On the surface of it, it appears the demolition stage of a knockdown rebuild (KDR) is a relatively straightforward process. Something along the lines of… get a few quotes, pick one, move out of your old home, then… presto! All gone.
It’s true that hiring someone to knockdown your house is easy. Advice given to me prior to searching for a demo company was that most of the time around $20K should cover it and this proved to be accurate in my case
Gravity Demolition is the company I used. The cost for my demolition came in at $20,600 which included asbestos removal, extracting half a dozen tree stumps and clearing the site of vegetation. All in all, I thought it was a reasonable price.
Problems arise
The first problem arose when the timeline to knockdown my house blew out with all the companies I’d contacted. Due to personal circumstances I’m motivated to get moving on this project as this will trigger other events going on in my life which are happening in the background.
Around the end of January 2022 is the earliest I could get a booking and even then, there’s a stack of work that needs to happen well before that time.
Most pressing is the need to have the fixed services (Gas, NBN, Electricity) removed from my house, in other words, the Abolishment Of Services.
About 3 weeks ago I contacted the gas and electric companies to organize their removal and the gas distribution company took my call immediately and apparently booked a crew to come out to do the disconnection. At the time of writing the gas is still connected, even though I have not been a gas customer for 25 years.
Life in the slow lane
My electricity distributor (Ausnet) palmed me off to my retailer (Tango) and their call center got me to email the service department. An automated response from them stated that they’d get back to me in 5 business days, they took 8.
Details contained in the automated message said that it generally could take a whopping 25 business days from the date of the application to have the power cut. Lucky, I applied almost 2 months before D day.
In the last few days, I got an email from a real person at the retailer stated that it was in fact 20 business days from the date you vacate the house. Now it was time to panic. I needed to be out of my house in little over a week.
Last weekend was spent packing stuff in boxes and throwing out an incredible amount of clothes, books and other odds and ends acquired in the last 20 years.
Temporary home
Sadly, I’ve had to send my chicken to a new home and one of my cats will reside at my sister’s house by the end of the week. Thankfully my temporary housemate, who is a good friend of mine, will let me bring my 17yo cat.
My temporary home is a 25-minute drive from my existing home, in Edithvale, an area I’m unfamiliar with. It’s not all bad though – my friend and I get along well and his home is not far from the beach. Yay.
I’d be the first to admit that I’m not the most patient person in the world and the waiting for the utilities to remove their services is frustrating. Seriously, I’ve seen glaciers move faster.
Once the services have been removed the next task is to organize temporary fencing. Gravity Demolitions made it clear that no work would commence until the fencing is up, but I can’t organize that until the services are cut as the utility companies need clear access to the site.
Beyond that it’s all up to the demolition team. I’m sure there’ll be some hurdles to cross before I get there, but this major milestone on the path to building my home is getting nearer.