Floor & Bathroom Tiling

There seems to be a massive abundance of tiles out there on the market, ranging from as little as $15sqm to well over 100sqm.

We spent a long time looking at tiles, and after some advice from a tiler went with a tile from RAK Ceramics. We chose the Sandust Lapporto which is a semi polished tile. The tile felt a lot better than the fully polished tiles we saw and had a lot of character, these tiles are made in the UAE. We felt the quality of the tile was also a lot better than some of the other stuff we saw.

Finding a tiler was a bit of a nightmare, quotes ranged from cheap to downright highway robbery for installation. We ended up going with Ping, who another Provincial blogger has used in the past. His work is fantastic, and we are very happy with the end result.

If you will recall, earlier on we wanted to do floor to ceiling tiling but thought the $350 per room to re-install cornices was a bit of highway robbery. It frustrated me even further to find that the Di Lorenzo tiler had done a cash job with the other family who built with provincial to do floor to ceiling tiles. Oh wells.

Half the tilers we got out for quotes, wouldn't even touch the bathrooms, Ping told us it wouldn't be a problem and quoted us pretty reasonably to finish it off. Luckily we knew which brand and colour grout was originally used.

To continue floor to ceiling tiling the following was done:

1. Mirrors came off, took all of 30 mins to remove two mirrors. Mirrors came off fine.
2. Electrical plugs were loosened
3. Ceiling cornices were removed. This was a messy job and took about 2 hours to do, so an hour a bathroom.
4. Lots of drop cloths were laid down.
5. Cornice guys were called out to re-install the cornices after at a total cost of $400, and that was one of the pricier quotes !!!

So how are the results, bathroom's ended up coming out pretty amazing if I must say, and the cost savings of doing it this way was about $2k.

On with the photos. We still need to give the tiles a few more cleans before they are truly photo ready. They are still covered in grout.

KEYS !!!!

We FINALLY GOT THE KEYS !!!

The whole process took about 30-40 mins, we received a whole heap of certifications, and documents, a bag of keys, along with a very special surprise.

Another great surprise was the requirements for us to get an occupancy certificate. It's a huge help having a small list, will make it much easier to get things done.

From Provincial's Head Office we went straight to the house to start getting quotes from tilers and concreter's for driveways. I'll update with how we get on.

Overall it looks like the bulk of issues we had with our house have now been sorted. Overall Provincial has done a great job, and after spending some time in the house we feel it will be pretty awesome when finished. Few niggly things that I'll get cleaned up when the quarterly maintenance comes around, but I can't thank the guys enough.

We have ordered some shutters for the front, and will be working our way through the long list of things to finish it.... I won't list it for fear of how long it will be !!!!

Will give updates and all important completion photos as we progress through. So stay tuned.

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 !!!!

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

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 23^rd to January 19^th for a total of 18 work days
• I have taken a worst case scenario of my build starting as at September 12^th, my first blog post is on the 14^th 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.

Practical Completion Inspection

We had our Practical Completion Inspection back on 15^th of July, we were warned not to expect perfection and that a lot of little things still need to be done. This was our chance to hi-lite any big error’s that can be completed before we have hand over.

There were plenty of paint issues that need to be sorted out, I guess it’s one of those things that you will really notice when the house is empty and you are specifically looking at paint. The painters overall were quite good and didn’t use spray guns.

Thankfully my wife has an extremely sharp eye so she picked up on a lot of things. So what issues/ observations did we find ? Obviously all of it needs to be fixed some are bigger than others.

Front Door

• Stain on surround needs to be done
• Piece's of wood needs to be replaced where the installer has drilled holes
• Internal Cornice around front door replaced

Bathrooms

• Silicone needed to be done in all bathrooms.
• Shower Rail installed in one of them
• Lights installed in both
• Cabinet Drawer to be fixed up.
• Sink trim plugs to be installed (thrown out by the cleaners we think)
• Shower track to be installed in the Main (something to stop water from flowing out.
• Wonky toilet in WC, with front that sits on the floor visibly not round. The toilet is still functional so nothing will be done about it.

Bedrooms

• Door handles to be installed throughout, some were obviously not straight either.
• Some door’s not closing/ locking properly to be fixed.
• 3 Windows had quite visible scratches to be fixed.
• Door which had a hole in it that was subsequently patched up needs to be replaced.

Kitchen

• Few scratch marks on the polyurethane cabinet to be cleaned up
• Ceaserstone Island join to be filled in (where the join the 2 20mm stones). Some marks on stone to be cleaned up as well.
• Back edges of Island to be cleaned up (gaps between ceaserstone and polyurethane back piece)
• The fridge height was not per what was advised but has worked out in our favour because the fridge we purchased isn’t as tall as we thought it would be. Will be seeking a refund of the fridge height change fee though.

Laundry

• Cabinet scratch to be fixed up.

External

• Guttering along back with scratches to be replaced. Quite frankly the guys at the guttering company took a shortcut when they did this bit, they should be called back to do the job properly. I shouldn't have to be reminded about a trades short cuts in the house I live in.
• Spot cleaning of sections of brick wall, back, left side, front around garage door.
•  Alfresco ceiling joins to brick to be filed in.
• Paint/ plaster to be cleaned off the brick at front and in alfresco section.
• Some roof tiles that were missing to be put in.
•  Articulation joint to be put in on back wall, and foam to be put in in one of the articulation joints that it was missing from.
• Vent pipe cap to be fixed to roof.
• Inserts above windows to be installed.
• Part of the Moroka to be cleaned up at the front.
• Lining at top or Portico to be glued down and painted so that it’s not so visible.

What I forgot to check

• If under the doors had been painted
• If the pipe connecting the island to wall for electrical cables and pipe’s had the water drained out of it. The electrician should lose his/her license if this wasn’t done prior to them putting cables through it. I’ll be figuring out a way to check this before we move in.

It’s a pretty big list of little things that still need to be done, not sure how long it will take. But hopefully not too much longer to wait.

Looking back on it the quality things we would change or wish was done differently after doing PCI are.

• Upgrading the toilets from the crap that’s in there now. Not sure how a toilet managed to pass quality control with a front that is visibly distorted. You don't tend to think about a toilet too much until you see one that is visibly off.
• Upgrade the kitchen to soft close drawers. Just feels so much nice with soft close.
• Upgrade the skirting to the 150mm half splay, it looks a little odd having the 67mm splay skirting with 2.7m ceilings. 

Update - Bits and Pieces done almost there 35 Weeks since start .......

Have had a few requests for a blog update so here we go.

It's been a month since my last update and some work has been done on the house, we are almost there....... I hope.

It's been about 35 weeks since site scrape happened, and my contract period IIRC was 26 weeks. Not sure how much longer it will be but let's hope were in before the end of the year lol !!!

Since my last update the following has been completed.

• Internals all painted and done.
• Kitchen back splash installed 
• Rainwater tank installed and plumbed in.
• Door handle installed
• Garage door installed.
• Bathroom sinks, taps etc have also been installed.
• Alarm looks like in has been installed.
• All electrical looks like it's complete.
• Probably a few other things I have missed.

Unfortunately our internal doors were stolen sometime over the past few weeks, so the builder has had to replace these. It's a shame I would imagine trades people themselves are stealing from builders. I hope these guys get caught, but I'm not sure if a police report was made.

I only have a few pictures of the outside for the time being, but I have already been able to spot a few things I am not too happy about, which I will want fixed up before I get the keys.

• What appear to be drill holes in the top of the door frame, for no apparent reason. I have managed to find 8 in total. Not sure why I would be expected to accept a stuff up on such an expensive door. It almost looks like they used off cuts, or installed it the wrong way around.

Took this photo a what feels like and probably is months ago when the painters were on site.

• Scratches on the back gutter where the installers were too lazy to cut off the section they damaged when they ran out of guttering and thought it acceptable to install fresh gutter next to the scratched gutter.

Hopefully I don't find much else when we walk through.

I only have a few photos from outside of the house.

I am looking forward to this build coming to a close, so hopefully it happens sometime soon. Would love to be able to finish off the flooring, and all the rest of the stuff that needs to be done before the end of the year.