New House build - Help needed

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#2541798 15-Aug-2020 17:11

Thanks for the replies. Yeah not sure about the fence, but if there's an allowance then can't do much.

If it's declined then will have to change the plans. The builder never mentioned that it may need approval, he said it's just money making scheme from council as narrow sections and always approved

If we'd known there was a potential of decline or needing neighbours approval, we would have changed the plans so that it complied in the first place.
The operation manager said in 6 years of building only 2 declined and one was a show home.

The neighbour in question is to the side (the one closest to the separate lounge, so only part of house infringing)

Unfortunately I can't talk to them cos their house isn't build yet (3/4 done).
Tbh they are the reason we won't be moving in before Xmas, and for that I'm pretty devastated. They've been asked 2 weeks ago to agree or decline, yet nothing.
I'm one of the most laid back, easy going people you will ever meet, get along with everyone, always keen to know neighbours and look out for each other. But for them to take so long to decide has infuriated me.
If anyone has any good reasons as to why it may take so long to decide then I'll give them some slack.

Froglotion

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#2541800 15-Aug-2020 17:23

Yeah it's annoying that the neighbour isn't answering back quick. But the responsibility as to why things have dragged on is with the builder. Sounds like they are just useless to me. If they have submitted so many resource consents, why didn't they submit it with the house consent stuff? Because they are useless, that's why. The fact the builder claimed to not know it was even required to be submitted would be the thing that pissed me off. Have you mentioned who the builder is? I may have forgotten.

Jase2985

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#2541885 15-Aug-2020 18:40

the fact your were not told from that start is a huge red flag for me, the designer/builder should know this sufff and should have said you would need resource consent.

33coupe

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#2541933 15-Aug-2020 20:11

Oh yep most definitely, the builder is also to blame and I have giving them an earful on a few occasions about it.

This is the last reply I got about sending the resource consent with the building consent. I still don't fully believe it, I think it wasn't submitted so that the payment could be pocketed if the council didn't ask for the resource consent. Maybe I'm just being cynical though.

'You are correct that applying for the RC sooner would help avoid a delay, i'm not arguing with that point. The thing is, that applying for it sooner can mean that council then pick up on another breach later which means we need to start the RC process again and pay for another one (this has happened to us a few times in the past which is why we looked at how we do things). I guess it't a bit of a balancing act between fastest verse safest and we prefer to stick with the safest option especially when it could end up costing you extra. What we have done here is what we normally do but if we had known council would ask for neighbours approvals etc then we definitley would have handeled this differently. Our guys who deal with council on a daily basses are really surprised that this has not been sorted yet'

33coupe

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#2541934 15-Aug-2020 20:14

Jase2985:
the fact your were not told from that start is a huge red flag for me, the designer/builder should know this sufff and should have said you would need resource consent.

Sorry, we were told we'd need a resource consent, but was very reassured it would be fine, no problem at all.
He said it's always the case for houses therebecause the sections are narrow.

The builder manager did apologise for that, and said the sales consultant should have advised that there was a chance /any possible implications.

Ruphus

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#2541965 15-Aug-2020 21:53

Froglotion: Google how to network a house. It's not hard, but pays to do research. Or just explain what you want to achieve to the electrician and have them do it.

I literally spent hours watching videos on how people network their houses. I then did my own. There is no shortcut. Either you do the homework so you understand how it all works. Or you get your electrician to do it.

You're going to have to do your homework even if the electrician is going to do the work. I've just had to fix up my in-laws new house (they moved in on Friday) where the electrician did all the network wiring. I've got a fairly decent network tester and went through the house two weeks ago to test all of the network ports. There were open pairs on two ports, two ports weren't even terminated at the patch panel and the patching at the patch panel was all over the place i.e. not in any sort of sequence.

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Paul1977

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#2544625 19-Aug-2020 16:43

Not sure how it works where the OP is, but in Chch we applied for PIM by sending in the pricing plans while the full working drawings were underway (so before applying for consent). The PIM highlighted anything that might require resource consent, and allowed us to change a couple of things before making the actual consent application to avoid the need for resource consents as much as possible.

By making some small tweaks and clarifying some information with the council we got it down from a list of 5 or 6 things to only one "exemption for permitted boundary activity" which did require the neighbors sign-off but he fortunately didn't have any issues with it.

I would have thought that any boundary issues like the OP is looking at would require neighbors consent. Again, I don't know how the OPs council operates, but in Chch if the only resource consent issue is boundary related you can instead get an "exemption for a permitted boundary activity" instead of a full resource consent. These are cheaper and have a shorter turnaround. I actually had to tell my building company about this, as they had never heard of them and would have applied for a full resource consent.

There are companies that specialise in sorting resource consents that some builders outsource this stuff too, if you builder isn't up to the task that could be an option. Builders know how to build a house, but a lot of them probably don't know how to interpret all the rules of the district plan.

Paul1977

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#2544634 19-Aug-2020 16:57

Ruphus:

You're going to have to do your homework even if the electrician is going to do the work. I've just had to fix up my in-laws new house (they moved in on Friday) where the electrician did all the network wiring. I've got a fairly decent network tester and went through the house two weeks ago to test all of the network ports. There were open pairs on two ports, two ports weren't even terminated at the patch panel and the patching at the patch panel was all over the place i.e. not in any sort of sequence.

We just moved into our new house and the first thing I went to plug in was my wifi access point. Tested the cable, and found it was terminated incorrectly at the patch panel. Fortunately all the others I've tested so far have been fine. I know they tested all of them, so I'm surprised they missed that this one was wrong.

Overall our electrician did a good job of the networking, but I have seen some real sh*tshows done by some electricians on the networking side of things who clearly didn't know what they were doing (or are just lazy).

My brothers house probably has at least 16 network ports, and his sparky didn't label any of them.

33coupe

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#2551226 28-Aug-2020 12:07

thanks for the replies.

Im in CHC as well, it comes under Selwyn but should be similar. Not sure why they didnt apply for the other consent (maybe trying to pocket the money,not sure)

I have been looking at youtube videos, starting to make more sense now thanks.

The neighbour approved last friday, just waiting for the council to finalise / approve.

I have a question in regards to the separate lounge. As it's pretty small, Im wondering if I should get an AV rack by the seating position instead of a cabinet underneath the tv / projector. it might make the room a bit bigger, although will be additional cost for longer hdmi / speaker cable.

Any thoughts?

thanks

Paul1977

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#2551251 28-Aug-2020 12:43

33coupe:

thanks for the replies.

Im in CHC as well, it comes under Selwyn but should be similar. Not sure why they didnt apply for the other consent (maybe trying to pocket the money,not sure)

I have been looking at youtube videos, starting to make more sense now thanks.

The neighbour approved last friday, just waiting for the council to finalise / approve.

I have a question in regards to the separate lounge. As it's pretty small, Im wondering if I should get an AV rack by the seating position instead of a cabinet underneath the tv / projector. it might make the room a bit bigger, although will be additional cost for longer hdmi / speaker cable.

Any thoughts?

thanks

That lounge is a decent enough size, and I can't imagine you'll ever use the space under the TV for anything else. If it were me I'd be putting a cabinet below the TV. If you have it by the seating position then all your AV cabling has to get back to your TV via two walls and the roof, instead of a much shorter run up one wall. You will almost certainly want to replace HDMI cables etc at some point, and the shorter and straighter the run the better. Having it by the seating position would also take up more of the the "usable" space in the room.

Our media room is 4.4 x 4.0, so a bit shorter and wider than yours and having a cabinet under the TV is no issue (we just have an ugly cheap trolley under it at the moment, but will replace with something nicer in the coming months).

This is also way better if you have remotes that rely on line of sight IR. Far more intuitive to point all the remotes towards the screen.

Obviously a lot of the above rationale changes if you switch to a projector.

I've actually gone off the idea of a projector for our media room, and am instead considering (down the track) going for a 77" OLED. We have the seating away from the back wall which reduces the viewing distance, and even the current 65" TV looks a pretty decent size. I'm also concerned that the fan noise from a projector would annoy me.

33coupe

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#2572889 23-Sep-2020 15:52

nooo dont give up on the projector! lol

Yep I will be going ahead with the cabinet under the tv, projector to come down in front of it.

Ive just met with the builder & sparky and they said its all good to run cat6 cable to save money. the only isue is Ive never done it before and am a bit worried lol.

From the videos Ive seen, its ok to drill holes in the horizontal timber to run them through. My questions are:

Is there and timber I shouldnt drill through?

Do the cables need clipping to the timber or just ok to be loose?

I know it shouldnt be run along the power cable but are there any other tips / things I should / shouldnt do? Im just a bit worried I do it, and then it's all wrong and have to pay them to re do it etc

I will also have to remeasure the separate lounge, as sparky said to have separate power point behind each sub (I only have one for the time being eek), and to place power point close to projector.

Oh and just a quick update, the build started last week, this pic is as at yesterday :)

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Jase2985

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#2573096 23-Sep-2020 21:37

you can drill thought most timber, but holes shouldnt be bigger than 25mm ideally, but you can have up to 3x 25mm holes in any top plate over a certain distance (cant remember what it was. you can also notch out a top plate by 25mm for 250mm or something like that.

i would run any holes as small as you canto allow you to get your cables through but also at a later date pull another cable through using the existing one as a draw cord.

just leave the cables loose in there so you can do what i mention in the previous paragraph. when the put insulation in it will hold the cables against the studs/nogs. if they go across the center of a space i cut the insulation and wrapped it around the cables. helps the insulation preform better.

Froglotion

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#2574098 25-Sep-2020 10:56

Wait till the sparky is done then run your networking. Means you can avoid running it in line with power runs. Could just buy a 305m roll of CAT6 and run spare lines as backups. I ran a bunch of wire I had lying around for draw wires. Then just took photos of everything. I ran RG6 to a few sub locations, but only actually had one of them come out of a socket. The rest just sit hidden in the wall. I ran them to locations where power could be run from a socket on other side of wall. Realistically I can't see you needing more than one sub, just upgrade sub if it's not good enough. Two is a bit silly on a room that size IMO. So save the money and just run power for one. Location of sub will play a bigger part than overall power i'd say.

Paul1977

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#2574100 25-Sep-2020 11:01

33coupe:

nooo dont give up on the projector! lol

Yep I will be going ahead with the cabinet under the tv, projector to come down in front of it.

Ive just met with the builder & sparky and they said its all good to run cat6 cable to save money. the only isue is Ive never done it before and am a bit worried lol.

From the videos Ive seen, its ok to drill holes in the horizontal timber to run them through. My questions are:

Is there and timber I shouldnt drill through?

Do the cables need clipping to the timber or just ok to be loose?

I know it shouldnt be run along the power cable but are there any other tips / things I should / shouldnt do? Im just a bit worried I do it, and then it's all wrong and have to pay them to re do it etc

I will also have to remeasure the separate lounge, as sparky said to have separate power point behind each sub (I only have one for the time being eek), and to place power point close to projector.

Oh and just a quick update, the build started last week, this pic is as at yesterday :)

I just don't see the projector happening for me anymore. Unless I had the budget (and I don't) for a laser projector, the black levels still won't be as good as OLED. And any fan noise bugs the crap out me as well, I'd be worried I'd get it and be disappointed. Can't afford either right now anyway, but a 77" OLED is my current preference.

Get the sparky to quote doing the Cat6 if you haven't already. Cable is pretty cheap, but by the time I'd factored in the cost of all the keystones and face plates I just wasn't saving enough for it to be worth the time and hassle to do it myself. And I guarantee, however long you think it will take - it will take A LOT longer (especially if you've never done it before). Then that puts you under massive pressure because the builders are working on a timetable and won't want to be held up.

For a sparky it's not a big job, but for someone who's never done it you might find it to be a massive job for you. I'd recommend for your own piece of mind and stress levels, get them to do it for you.

Glad to here it's started, you'll find thing progress very quickly over the next couple of months. What area of Christchurch are you building in?

33coupe

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#2579052 4-Oct-2020 15:46

Thanks for the replies, good info.

Just to check can you run cat6 parallel to mains power, just a good distance apart?

I do have a big roll of cat6 so was contemplating running to every room (would you leave them in a wall instead of terminating right now?)

I did tell the sparky, I could only do it on a weekend. Budget wise i really need to do it myself, I think he will terminate the ends.
He was penciled in for 16/10, now been told end of the month.

Which seems a bit strange as going up pretty quick, frame is up, assuming roof is on next week.

Thanks for the tip on the sub, just read it gives better balance to a room, and looks better being symmetrical lol.

A 77oled would be something else!

I'm building in Acland park (along with everyone else in Christchurch haha)

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