Monday, 29 June 2015

Countdown to Hand Over ..... tick tock

We have booked in handover for the coming Friday pending the bank finalizing the final payment.

I spent sometime on Saturday meeting the neighbors and cleaning up some of the trash left behind. A word of warning to anyone building. The reason builders don't allow free access to the site is because at the end of the day it is a construction site. The sheer amount of nails and scarily razor blades I picked up amazed me. They were mainly near door ways too.

It's to be expected to do some cleaning outside with building, and the majority of neighbors found the same stuff I did during there builds.

It was actually great to see that Provincial has almost got the house ready for handover. Progress has been made and I reckon fingers crossed I'll have an immaculate house at handover.
  • Scratched windows have been fixed
  • Remaining painting looks like it has all been done
  • Cabinet doors are back in place

The only outstanding I found which I have spoken with my site supervisor about today are.
  • Scratched guttering still to be replaced. Not really sure why this is so hard, the SS thought it had been fixed. I assured him it wasn't. My thinking is that if I had hired the guttering guys myself I wouldn't have accepted that level of work, so why should Provincial.
  • A outdoor tap seems to be faulty and has been dripping no matter how hard it is turned off.
and finally....... BRICK CLEANING

It's a bit frustrating to be honest, randoms on the street and landscaping guys have pointed out some of the mortar stains on the bricks, especially on the front of the house. The best quote from a guy who built using the same bricks on Saturday was "They are a nice brick, it's just a shame they didn't pay attention during the clean..... will you be they be coming back to sort it out ?" I'm not to happy about it either and is probably my only remaining pet peeve left on this house.

I have requested that at least the front of the house is cleaned up properly, and my SS has said he will see what he can do.

We shall see what happens !!!!

Monday, 22 June 2015

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - PCI round 2

Unfortunately during the building process you will come across problems, things you don't like and just down right unethical behaviour. But it all comes back to how the builder responds.

There will be good trades, there will be bad trades, and of course lazy trades. Unfortunately we experienced all three. But the outcomes has overall been positive, with caring head office staff doing all they can to make things right.

The BAD
3 weeks after we did our initial PCI, we received our final invoice. Weird I thought because there was still what I consider to be some major work done. With the big one being 3 articulation joints to be installed.

I tried to call our site supervisor on the day we received our invoice, only to go through to a new site supervisor, he assured me he would get our old SS to give me a call the following day. In a bit of a panic I drove over to the house to see if anything had been done. I was in disbelief 3 weeks had passed, and not a single thing had been done. I guess the only credit I can give our SS is that at least he didn't rip off all the little tabs claiming that work had been done.

Out of frustration I complained to our original sales consultant, who assured me he would get the construction manager to call me.

Our original SS called me the next day and I made it clear I wasn't happy, he assured me he would have everything done by Tuesday blaming the door with a hole in it. He seemed to be really fixated on that one door ignoring all the other problems. 

Impossible I thought but I gave him the benefit of doubt. I spoke with the construction manager who assured me I would be happy in the end.

The UGLY
I drove by the house on Monday (public holiday) to see if anything had been fixed yet, well it looked like the articulation joints had been installed but upon closer inspection. He had gone ahead and sawed in fake articulation joints. I was in disbelief. Thoughts of lawyers, Tribunals, and fair trading flashed through my head. Needless to say I was pissed.



Firing off an e mail to the head of construction at Provincial with plenty of images attached, I made it clear I wanted to do the PCI again and start over. Thankfully our original site supervisor is out of the picture and we will no longer have to deal with him. He is no longer employed by Provincial.

The construction manager didn't call me back till late in the afternoon with an action plan in place, and promised me he was looking after everything personally. He did apologise and was pretty disappointed in the way my house was being handed over to us. He asked us for a week to sort the issues out and we could do PCI again.

The GOOD
Well the positive outcome is that the bigger issues have now been fixed with a few minor in comparison things left to do. I haven't been able to check the brickwork closer to the eaves to make sure the bricklayer actually did fix the error. 

The construction manager in 1 week managed to get the majority of our issues sorted out, he stayed in contact throughout the week to let me know what progress was being made which was fantastic. His attitude made it clear to me just how bad our original site supervisor was. Thankfully the majority of trades we had were good, as I imagine things could have been a lot worse.

PCI Round 2. The issues identified at PCI round 2 were.

  • Paint touch-ups... Moreso under the bathroom doors were not painted, if unpainted they will suck up moisture and eventually stick.
  • Guttering along the rear still to be replaced.
  • Downpipe still to be painted
  • 3 scratched glass windows still to be fixed
  • Sink plugs to be replaced. The cleaners threw them out apparently
  • Sink overflow beauty trim to be replaced. Cleaners again.
  • Toilet bases to be siliconed.
  • Shower trim to be installed so water doesn't flow out.

Hopefully these will be fixed before handover. I'm still not completely happy with the brickwork to be honest. It could have definitely been cleaned better, and from my photos I don't think the brick cleaner bothered re-cleaning any of the brickwork near the eaves. Maybe I won't notice it with time. 

Overall things are starting to look a lot better, you do tend to notice a lot of details when building, and it's the little things that start to annoy you, but I reckon once all the landscaping goes in. You probably won't notice a lot of things.

On with the photos.

Photos taken during overcast weather.
 Trim around the portico has now been installed giving it a much cleaner look. Finally looks finished.

Articulation joints corrected.



Holes in the door frame no longer obvious.

Cap on facia has now been installed.


All of our internal doors are like these.

Kitchem, appliances get installed 5 days after you request them following hand-over.



Formal Lounge or future Home Theatre.



Study Centre


Modern Alarm pad


Ensuite Bathroom


Trim along bottom of shower still to be installed

1 of the 2 walk in robes in the master.


Entrance Way

Main Bathroom


Laundry



Nice Colorbond rain water tank

Portico with lining now installed.



Surfmist B&D garage door with woodgrain finish (standard).







Window 1 scratched

Window 2 Scractched



Guttering that needs to be sorted out.


Window 3 that needs to be sorted. Almost looks like a sandpaper scratch





Thursday, 4 June 2015

My Build Time

How long has it been ?

The problem with building is that everyone keeps asking you “When is your house going to be finished ?” . The answer inevitably is I don’t know and I just want it done right so I don’t have any future headaches.

This morning my wife mentioned it had been 3 weeks since we did our PCI, and how much longer do we have left. Whilst I didn’t have an answer I thought I would calculate how long it has actually been for our build.

For those of you building and wanting to keep track of those rainy days. The Australia government keeps a record of rain days. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/index.shtml

I have tailored it for my area and based on the data I have calculated how long my house has been under construction.

The following assumptions have been factored in.
  • Provincial Shuts down from December 23rd to January 19th for a total of 18 work days
  • I have taken a worst case scenario of my build starting as at September 12th, my first blog post is on the 14th after visiting on the weekend. I would assume they actually started sometime during the prior week. Everything during this period has been excluded (Hi-lited in thick border in the picture below)
  •  Rainy days have been factored in from the above site using the closest weather station to the house. I have included in days of 1mm precipitation as well which isn’t a lot.
  • 5 Day work weeks have also been assumed.
  • Since we took hardwood flooring out I have reduced our contract time by the 1 week they had increased it by to do this. Hey we paid a $1,000 penalty for the privilege !!!!!


So how long has it been
  • So far we have had 40 Rain days
  • 168 Workable construction days
  • 120 Contractual days based on 24 weeks.

Which means we are 168 – 40 – 120 = at least 8 days over our contractual construction period. Now that is being extremely conservative, I would expect it to be more as there are 17 rain days I have included which show precipitation of 3mm or less, you also wouldn’t think rain days would apply once the roof is on.




We will see if we are credited for Provincial’s Rental Guarantee, I would expect a credit of at least $800 based on the above calculation. We shall see what happens. Maybe that can go towards getting the wonky but functional crapper replaced lol.