrow when it comes out.

So all due to start tomorrow - we meet David there at 8.30am.

We have to do some weeding tomorrow and also mark out where the fence posts are to go for Tim this weekend.

Council approval

Well first thing this morning I called;

1. The council to check on progress
2. Siemans (power)
3. The electrician
4. Stanley the farmer
5. Clifton the digger man

Then I emailed the grass seed man, ordered my electrobraid, ordered my fence posts.

So - Council man Carl says that it just had to go to engineering then it should be done. He said he would make a note on the file to call me as soon as it was ready - and I said I would go collect it!

Then Siemans basically told me all I had to do was get the electrician to put a retailer order in for the power to be connected. He said the politics can be sorted out later. Not sure how but anyhow...so I did that. Alan the electrician said that he would go ahead and do that. Siemans told me if he made an urgent request it should be on by the weekend. COOL.

I called Stanley and he said that John cannot connect there unless he upgrades the box, and that he would have to otherwise connect to the pole. So that it was ok for us to connect there - so I told Siemans that - hope that will do the trick!!

So then I called Clifton and told him that he needs to move the soil slightly for the builders - it's all sitting where the yards are going right now - and that we need the pond filling finished by Saturday.

Ordered the Electrobraid - should be here by Friday and then Tim is picking up the posts from Oikoumene on Saturday morning.

Oh - and in the middle of all that I had one of our German inbound girls call and say she was going to drive there instead of getting the bus so I had to let Julie know not to wait for her at the bus stop.

Then we went out for breakfast!

The bank

Well - see if you can figure this logic out (the bank's logic).

You can borrow 85% of value on vacant land
You can borrow 95% of residential property
You can borrow 65% of rural property

Our land is residential once we start building - but at the moment it's vacant land. They won't take into account the value of the barn being built because it's residential ultimately. We have borrowed money to buy the land and build the barn, based on the fact we own a rental property and our current house. When we settle on our current house we will repay the bridging finance for the land and repay alot of the mortgage from our current house.

George owns a hangar which he built - we got some added on to our mortgage rather than a seperate loan. So - the bank has security over our two houses and our land but not the hangar. Once we settle - we will own some vacant land, a barn, and a hangar and a rental property. We will have a small mortgage in comparison to what we have today - yet the bank seems to think we will be in a worse position for borrowing another $30K to cover the sewage system, the water tank and the excavation of the barn.

The bank manager spent about 20 minutes explaining it to me but I still don't really understand. Something to do with not being able to count the value of the barn, and only being able to borrow 85% due to it being vacant land. Even though for servicing the loan, we are in a much better position.

Apparently they don't have security over the hangar or the barn (about $250,000 worth of assets) which seems kinda crazy - why do they want to know what assets we have if they don't count them?

Anyone make sense of that?

Day 5

Well it looks like its my turn to update the blog (Must mean "Bloody Log!" I'm sure).

I was on my way to Parakai so I swung by to have a look at how things looked at the end of the first week of "Progress".

Clifton had done a fantastic job as usual and the pond was almost filled. He is just waiting for a truck to become available to finish the job and move any spare topsoil out of the way.

You can see from the photo that the western boundary fenceline is a lot better now that the mound of spare dirt has been moved back to the original hole. Even if the fence is a bit wobbly.. it doesn't really matter because Vicki plans on an secondary internal fenceline.. Next week I believe. The power box was looking more complete but there is no resolution to the supply "issue" at this stage. I don't really like all this stress where it isn't needed. Someone screwed up but nobody wants to admit it because it will cost someone a lot of money to lay a new line. A new feed would have to run about 200m. I've got a horrible feeling but we'll see.

Power drama

Well - where do I start?

OK - the beginning!

We were sold the property with 'power and phone to gate' - it wasn't officially on the ad or anything but when I specifically asked I was told it was.

There is a black pole/box for power about 4m from our gate - at our neighbours gate and we asked Stanley where the power was and he said at the black pole. So we got the electrician to organise Siemens to make the last phase in the box, live, and for a trench to be dug to our gate, and then to the barn building area for the temp power box. That was Thursday and the trench was due to be dug and Telecom booked for the following Tuesday.

Saturday we get up there and the neighbour behind us has connected (well dug the trench) to the same pole, for the last phase.

Called Stanley and he said oh bugger and that he would get back to us. The following day Jane (neighbour 1) tells us that Stanley was asking her if she knew John's (neighbour 2) phone number (she didn't) because he was going to have to pull his cables out and connect to the pole instead (50m up the road).

We are definitely the furtherest from the pole out of everyone so it's going to be interesting to see what happens. We are planning on a Generator for now for Econobuilt - as I don't think this will get sorted out extremely quickly - well not soon enough for our barn builders who start next week anyway (fingers crossed they start next week).

We looked at council District plan documents and from what we can tell the sub-divider must provide power to the site.

Water tank hole

We had to get Clifton to dig a 5x5 metre hole for the water tank to be built in. It should be interesting to watch. They build the concrete tank in the hole! Apparently this is better because sometimes transporting them you get hairline cracks etc.

Day three

Cino decided he liked the look of the house design plans so far...thought he would have a bit of a snooze just to make sure! We are making good progress with the house design, and we have decided to use Harmony Homes again.

Oh - and Clifton started filling the silly pond hole in too today (last owner dug this gi-normous hole for a pond - but the water never stayed in it. Plus it was huge.


Clifton has finished the trench for the power and the phone and the road and our drive look magically like new again!

Tim limed again today and mowed last week. He's going to do the fence posts for me too - next weekend - after the Kumeu show weekend (this weekend).


I had my eye on those wooden spools for Parelli obstacles. Hope they are still there next time I go up.

Cut ground

March 3rd and Clifton our wonderful digger guy started to level the site for the barn. He is a really good digger man - he has seperated the gravel, top soil, and clay into piles as he dug it up!

He is from Helensville. We are trying to use local people as much as we can. Have not heard much from the council so hopefully all going well in there.

Our water tank won't be in, in time for the laying of the concrete slab for the barn so I need to find some temporary water tanks or storage and get a truck to fill them... found some on Trade Me.

The neighbour (Jane) has rescued a skinny SB horse called Wilma and she may be pregnant - the horse not Jane. She already has two kids! And two dogs!

Oh - and she has two goats too - called Ponsonby and Parnell - but they like it at our place better!


Found a local (Kumeu) electrician called Alan Postance. He will be coming tomorrow to lay the power cables from the box, and we are getting a meter box at the gate so the meter man doesn't have to come into the property (brilliant!) and getting Telecom to lay cables for phone tomorrow too!