Retaining wall installed !!

After a discussion with our neighbour on the right we came to an agreement and chose concrete retaining wall over timber retaining wall due to its durability and looks (beneficial for our neighbour actually). We end up going with our sub contractor and got him to place the order and now the wall is installed! Whooo finally a line between our lands is drawn!

The last few sleepers for the far back corner cannot be installed just yet due to a sewage pipe running across the retaining wall and we had to wait for an OK signal from Plantation to be able to install it. Our neighbour just have to hope it's not going to rain else the 'excess soil' will fall over (again) to their 'white pebbles' that they just got. Oh boy I think it is going to rain this week actually.

Concrete retaining wall delivered

Metal poles installed for the wall (Lot 1 arrow should be facing left!)

Concrete poured to secure the poles

Completed wall! Whoo hoo

This is at the far back corner. The sleepers left out because there is a sewage running underground until we got the OK from our builder the sleepers can't be installed just yet. The neighbor just need to hope it doesn't rain else the 'extra soil' will poured over to their 'white' pebbles

Building approval and Christmas shut down

Just about 5 weeks after our building plan was lodged to Council it finally got approved!! So glad it got approved without any issue as we are building 1.6% over the building threshold of 50% of land size and this also means we don't need to change our design :))

As it is getting close to Christmas shut down we're not sure if Plantation Homes going to start any work on site. If they are not we have to wait until mid January to get an update and that is 4 weeks away!

Their Christmas break/shut down:

Our administration: 13 Dec - 14 Jan
Construction team: 20 Dec - 20 Jan

17 December - Our company also have a shut down from 20 Dec for 2 weeks and today we received our post contract variation to review over the break. With this variation we didn't get charge admin fee of $500 as this are just variations on Tender and there is no structural changes so it doesn't affect anything.

Excess soil and Retaining wall dilemma

Ok now the dilemma about the excess soil and the retaining wall...

Excess soil - One day we came to check on our land and found some excess soil dumped on our land at the far back right corner. From assessing the surroundings, we believe the builder (Metricon) of our neighbour on the right dumped these excess soil on our land when they flatten the corner to do their outdoor concrete slab. We got no physical proof but we have timestamp photos showing there was no excess soil originally, the land was flat, and the next photo shows excess soil around the time our neighbour's outdoor concrete slab being poured. Pretty coincidence wasn't it? We wrote a complaint email directly to Metricon (after details were given by our neighbour) but as expected they denied and not willing to remove these excess soil (was not appreciated with their response at all). We then contacted Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP) and they advised we can make a formal complaint if we wish but because we checked with Plantation Homes if there going to be any additional cost when they do cut and fill with these excess soils they advised as its not enormous amount of soil there won't be any additional cost so we decided to drop this case and not make any formal complaint to Metricon (lucky them).

Retaining wall - Because of our land level higher than our neighbour's on the right a retaining wall is required. Apparently, when our neighbour were building their home they required to install a retaining wall at the far back corner between our land and theirs as that is a weakness point but then somehow their builder, Metricon, had a 'second plan' to build their house and said a retaining wall is not required at the time. Obviously so then the neighbour can wait for us to build and share the retaining wall cost! While the neighbour at the back did not need to wait for us they installed the retaining wall at their own cost.

Well, because our lovely neighbour on the right want to avoid paying the full cost of the retaining wall and did not do the 'proper way' issues with that corner arises - each time it rains our land soil fell over to their side and washed away, slowly creates a massive hole underneath their outdoor concrete slab (oh boy) as you can see in the below photo. Also because at the time it rains so much that their concrete slab corner started to crack (due to hollow beneath). Of course our neighbour panick and called us for a solution. Unfortunately nothing we could do as the issues are on their land and we said to them 'You should've done the right thing at the beginning - install a retaining wall!'. Jokes. Instead of saying that we said 'We suggest you to contact your builder and ask them why they said to you it is OK not to install the retaining wall when building'. They end up getting no solution from their own builder but to get a shovel and shove our 'excess soil' underneath their slab to cover up the hole and hope its not going to rain again. 

Is this called karma?

Cracked line on neighbour's concrete slab