Monday was a wash-out but our plumber was able to clear the trenches, shape the last of the pits and lay the pipes - what a champion!
Tuesday the trenches filled up again with rain water but at least they are now formed and fitted with pipes, ready for the concrete pits to be poured and connected to the street stormwater drain.
As the usual council inspector was away, a fill-in inspector checked out the driveway form work and took issue with the previously-approved key joins, threatening to shut us down. He stated a different (and much more expensive) bitumen filler be used instead and key joins be removed. BIG PROBLEM.
Until now, I've been really resistant to challenge council on their decisions. I've figured it was better to adhere to all conditions, changes and costs, thinking that it would only cost us in more time and unnecessary runaround. But change, for change sake is too much. Am tired of officials asserting their positions on plans that have been previously approved and signed-off by the necessary certifying bodies. Where does it stop?
I don't know if my phone call to his secretary had much effect - the fill-in inspector never bothered to call me back, but he did call the concreter back and negotiated to saw-cut the joins in the concrete and cork the spaces. Our concreter is still scratching his head at this methodology, but at least we're back on track to pour the driveway the following day.
Wednesday starts like a dream: driveway goes down, looks fantastic, plans are set for tomorrow's pour of the lay back (the pedestrian crossing and apron to the road).
Email comes in from traffic control company (the guys with the 'stop' signs and orange cones) requesting an ROL licence. ROL licence? Never heard of it. I've had my traffic control plan drawn up by engineers, certified by council and passed it onto my tradies to book traffic control but I've never heard of an ROL.
Traffic control tells us we're on a main road (knew that), the RTA overrules council on main roads (kinda knew that), RTA requires ROL licence for any traffic control (didn't know that), ROL licence takes 10 working days (really didn't know that), need to shut down tomorrow's schedule, including storm water connection to street until ROL licence comes through (didn't want to know that).
Am searching through D.As and C.Cs trying to find how I missed this. No one ever mentioned this. How do you plan for this? So disappointed.
The upside? By the time the ROL licence comes through, the newly poured driveway will have cured enough to have trucks drive on it to pour the stormwater pits and lay back on the same day. 2 birds, 1 concrete truck.
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