We soon realised that this is where the point of connection will be for our 3 phase supply to the house. We could not understand why it had to be where it is. We phoned the site supervisor first thing this morning and he said this is the only place it could go to comply with Australian standards. We decided to look into it further and found out that unfortunately this is true. The problem is the point of connection has to be accessible by ladder and due to the roof above the garage door, a ladder cannot be set up to the correct angle if trying to access the top roof gable. Unfortunately you are not allowed to have the point of connection on a balcony either. The only other solution is to have a pole mounted in the corner of our block. A cable could then be run from the top of the pole to the house underground and the point of connection would then be to this pole.
We are a bit disappointed that this wasn't pointed out to us sooner and what our options were, as we could have had the pole installed sooner rather than the overhead bracket. We have decided to put up with it for now and look to get the pole installed at a later date. We will just need to make sure suitable conduit is installed underground before the driveway is laid.
4 comments:
We have the same problem. Didn't know it would be that BIG until it is too late! The first thing you see when we go up the driveway is the overhead bracket! Did wonder why they put it there, but we thought it was too late....After a while, we don't even notice it is there anymore.
Yeah, we're thinking we might just put up with it for now. We've asked our site supervisor if it could be painted so it doesn't stand out so much. We've started noticing them on other houses now. Hopefully we'll just get used to it and it won't bother us.
No offense, but to be fair, I think both the builder and owner are responsible for this:
1) The builder should show owners photos about the differences between the ugly bracket and the pole. And of course the $ difference. Then owners can then make a proper decision based on their situation.
2) Owner should have done enough home work by visiting a few newly built houses and pick up things like this.
Of course, as we all know that most owners don't have any previous experience in this, definitely builder should take bigger share of it.
That's also why we are spending all these time blogging all the issues and problems, hopefully less people will fall into same traps like we did in the future!
Luckily it's not the end of the world and still fixable, but practically I don't think most people would change it after moved in. You will soon get used to it...
Any way, there's always chance that when you sold your house X years later, get extra $ and decided to build another one, you won't make the same mistake again!
Cheers
Allan
http://building-our-first-house.blogspot.com/
Wow! I would have gone ballistic. You don't see rigs like that here in the States, but I will definitely keep all this in mind. I am learning so much about this process through your blog, and other like it. I just found you today, started at the beginning, and am working my way through to current state. I can't wait to see what happened with the tile work!
Our blog, should you be interested, is thehousethatfrankbuilt.blogspot.com
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