Electrical Done (for Now)

We met the electrician that will be doing the installation for our house. We met him as his new shop in Kemps Creek where he had a showroom to give us a view of the products that they can install. Apparently, the show room is pretty new and as evident with the trade tools in one corner of their kitchen, the office is not yet finished. 

The electrician welcomed us and in all honesty mentioned that he was not there to sell things to us. We were quite honest as well in that we may need some suggestions and ideas for our install as this is our first experience of building from scratch. 

We walked through our marked up plan (with red pen on the original electrical plan). I suggest other buyers/builders to prepare this before you meet with your electrician. I have to say that we already had a plan that was proposed by the builder which helped us in what kind of things we should initially think of (e.g., number of lights in the room, fan and light in bathrooms and basic things were already in place). If anything, we just had to add new stuff and move some thing to more convenient places. 

Here are some things I would consider coming from our experience today: 

• Consider your bedroom power outlets in conjunction with your proposed bed position. This should also accommodate for proposed furniture (e.g., heater, bedside table.) 
• Consider a two way light switch near the bedside and on the normal position at the door. At least you can turn off your light without having to get out of bed when you are ready to sleep. 
• You may need sensors for areas which will be rarely inhabited and behind closed doors. This is in case people (especially children) forget to turn off the light. If it is behind a closed door, it may be even more difficult to detect the forgotten light. 
• Ensure you install a sensor with sufficient range for the area which you need to be lit. At our front, we have 4.5 metre frontage. We though a 5 metre range sensor is sufficient for this. 
• Fittings stick out. You may not want a sensor, a smoke detector and a light fitting to appear in a row. Consider moving some fittings or using a design that is more flush with the ceiling/wall. 
• Anything wired or that needs provision within the walls will be easier to install now. Being IT people, we opted to put in our data ports now rather than later. 
• You can probably bring down price by doing wiring only if needed, especially, if your loan is limiting your available funds. When it comes time to installing a few months or a year down the track, you probably have more funds available then. This is good for things like the alarm and intercom. 
• Consider separating circuits for different machines/rooms/electricals. For example, you may want your lights to be on its own circuit so that it does not trip when you are doing an electrical project in the garage. Another example is to have your computers on a separate circuit from "noisy" equipment like your washing machine and rainwater pump. 
• How about some down lights on areas where you need focussed lighting? Maybe the kitchen bench, the feature wall or a designated area for electronic projects. 
• If you have a kitchen island, consider a power outlet on the bench side. 
• With NBN, think about how and where you will put your branch out to the other areas of the house where you think hard-wired LAN will be required. Also remember that you can move the NBN box to another place inside the house. The garage climate is usually not easily controlled. 
• Having 3 in 1 (heater, light, fan) devices installed in bathrooms should be considered now than later. We initially had light and fan only. If we were to do this later, on of the holes will need to be patched as the 3 in 1 only requires 1 hole. 
• Consider an external, waterproof GPO for outdoor electrical devices. We're not big on Christmas lights but some people may be. You can always whip out a super long extension lead. If it is near a gas outlet, think about the GPO's position in relation to your barbecue grill. 
• Consider ceiling fans and check that they have speed controls and reversible motor (summer/winter mode). Usually, the season mode is controlled with a switch near the fan mechanism. Check its placement in relation to any vents (e.g., air conditioning). 
• Think about putting in a surge protector at the meter box. This should protect everything in your house including your fridge, air conditioning, laundry machines, lighting, and other electronic appliances without having to get those surge protector power boards. 

Before the meeting with the electrician, we actually underestimated the price for our proposed electrical modification. We also got some ideas and suggestions from Joe (our electrician), that we thought were pretty practical and will be difficult to install after fit-out. We wound up with a pretty big price that was even more expensive than one of our big ticket items we opted for our structural upgrades. 

In any case, given the rushed nature of our building process, we thought our meeting with our electrician was very pleasant and open. Perhaps with him not having a sales background helped a lot in that he was giving us suggestions and not pushing them. He was letting us make our own decisions and was happy to make recommendations and have them accepted or rejected. We told him that we were happy with the meeting and appreciate how it was arranged. Not to mention the chocolates for the kids. 

Waiting for the Bank

I've been standing here
Waiting for the bank on a Friday 
Laundry on my back 
Ultraviolet rays 
Like I'm posing for a shot in a blog-azine
What the heck does it mean? 

So here we are narrowed down to 3 estates (after hearing what we consider as a negative about Jordan Springs). We are now looking at Landcom's Caddens and Thornton as well as Mulgoa Rise. At the moment, there are no new releases at both of Landcom's estates. There are some available in Mulgoa Rise but not the size/shape that we want. Here are some views and opinions that we have about the three estates: 

Caddens

• very close to our kids' school (It is practically a walk via Caddens Road to get to my kids' school. But there is a section that is undeveloped, that is, there is no sidewalk, so it will be difficult to let a young kid walk to school on that road.) 
• quite hilly land (We may need extra for site costs and levelling.) 
• planning is done very well (There are enough parks, a shop area and the sidewalks, lighting look very well done.) 
• land sizes are decent, enough for needs 
• pricing is rising rapidly (what my friend said about staging the releases to give the illusion of scarcity is being proven true with any estate, so far) 
• demand is very high (The last release ran out within 1 week. We didn't think it was going to run out within the week seeing as the previous release, the larger lots took longer to get sold.) 
• proposed road access will improve if they go ahead with all their plans (With two access points already connected to Caddens Road plus additional plans to connect out to the UWS campus and out to the old suburban area of Claremont Meadows to the East, at least you have some options to get in and out of the area.) 

Thornton 

• very close to transport and the Penrith CBD 
• land is quite flat 
• land pricing is high 
• land sizing is quite small (If building on your own, the frontage is often a problem. Our only consideration here is to get a good sized Courtyard Home.) 
• planning is done very well (There are parking controls which is especially needed for a denser type of area as they seem to have zoned this estate. Perhaps this is due to its proximity to Penrith station and CBD.) 
• will need to brave the multiple traffic lights of Parker Street during school pickup hours to get the kids (We have considered this as this is one of the big reasons for moving further out West. Even back when we were still looking at Jordan Springs, we had to do a timing run from the Northern side of Parker Street and it came up quite negative because of the "luck-o-the-lights".) 

Mulgoa Rise 

• quite far from transport (There are proposed bus lines through the estate and existing bus lines from the next estate, Glenmore Park) 
• land is flatter than Caddens 
• land pricing is moderate (You can get a fair sized land for ever $ you spend.) 
• land sizing is decent (It is difficult to find anything smaller than 450 sq. m.) 
• planning looks well done 
• on the edge of the suburbs (You're either looking at reserves or farms which border on the estate. It will definitely be a quieter area, at least until the other farms choose to develop. 
• some areas are BAL rated (There was one house and land package we looked at that had a BAL 12.5 meaning it had to be protected from ember attack from a bushfire. May also need additional insurance to get covered for fire.) 
• easy M4 access (We judged that the South side of The Northern Road seems to have easier access from the M4. This is an advantage if we want to say drive to our relatives in Blacktown and Kellyville or if they want to visit us. We can probably attribute this to the smaller amount of traffic lights in this direction.) 

At the moment, we are leaning well towards Mulgoa Rise due to the balance in pricing and what we can get for every $ we spend. With a competitively priced estate, we are lowering our financial risk while still getting what is necessary for our lifestyle. Knowing how we have always prioritised our needs, we think this is the obvious choice for our family. 

For those who know, Landcom now does this ticketing system for their land releases. This helps to prevent people from camping outside the sales office in anticipation of reserving their land on a first come first served basis. We missed the last release at Caddens thinking of the slow movement of bigger land sizes based on their previous releases. 

They recently had a release of Terrace homes in Thornton. When we had a look at their open homes about a month ago, we deemed them insufficient in terms of the living spaces that we require. We did not line up for this release so we have no idea of the movement of this release. Besides, there might be a different level of demand for the Courtyard home that we are after. 

Mulgoa Rise has a different policy in terms of getting people to reserve the land that they want. However, to enter into this commitment, we probably require our finances to be complete. So again I have go back and keep...

...waiting for the bank. 

Reasons for Looking

We are quite secure in our current home. So the question that might come up is why are we looking to move to another place. 


School 

We love the school that our daughter is currently attending. It is a very family oriented school out in Orchard Hills (near South Penrith). She is very much at home in her classroom and has come out of her shell ever since she attended kindergarten. We've always thought of her as a quiet and introverted child. But now, it is difficult to stop her from talking about things she likes and things that have happened throughout her day. 

We've lined up both our other younger kids to the school. By this, we have concluded that we will be better off living in that local area for the next 20 years, seeing as the baby boy just turned 1 recently. 


Space

With baby number 3 already out and crawling about, we have definitely outgrown our current little duplex. Our Rooty Hill home for almost a whole decade cannot provide at least another bedroom for the new bub comfortable. It is a three bedder and with only 2 major living spaces. With the two elder sisters already sharing a room, it's a tough ask to dismantle the third bedroom, currently a home-office/music room/library and turn it into a boy's room. 

A few living re-arrangements will probably allow us to stay in this place for a bit longer. This is our fallback plan if our quest for a new home doesn't quite suit us. It places us in a comfortable position to be able to say 'no' to a potential builder if something is not quite right or wait it out for the next available opportunity in case we miss out on one we liked. 

We also have only 1 car spot. Again, although this is a workable solution for our transport needs, we would like to have 2 spots both as a better solution for our 2 car family and as an added storage area for several things that should not be inside our laundry room. 

Age of Current Property and Flexibility

Not that there is much going wrong with our current property, but we think it is time to move on to another spot. Without putting the space issue in the spotlight again, we cannot do much to our duplex in terms of extending or knockdown-rebuilds. This lack of flexibility, which we anticipated when we bought this for our first home just before we got married, has pushed us towards the decision for a new place. 


Environmentally Friendly Features 

We like a lot of features in new homes now. With the BASIX now a requirement, it adds a lot to the liveability of a new home. We can probably retro-fit a few things onto our current place but the other previous reasons given seem to make retro-fitting a bit out of our aims. This makes our quest for BASIX++ probably more suited to a new place. 


Those are the main arguments we have for moving. I have to say that besides all the media portrayals of Western Sydney and the Mount Druitt area, this has been quite a decent neighbourhood to stay in. There are great people here who are willing to make this area a top community. It is not fair to say that because of all the events that occur here that there are no good people here.

Even after we have moved (when it does happen), we will be sure to come back here a few times for both family and friends whom we have got to know. 

This Blog

So we've started this blog as a diary of our quest for a new home for our family. We hope that this diary can help others in their finance, build and move process as well. We will endeavour to 

• record details of meetings we have with companies we will deal with 
• show pictures of things we discover throughout the process 
• note things we like and don't like showing our opinions and reasons for it
• outline our decision making to show the process of how we came to our own conclusion 

For us, this will be an adventure that we hope to look back on in the future. For our kids, we hope they can read this in their later years to appreciate what we have done for them and how they have been a part of this huge undertaking.

Without making it sound any grander, please enjoy reading our adventures in this...

...Search for a New Home.