Henley

Over the coming months I’ll share with you what’s happening in and around my new home. These reports will likely be every 3-6 months and will include any works Henley has conducted on site as well as improvements I’m making around home. 

Appliance install

As mentioned in my post on handover day, my home had an army of Henley contractors moving in and out of the house installing the oven, cooktop and dishwasher in the kitchen as well as the solar/gas hot water system. 

Hot water was available from day 2. Air con installation is still not complete.

While the gas ducted heating was connected without a hitch, the same can’t be said about the air conditioner. At first the installer, All Air & Gas, forgot about an appointment which took a couple of emails to Henley as well as calls to AA&G to reschedule. 

On the date of the installation the job was left incomplete due to a missing 240V GPO in the roof cavity. According to the installer, this was a Henley mistake. This problem was discovered about a week post hand over and as at the date of publication, remains unresolved.  

Of the defects identified in the final (handover) inspection, Henley has maintained radio silence. One contractor contacted me this week to arrange a time to fix a minor problem with the fascia on the roof. Henley definitely ignores problems, hoping they’ll go away.  

NBN connection, or not

It's taken weeks to get the NBN partially installed. Still a few weeks yet...

Connecting to the NBN is proving to be a massive headache. Today was the 5th time the NBN techs, or their contractors, have visited my home. The first few times they tried to pressure my partner into paying 1000’s of $$ to run the fiber cable underground. This was repeatedly refused and today we had them come out and install an overhead cable to the side wall of the house. The cost of this option was zero. 

A different NBN guy still needs to come back to run the cable from the NBN box at the side of the house into my garage. Henley, for their part, did everything right. Conduit runs from the property underground and inside my walls to the garage. There is a long orange string running from one end to the other which NBN should have used to pull the cable through. Instead, they’ll do it the hard way. 

The white conduit sticking out of the ground was installed by Henley and cost me ~$600. NBN won't use it, preferring to install an overhead cable.

I had been waiting until the NBN was connected before I put up the small fences from the wall of the house to the boundary fences, this would allow easy access to the conduits Henley installed. In the end my patience wore out and the security of my home was impacted, so I erected them anyway. 

These side fences are important to secure my property. These fences will be replaced with more permanent versions when I can convince my neighbors to replace our shared boundary fences.

Everything else

Due to the recent rain, my front yard is a bit of a mud bole. As there is a 200mm drop from my garage to the ground below I had been leaving my car outside in front of the garage overnight. This has led to muddy tire tracks leading from my place which is not a good look. 

With this in mind, I had a cubic meter of crushed rock plus some soil delivered. Using some crushed rock and some wooden sleepers I’ve managed to fashion a ramp to allow my car to access the garage. This has also cut down on the muddy footprints traversing the garage. 

Finding a concrete contractor to pour me a new driveway is proving problematic. It appears many of them are flat out. Those that did respond were expensive, but I did sign up with one of them. This may be a case of buyer’s remorse as I haven’t heard from him since. 

Garlic planted at the perfect time of years

A raised garden bed was purchased so I could plant garlic. Garlic is the only crop I wish to grow over winter and it’s important to get it in the ground now. Mission accomplished. 

That’s all for this month. 

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