Week One review - the good, the bad, the ugly!

So we've had the keys to our house for one week now - how's it been?

The Good: It's great to have our own place again. What's the best things so far?

• Garage with remote door, rear roller & internal access - it's all incredibly convenient, we've never had that before! Only thing is, I wish it was an 8 car garage... or at least had a workshop extension.
  
• All the 2 and 3 way switches. Sounds like a minor thing, but having lots of 2 and 3 way switches means you don't have to walk all the way across a room or hallway to turn lights on/off.
• Tall ceilings and doors. Make you feel small! I've got a feeling we'll have to watch the heating/cooling bill due to the increased internal space, but it's worth it.
  
• Huge kitchen. We haven't moved much in, but all our stuff from the old house won't take up half the pot drawers. Plus there's this massive walk-in pantry about 50 times bigger than what we had in the last house. Lots of room for a fridge, beer fridge, and wine fridge (I wish!)
  
• Great ensuite shower - we had it redesigned to be big with a rainfall showerhead, and it's incredible! The big size is awesome, and the rainfall showerhead puts out a beautiful spread of water and is great to relax in. Absolutely love it, and very glad we made this change to the ensuite layout. Nice mixer taps everywhere.
• All the colours worked out beautifully! It's hard to choose all your house colours 3-6 months before the house is even started, but things look fantastic. Might start on painting the home theatre room dark grey this weekend.
  

The Bad:

• Had handover with a couple of minor things wrong with various locks and handles, haven't heard from our SS yet about fixes to that. Plus we weren't given a key to the manhole, which we can't open.
  
• Doing our clean of the house for the last week, you notice a lot more things once you move in. Mostly you'd never see them, as we've up on stepladders cleaning the tops of window reveals etc, but a couple of paint blemishes are a bit more noticable and we might just repaint or cover up with a mirror or something. I think once we move some furniture in and start enjoying ourselves, it won't be an issue.
  
• Carpets have been delayed, so we're squatting in the study until carpets are in and we can move our bed up into the master bedroom. No big deal.
• Driveway and crossover still not done... various delays with our concreter. Lots of dirt in the garage as a result, but not a big deal either.
• Stupid fence guy is still missing-in-action a good 5 weeks after he was meant to replace the side fence. I'm sending him an email to say if the job isn't done in the next week, we're going with someone... anyone else who will turn up and get the job done.
  
• Stairs are awesome but we definitely have to repaint the walls around it as a lot of stain runs on the wall. Knew this was coming but still a bit of a pain.
  

Another tip for everyone out there who are installing wired networking with any builder - I bought a cheap network tester for about $5 delivered from China (do a search for "network tester" on ebay if you want to buy one), but due to incredible slowness it arrived too late for our inspection - it only came today! Order this thing at least a month before your inspection date if it's coming from China!


Basically, one end plugs into the hub point powered by a 9V battery, and a seperate bit plugs into the other end. A series of little lights go from 1 - 8, and if everything lights up, all should be good! Our data points were left unlabelled, so this is an easy way to identify which data point goes to which room. All our network points appear to be OK except for the one going to the family room - when I plugged in the jack, the whole jack disappeared into the wall - looks like the data guy didn't secure it properly. Anyway I fished it out, and on testing it appears that the #1 cable isn't connected, and the #4 & #5 cables are joined together as both light up instead of sequentially. I'll test it more thoroughly once our router and internet is installed, it may be a 3 month maintenance item to fix the cabling point and replace the faulty jack.

The Ugly:

Erm... not really much to report, really! I was dreading some of the horror stories I've heard from other people once they had moved in. Some of them I recall include bathtubs/sinks flooding the whole room, being locked into you master bedroom because the door jammed, gas leaks from hot water systems, toilets backing up because the sewer pipes weren't connected right - but for us, no disasters like that (touch wood!!!)

The only really annoying thing is I think the antenna hasn't been connected to the Starserve unit, as there's no TV signal from any of the 7 TV outlets in the house. Would be nice to watch TV once we've finished moving in properly! Should be an easy fix, will get in touch with our SS and see if he can get the data or antenna guy in quickly to fix that.

T&T

Day 262... PCI!! PCI PCI PCI!!!

So, today was the day for our completion inspection! We turned up at 9 and met up with our SS John, and another SS (Andrew).

Long story short - PCI went very well!!!

Been quite a while since we've been in the house, and it had been cleaned pretty well inside and out. Almost all the items from our independent inspector's checklist had been addressed, and the ones that weren't done were not major issues for us anyway. Started off inside the house, working out way through the ground floor before tackling upstairs, and finally ending up outside.

We did finish up with a page of defects, but they were all very minor things like paint touchups, scratched handles, a jamming robe sliding door, a bowed ensuite door, checking/painting all internal doors for top & bottom paint sealing (quite a few doors had been adjusted by planing but not repainted afterwards), one articulation joint unsealed, straightening up a crooked downpipe and things like that. All easy to fix, and I can't see any reason why we wouldn't have our keys next... ooo, nearly let slip the handover date there! It's coming real soon!

Apparently, our house went through QA this week and received a score of 98.5%, which sounds good to us and corresponds to the very few defects we found today. Our Certificate of Occupancy was also emailed to us by our CSC, and this is where you've got to love private certifiers - looks like it was approved in 1 day! We also have our statement for the final amount to be paid, so first thing Monday I'll be contacting the bank to sort out a very big cheque to be exchanged for keys at handover.

Not that it's the last big cheque we'll be parting with, there's plenty more trades that we need to employ. We had a stair specialist come in today at the end of our inspection (who does the Metricon display home stairs as well as lots of commercial stairs, including Ikea) to give us a quote on doing our stairs. It'll take quite a few days and isn't cheap, but should last the life of the house. Had to rebook our carpet installation (again) to allow time for the stairs to be done after handover. Still trying to get in touch with our concreter for the new driveway and crossover - it's looking less likely it can be done next week, but if not, it can be done anytime after handover. Plus where has our fence contractor gone? He was meant to fix our fence a month ago!

And the funny thing is, we were so focused on checking out our house that we didn't take any photos today! Here's one we took earlier - our dog Hannah can't wait to move house!


And here's another photo I took earlier - I bought a "power point and earth leakage tester" and plugged it in every socket inside and outside the house to check everything was grounded and connected properly (and everything was!), it also checks that your RCDs work properly. I don't have a need for it anymore, so if anyone wants to buy it ($30 new) I'm selling it for $20 including postage within Australia (Paypal or bank deposit) - first to leave a comment, saying you want it, gets it! Make sure you leave contact details like an email address.

So, right now... feeling pretty exhausted after spending 3 hours at the house this morning, then all afternoon at work. Actually very relieved to be nearly at the end of the house building process - it's been 80% excitement at watching the house spring up from nothing, and 20% stressing about whether our colour selections would work, and whether things were going according to plan or not. But right now, you couldn't wipe the smile off my face with a baseball bat!

T&T

Day 241...

First of all, thanks for everyone who left comments on the last blog entry wishing us good luck for the inspection today! It was very touching to see how many people are following our build journey, and good luck to everyone who is building as well!

Now, as it turns out, we didn't have our "official" completion inspection today as our SS wanted some more time to get everything up to his standard, and the QA people hadn't been through yet.

Are we complaining - definitely not! We've said all along that quality takes priority over speed every time, and it's a good thing that our house isn't being rushed for no reason. So we'll have our official walkthrough in a few weeks once our SS believes our house is ready.

Anyway, we had our independent inspector Alex walk though the house today since we'd booked him in on Monday, and his opinion so far? A few little things to fix as expected, but overall, even in its current unfinished state, our house is of generally good quality, no major problems, and good brickwork! Alex also took the time too walk us around the outside of our house to explain the working of things like articulation joints, weep holes, and other construction items, which was very educational to know about. So if you feel like you want an inspector to check on your house build, or an established house, we'd recommend Alex at Urban Property Inspections - tell him we sent you!

And while we were there, a truck rolled up and packed up all the temporary fencing - our house looks incredible without all the wire fence (and portaloo!) removed! Front garage door is down, it's Surfmist to match the fascia, and cladding colour.


Got to find a way to hide the neighbour's exposed garage wall on the boundary. Also going to need some quotes on a double-width driveway, getting a wider crossover, and replacing some cracked footpath squares. And ideas for landscaping, a front fence... rear landscaping, deck... and getting my fencer to replace the fence alongside the garage! We'll also head to Fowles Clayton on Sunday to put a deposit on carpet for ASAP after handover, and also probably head down Cranbourne way to check out some places for timber, laminate, vinyl, bamboo floors - though we may have to wait on putting in floor coverings for the ground floor until the bank balance recovers!

Also got a call from Tru Energy to connect/transfer gas & electricity to our name; so things are moving along now!

So while we have an updated schedule for the final inspection and handover, I think we'll keep that a secret for the time being.. helps build up the suspense, doesn't it!

T&T

Progressing to PCI and fencing

Was speaking to our neighbour yesterday - they've put up with temporary fencing facing them all year, and I just wanted to tell them we were organising a new fence to be put up ASAP. Good to have nice neighbours and ours are great! Though it's difficult getting hold of tradespeople for a quote, been waiting about a month for a quote on the fence and it's only just come in.

And while we were there, noticed that some more exterior things had progressed on our house - looks like the garage ceiling and portico has been plastered, the garage doors are installed and the fluoro lights in the garage have been put in, as well as the facade lights; all good things!

But where we have gaps around the windows on the ground floor, it looks like they've put in wood infills :(

At our first independent inspection, our inspector picked up on these gaps too;

7. A timber infill is to be installed over the alfresco sliding door and aluminum infills are to be installed over the gaps located on the aluminum windows.

The rear bipart doors are timber, so a timber infill is needed. And the windows are aluminium, so an aluminium infill is needed. This was picked up at the preplaster inspection when we had Monique as our SS and she agreed that aluminium infills would be required; obviously this wasn't passed on to our current SS.

Also just sent a quick message to Ed on the Homeone forums, he's a guru for window questions as he runs a window company.

My enquiry: "Hi Ed - we're got ... issues, small gaps on the sides/above windows. We have aluminium windows and it looks like the builder has used timber/wood infills which haven' been painted yet. Should aluminium windows have aluminium infills to match (is there any specific regulation pertaining to this?) Thanks Ed!"

His reply: "No rules, just common sense. Powdercoated aluminium is easy and never needs maintenance. None of my customers use timber. Aluminium is readily available in matching colours. Ed"

So another issue to flag with our inspector for PCI.

Also looks like our Certificate of Occupancy is now scheduled to be ordered on 17.8.10 (was meant to be ordered 13.8.10); so will have to confirm with our SS for when the PCI is going to be scheduled.

T&T

Inspecting your house: Australian Standards, Building Code Australia etc

OK, so I was trying to find a guide to doing a completion inspection - here's some of the useful things unearthed. Of course, anyone building a new house with any builder would be wise to sign up to homeone and read the forums thoroughly (and use the search facility before posting a question that has been answered many times before). Here's some of the useful ones we'll be adapting for our inspection;

A&E's guide on H1
Another H1 PCI checklist
Yet another H1 PCI checklist
Archicentre guide
Jay's comment on previous post

So "PCI" usually means "Practical Completion Inspection", but of course all the different builders use different terms for the same thing. We'll be getting our independent inspector in, as it will be money well spent. To be honest, I think we'll both be a little dazed at the fact our home is "practically completed" to be doing a thorough inspection, so having an experienced independent third party will be useful, plus will hopefully have better eyes than us.

The other thing having an independent inspector around for, will be his ability (I hope!) to back up any significant problem by referring to the relevant building standards. I spent ages trying to find our where to get these Australian Standards, or Building Code of Australia documents online - turns out it's not free access. But if you have access to a university library, they may have a licence to access the building code. Wonder why such an important document isn't freely available? The cynic in me would suggest it's a nationwide conspiracy to keep consumers in the dark and unaware of their rights to demand a product delivered within acceptable toleranes - but then again, that's just the cynic in me.

However, I was able to find a "Guide to Standards and Tolerances" - two links to the same document are:

http://www.justice.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/84179/guide_standards.pdf
http://www.buildingcommission.com.au/resources/documents/S+T_GUIDE_07.pdf

which are useful to anyone at any stage of building, not just completion. Wish I'd read this 6 months ago!

I also spoke to someone at work today who's a residential electrician, and he agrees with me that our light positioning is rubbish and not to tolerances ("Just plain lazy and/or careless electricians" is his exact words), plus our powder room exhaust must be externally vented as there's no opening windows in the room, and the exhaust fan must also be wired in series with the light switch. More things to watch for at our completion inspection! I think the positioning of the lights is the thing that bugs me the most - to be fair, the builder/SS seems to be doing the right thing 95% of the time, but to not pick up that the lights are nowhere near the centre of the room is a fairly major oversight. Just fix that, and I'd be a super happy chappy!

Memo to self: Rod was meant to go to the house today and measure up the bit of fence that needs to be replaced adjacent to the garage, to be done ASAP! It's been down since November last year, and it's not fair on our long-suffering neighbours and their dog! Seems to me that they could've built that garage wall with the original fence intact, since all they did was replace my timber paling fence with a bit of temporary security fence anyway! Also to get carpet deposit confirmed/paid tomorrow.

T&T

Day 219: Response from SS regarding recent events

Well, those of you who have been paying attention recently will recall us letting off steam with lights in the wrong place and the disasterous data installation... anyway, I put some of our concerns in an email to our SS late last night, and to his credit John tried to call me this afternoon (couldn't answer due to work!) and then we just received this email tonight'

"Hi tim @ tina
Thanks for the info I have been on phone today with our suppliers on this items.
I stress to have all items rectified as soon as possible will update you with
actions taken by friday . Kind regards
John"

so it's good to feel that our SS is aware of our concerns. Now, we don't want to overstep the mark, and be calling/emailing our SS every 2 hours, but given that many of the errors should be fixed before more fitoffs happen, we thought it'd be good to get these issues raised now, rather than at the final inspection! Anyway, now we're looking forward to speaking to our SS next to see how things will be handled. We don't expect things to go perfectly well all the time, as errors and faults are bound to occur. What's important is how these issues are managed and rectified, and so far other issues with our build have been handled well.

T&T

Day 218: Review of data/phone cabling - many things going wrong here!

Sometime on Monday or Tuesday (days 215-216) the data people came in to fitoff data, TV and phone points. However, things were definitely NOT done to plan or contract, and there's a lot of rectification work they'll have to do.

First of all, let's have a look at one of the fitoffs, the connector on the left is an F-Type aerial for TV, the blue is a data point.

Looks OK - except we upgraded all electrical fitoffs to be Clipsal Slimline, and this is a standard C2000 fitting. To explain it better, have a look at the next photo. It shows a Slimline powerpoint, and above it a standard C2000 phone fitoff - looks huge by comparison!


And just ignore the hole in wall for now... our construction drawings even have this reference added to the electrical plans: "Slimline white switches, data points and power points throughout (except for wet area switches)".

Next problem is in the walk-in-linen. There's going to be 4 shelves in the walk-in-linen, with the top one being at 1700mm. So of course, we planned ahead and specified the powerpoints and data returns to be at 1800mm above floor level. But this is what we got, the starserve box and data points at about 1000m, pretty much exactly where the shelf is meant to go.

They should be at the level of that wall light or higher, but definitely not lower as they've done.

And just to add insult to injury, we paid another $765 to upgrade to a Clipsal Starserve 3 input/8 output box. And what was installed?


It's a basic 2in/4 output box, with a passive 4 splitter instead of an active 8 splitter than I specified. The difference between the units is shown below...


*mad*! Basically, because we have 7 TV points through the house, I wanted a TV splitter with 8 amplified outputs. The basic unit they've installed has 3 amplified outputs, and using a 4 way passive splitter, 4 weaker passive outputs. All we want is what we paid for as specified in our contract, and I'm damn sure we're going to get that at least! To be fair, I don't think this is Metricon's fault - more likely the data people, either through laziness or deliberately installing a cheap unit and pocketing the difference, have screwed up.

So, basically the data people are going to have to be called in to fix all their f#ckups.

1. Replace all fat standardfitoff plates with slimline
2. Relocate starserve enclosure and all data returns in walk-in-linen to at least 1800mm or higher
3. Replace 2in/4out unit (3105VDU24T) with correct 3in/8out unit (3105VDU38IRT)

And this should be done prior to the shelves being installed, because they can't fix the laundry shelves while all the fitoffs are at the wrong height.

So again it's 3 steps forwards and 2 steps backwards. Wonder why these subcontractors find it so hard to read plans and follow them. So I was going to save up all these little things until our SS calls maybe later this week, but will be sending through an email tonight to our SS to make sure these things aren't glossed over. Meh.

T&T

Day 214: Review of the last 3 days of work - Electrical fitoffs!

First time back to the house since Tuesday - and wow, people have been busy! Electricians, plumbers, brickies and heating contractors have all been working in the last 3 days, but today's post will focus on lighting first.

Externally; the silver aluminium handrail has been installed over the balcony. Plus a downpipe has been run from the balcony gutter, though no connection has been made to stormwater drainage. Also you can see where the electricians have roughed in connections for external lighting on the balcony pillars, and a double floodlight I'll put in over the garage door.


Internally, the electricians have been very busy fitting off all the powerpoints, light switches, batten lights, downlights and exhaust fans. Unfortunately while most of the work has been excellent, there's a few of these moments going on as well.


For example, in our sitting room there are two lights. Most people would accept that having them lined up in the middle of the room is boring, yet necessary. However, ours are at least 70cm away from the midline of the room... not acceptable!


However it gets worse upstairs, where there are two lights in the open area/leisure room. So, you would think the light in the leisure room should be centred - rather than placed 40cm away from the wall? And the other light should be placed in the middle of the "hallway" leading from the master bedroom to the bathroom? Erm, no. I brought this up with our last SS, Monique, that the electrical roughin had left the lighting wires in the wrong spot. "No worries, the sparkies will put them in the right place!" I was told...... erm..... fail.


Anyway, that's the major issues with lighting, thankfully most other things have been done well.
The stairs have 3 step lights installed - upside down I think, as the light is placed facing up, just right for blinding you as you try to walk down the stairs. However, we may leave them like this (!), as the lighting makes an unbelievably cool shadow of the stairs on the ceiling when dark, which of course is impossible to photograph. Anyway, simple to flip them around if we want to.


Next pic, upstairs bathroom. The single batten light/"chinaman's hat" is wired in series with the exhaust fan, which is massive but fortunately not too noisy. We've got quite a few of these standard light fittings to replace after handover, but won't choose any light fittings until after handover is complete.

In addition, I think the powder room exhaust fan is meant to be externally vented, but no evidence of an external vent is present. Another issue to bring up.

And we've saved the best pic for last... we went with a whole lot of downlights in the open plan area - 5 over the kitchen, 5 over the dining table, and 9 in the family room, each with 2 way switches and dimmers. Expensive.... but we waited until early evening to turn everything on, and it looks incredible! Our colours are pretty much all cool grey neutrals which can sometimes look a bit stark, but with the downlights, everything is surprisingly warm (and definitely not as beige as the photo may represent)! Very happy with how this has turned out in this area.


So, adding to our list of things to check on with regards to electricals are:

• Sitting room lights not centred
• Leisure room, hallway lights not centred
• Damage noted: home theatre rear powerpoint (plaster damage), heating duct in entryway (split ceiling plaster)
  
• Laundry splashback tiles only 20cm high instead of 30cm high (not enough tiles were provided for the job)

Fantastic to see so much work done in the last few days, and though I've highlighted some errors, at least they're relatively easy to fix. Move light fittings, replaster, repaint, add tiles to laundry splashback. Next post will focus on plumbing.
T&T

Day 210: Gearing up for the final stages!

Ran into our SS today - he was at our neighbour's site (which he also supervises), cleaning up all the loose rubbish on the block himself. Nice to see a SS who gets his hands dirty! Anyway, apparently we're still on track to get most of the internal fixing done by end of the month.

He did say we can get our carpets in before handover, which is brilliant news - now I'm wondering if we should get our stairs sanded & stained as well, before the carpets are installed. It's a matter of finding out whether a dark stain on the stairs (to match our front & rear doors) would be too dark - will check with Tina on that first. Be nice to have it done before carpets go in upstairs, for a neater finish.

Anyway, I grabbed a meat pie and sauce (the bakery around the corner does the best homemade beef & cheese pies with huge chunks!) and had lunch in the kitchen, daydreaming about how in the not-too-distant future we'd be in the kitchen cooking up a storm, watching TV, and just living the life in the house we've been dreaming and planning for the last 2-3 years!

No trades have been working the last few days, so I just wandered around, trying to see if there's any defects we need to keep an eye on for our final inspection. I don't think I'll bother our SS with anything I find at the moment, as there's still their own QA inspection and window service to be done, and there's still a lot of internal fitoffs to go. Anyway, here's a few minor things that will probably get fixed before our final inspection.

I've heard a lot about this window service thing, which is where all the windows get inspected and fixed before handover. A lot of our window frames were damaged externally during bricklaying with dents and scrapes, so they'll need to be fixed. Also, some windows are sticking or not straight. For example, this is the family room window: at the top there's a big gap, while at the bottom it's closed. Hopefully easily fixed with the window service.


And another example of window damage: in Bed 2, there's a nail protruding from the frame straight through the top frame. D'oh!


Then there's this issue which might be harder to fix: the ensuite window. I remember the bottom wooden frame for this window was removed at frame stage so the bath hob could be tiled right up to the window frame, but it appears the carpenters forgot to reinforce the bottom edge of the window, as now there's a pretty big bow in the window. Left unsupported, this window could just... fall! Needs fixing; but will probably require removal of some tiles, supporting/fixing the window frame, then repairing the bath hob, re-waterproofing, and re-tiling.



Now this isn't really a problem yet, but the manhole hasn't been put in Bed 4. Normally the manhole to the ground floor roof is in Bed 3, but due to our particular roof design, it needs to go in through Bed 4 robes. Pretty quick & easy job for the carpenters to stick in this manhole, but needs to be done before the electricians come in for fixing, as there's lots of wiring in the ground floor roof they'll need access too. And don't mind the apparent white lines in the robes, it's a reflection of my camera flash against the painted architraves!


Back to the ensuite, the shower niche and around the hob appear to be missing grout - but I've been told the plumbers will do some siliconing, to allow for flexing/movement of the tiles, rather than grout. Hopefully this big gap in the shower niche will be fixed too!



Internal doors: Rumpus room door has a huge crack in the bottom edges, looks like the door is coming apart! Needs to be repaired or replaced. Also the ensuite WC door has horrible dry patches all over it, and a big scar across the master bed door from the inside, both need repainting.


And finally for the day (long post, huh?) the bathroom sink is meant to have a light switch (for a light above the mirror) on one side, and a powerpoint on the other side. However, the electricians were meant to cutout on the walls prior to tiling, so the tiler could leave a cutout for them to get access to the wiring. But since they didn't (forgot?) to expose these switches, I'm not sure how they're going to locate them with the tiling all done! Anyway, not my problem to fix, they'll figure a way out.

Ultimately, these issues are all relatively minor and pretty obvious, and should be straightforward enough to fix. I'd be surprised if Metricon's Quality Assurance people didn't pick these things up before our final inspection, if a layperson can detect them!

And ultimately, we'd rather have all the little things fixed before we get our house - I know for sure that once I'm aware of something that's not 100% right, it'll annoy me forever until it gets fixed!

T&T

Day 171: Laundry waste pipe moved, painting has commenced

According to MyMetricon, we've had the Fixing Stage completed as of 10.6.10! Time to check under the couch for coins and sell off unwanted items on ebay to pay yet another 20% of the build cost - though this means there's only 10% +/- variations to go, and that'll be at handover!

Today, someone with a very big hammer came in to cut out the floor of the slab in the laundry to move the waste pipe; which long-term readers will recall was incorrectly positioned under the laundry cupboards.

I didn't go to the house today - this is Tina's photo - but to me, it looks like there's a mini-garden in the laundry, where we could possibly grow vegetables. Ideally though, we'd have a bit of concrete and some tiles there, which is the conventional use of a laundry.

From our independent inspector's report:

"Item 18. The plumbing floor waste in the laundry which is to be located below the washing
machine is installed with in the laundry cabinetry area. The drainers will be required to
relocate the pipe. This will involve cutting and jack hammering the slab. The appointed
engineer will be required to supply a rectification plan to reinstate the slab removed as the pipe is being significally relocated. The slab penetrations are sealed with termite protection seals. This will also be required to be reinstalled by the termite protection firm. Recommend viewing the appropriate documentation to cofirm these works have been completed appropriately."

So what we'll be doing is emailing our CSC and SS to confirm that we'll get a copy of the engineers' report regarding fixing the slab where its been cutout, plus confirm the termite protectin will be reinstated. That's one of the dangers of modifying a volume builder's plans too much - the additional things may not be done ideally the first time around. As long as things are fixed properly though, the end result should be fine. I wanted a drain waste under the washing machine position as I have many memories of my mum's washing machine getting blocked, or pipes leaking/splitting, and the laundry flooding the house as a result!

The painters also came today - they were meant to start Monday, but have been delayed as we've insisted on the various lockup items to be fixed first. Today, they came in and covered the stairwell in protective plastic, and started with a layer of primer on the doors. We'll have to check the doors are painted all around, including top, bottom and sides; not just the obvious main 2 sides.


Our new SS, John, also called me this afternoon to tell me of the day's progress. I did mention the manhole was in the wrong spot (see the last blog entry) and he said he'll check it out. The plasterer should be back again on Tuesday to do a final plaster fix so the painters can really get into things. MyMetricon says painting will be done by 18.6.10 which is highly unlikely - probably towards the end of June would be more realistic. I like our new SS - he's only just started with Metricon, so hopefully he'll be particularly attentive to the fine details, but he seems open and communicative, as was our last SS.

T&T

Day 170: Waste pipe fixed, kitchen window moved, but manhole in wrong spot.

Carpenters were in the house today getting busy on a couple of items; first of all, the cutout floor joist has been repaired. Just need a plasterer to come and repair the hole.


Also the kitchen window has been moved down an inch or two to allow the stone benchtop to fit properly - glad to see this being done! However now we're missing the wood header that normally goes above the window, so will have to make sure that's rectified.


Also, to move the kitchen splashback window, the brick sill on the outside had to be removed, so at some stage the brickies have to be called back in to replace the sill.

Also some trimmings around architraves were put in. Now, there's also a manhole access panel in one of the rear bedrooms, to access the ground floor roof. Our last SS (Monique) was aware that due to the final roof truss design, this manhole should be in Bed 4 instead of Bed 3, but I think that information wasn't passed onto the fixing carpenters.

Can you see what's wrong with this picture?

You'd have to be pretty tiny to be able to get into the roof space with all those roof trusses in the way! Anyway should be a pretty easy job to move that manhole to Bed 4 and get this plaster hole repaired, will email our SS tonight about it.

T&T

Day 169: Getting ready to fix our floor joist problem!

No work done on site today... we think... but here's some details of little things being fixed up.


The front door frame was installed during frame stage, and our brickies bricked up around the front door, but there was a little gap above and on the sides of the door frame. Above the door frame now there's a strip of timber cut to size to close in the gap, and there will probably be a couple more on the sides to close over the other gaps, and all will be stained to match. And the steel lintel above the doorframe should be painted too, but all these little details can be fixed anytime. Similarly, the internal access door from the garage had gaps all around, but have been closed in with more timber - looks much better and best for sealing out draughts!

Now, finally - the main item identified in our independent inspection is being attended to!

The upstairs WC next to the main bathroom - the wase pipe was cut through the top beam of the floor joist, as you can see above. This cutout is just over the kitchen island bench. The same thing happened with our ensuite shower waste pipe, but that was fixed prior to plastering. In this case, the plasterers came in too soon and plastered over everything before this could be fixed - but now with the error exposed, when the carpenters come back to fix up a few other little things (including the kitchen window reveal) they can rectify this error; probably by adding a reinforcing thingy around the cutout in the joist. And once this is done, then painting can get underway asap!

T&T

Day 168: Some further plastering/carpentry, and onsite meeting with our two SSs

This morning, the carpenters were in and added the missing noggin in the garage (only 1 required, not 2 because they're only for plaster fixing), as well as installing the balcony!


Plus some other carpenter type things were done, installing/closing gaps around the front door and internal access door with timber strips (that will be stained/painted to match). Now, if we only had a key for the balcony french doors (below), the waterproofers can go and waterproof the balcony so the tiling, guttering, and portico plastering can be done.

Also had a plasterer in today, installing the plaster under the top flight of the stairs and tidying up some other spots. He also repaired the two holes in the ceiling where the carpenters tried to find the damaged floor joist to repair... more on this later!



I guess the big things for today was our on-site meeting with Monique and our new SS John. MyMetricon was updated yesterday to say we were getting a new SS; because Monique is so busy with all the Balwyn builds, John will take care of us and our neighbour down the road (who just had the slab down for their Chelsea - congratulations guys!).

So anyway, we had a page of things that we were mainly concerned about and wanted clarification before any further work was done, and happy to say that we're satisfied with how things are being assessed and fixed.

1) Damaged floor joist: I pointed out to John that the damaged joist was directly under where the upstairs WC waste pipe was located. Since the carpenters had already tried twice (and failed!) to locate the joist from the ground floor, John got upstairs and banged through the plaster adjacent to the waste pipe, clearly marking out on the kitchen ceiling where the joist needs repairing. Should be an easy fix now!

2) Kitchen problems;

• Kitchen stone bench on the side will go right into the window splashback reveal as per the earlier pic posted- carpenters will cut out all the wood/plaster that's blocking the benchtop.
• Gaps, missing laminate strips - will all be fixed when the kitchen people come back in for the benchtops, or by the painters. Pretty minor but annoying stuff.
• Rangehood: Will be externally ducted, will be dealt with later during the electrical final fixing.
• Cables from the walk-in-linen - to be repaired by plasterer where they've been incorrectly pulled through in the fridge alcove.

3) Laundry waste: Been in the wrong spot for months, but the plumbing people responsible are aware it needs to be moved before tiling.

4) Garage internal access door: A replacement Balmoral-2 door has been ordered, as there was an estimating error somewhere - someone forgot to count all the doors correctly! And the missing noggins have been fixed this morning.

5) Rumpus room doors - Will leave them hanging the way they are, as they're set up for "right handed people" the way the right door opens. Not a big deal ultimately.

So, looks like things are geting back on track! John used to be a painter apparently, which should be a good thing, if it means he has an eye for detail!

The plans for the next few weeks:

• Carpenters back in sometime this week to do the final fixes and repair that joist
  
• Painters might start next week, and take around 2 weeks to complete internal painting
• Tiling around the start of July
• By August, final fixings, and maybe firming up on a handover date by that time too!

T&T

Day 163: More plastering & site clean

Site clean was done during the day, and the plasterers came in until quite late in the evening to tidy up some plaster work in the kitchen.

The thing is, the window bottom edge is still at the wrong height, as the caesarstone benchtop is meant to go right in the window reveal to meet the window frame, as in this picture below.


The cabinet installers also left a note for the window to be moved as it was 15mm (at least!) too high for the stone benchtop, so we expect this to be rectified.

Also, the fridge alcove has had the corners plastered in, though no cornice above.


Tina will meet with our SS tomorrow after to see how fixing is going, and to pin down the schedule to fix the other minor things.

T&T

Day 162: Some plastering, and pre-paint assessment

Found that the plasterers had been in today, and installed the missing plaster in the kitchen.


However, the kitchen window still hasn't been moved, which will be an issue for when the ceasarstone benchtop arrives. It's meant to cover the side bench and into the window reveal, which at the moment is at least 15mm higher than it should be. Will bring it up with our SS this Friday.


In this pic, they've also plastered over the fridge alcove bulkhead. This is where our inspector picked up the bulkhead was in contact with the floor joists:

Item 11. The stiffening beams installed over the kitchen bulk heads are incontact with the floor joists which are therefore load bearing and are not end supported. As this bulkhead is not intended to be load bearing, there should be a clearance left between the floor joists and the bulk head.

So has this has been fixed? Who knows??!! *sigh* another item to bring up with the SS. Also where that bunch of cables are poking out through the wall - they're not meant to be there!!

For me though, the main item from our inspectors' report still to be fixed is Item 12. The sewer waste pipe over the kitchen area has been installed through the top flange of the smart joist. The manufacturers of the ‘Smart Joist’ do not allow cutting out of the top flange as noted on their ‘SmartJoist’ hole chart. Recommend the manufacturers supply a rectification design for the damaged floor joist. This item is still not fixed, and I want it fixed before any painting starts - mainly because this is a fairly serious structural problem. Come on guys, it's not that hard to fix! Find the upstairs toilet, and mend the damaged floor joist underneath it, rather than randomly cutting holes in the ceiling hoping to magically stumble across where it needs to be fixed.

And someone else has been through the house with a pencil, circling hundreds of tiny little dents and scratches to be fixed up and smoothed over before painting starts.


Nice to know some small faults are being identified, but as I keep harping about, it's our inspectors items, in particular the structural fauls with the house, that we want fixed before any further work is done. We haven't received a fixing invoice yet, but I want to know how our inspector's items are going to be fixed before payment is made - only reasonable when you're spending a few hundred thousand on a house, that you want faults fixed!

T&T

Day 160: Doors & skirting installed, fixing inspection items

Carpenters on the job today, with almost all the internal doors hung.

First of all, our front door has been installed- a Corinthian 6G in 1020mm wide. Will be stained dark, with a 750mm pull handle and mortice lock.

Next up; home theatre doors. I actually wanted the doors hung opposite to how they are in this pic: if you look closely, the right door has the opening handle, and the left door has the mushroom stop.

I did mention to our SS that I wanted the doors hung the other way - admittedly on the floorplan, they're drawn to this specification. I wonder if it can still be fixed - would involve moving the mushroom stop to the right side door, taking out the handle mechanism from the right side door (and filling in the gaps), and putting it on the left side door.

Upstairs now, this shows the upstairs linen closet. For some reason we had to choose totally different handles for linen doors (we chose rectangular handles that match the vanity handles) as you can't put the door handles you use on normal doors. No big deal I guess. Can also see the architrave & skirting all around too.

The other thing too is that the internal access door is a plain flush door, but we specified at our colour appointment that all doors are to be Balmoral-2 design - we think someone at M head office counted the number of doors wrong! Will contact our SS to see if the missing door is going to turn up soon.

In addition to doors & skirting, a couple of the inspection items are starting to be fixed, yay!


Above, Item 17. The noggin in the wall of the kitchen, below the stair case, has been removed. A small square of plaster has been cut out, and the noggin replaced. Should be pretty easy for the plasterers to seal it back up. In addition, all the data cabling etc is poking out on the left side of the pic - this pic shows the fridge alcove, and the data cabling should be on the other side of this wall in the walk-in-linen. Easy enough to plaster over though.

Another item has been attempted to be fixed...


12. The sewer waste pipe over the kitchen area has been installed through the top flange of the smart joist. The manufacturers of the ‘Smart Joist’ do not allow cutting out of the top flange as noted on their ‘SmartJoist’ hole chart. Recommend the manufacturers supply a rectification design for the damaged floor joist.

Looks like the carpenters aren't exactly sure where this sewer waste pipe defect is, so this cutout in the ceiling is in the wrong spot. To make it easy for the carpenters to find the spot, they should go to the upstairs WC and poke a long drill bit directly adjacent the the waste pipe, and where it pokes through the ceiling is where they need to fix the defect - but I don't want to tell anyone how to do their job, so maybe we'll just sit tight and see how they go about fixing things! Ultimately the ceiling and kitchen needs to be replastered as most of the defects are in this area so the end result will be good - we hope!

T&T

Day 156: Garage roof in daylight

Day off sick today - first one in years; but managed to drag myself out of bed to drive past our house. Looking good with the roof finished over the garage now!


Also got a call from our SS today - the fixing carpenter should start work tomorrow, doing things like doors etc and also addressing the issues from our inspection; and probably painters coming in the week after next (hopefully the missing plaster in the kitchen will be installed and sanded by then!). Tina's going to meet our SS next Friday to check on inspection issues and to get a feel for how everything is going so far.

T&T

Day 154: More waterproofing

Some more waterproofing - at least I think that's what all this blue stuff is.

Around the ensuite bathtub. Colour actually looks quite nice!

And also in the bathroom around the shower & bathtub. If you look at the shower base, you can see a little white lip, but this should be hidden by the floor tiles.

Trying to organise a meetup onsite with our SS for next week, as according to MyMetricon, we're meant to be finished the fixing stage on 31.5.10 - and then we're onto the final stage! Though what we are trying to find out at the next meeting is what's happening regarding our independent inspection items, as they really need to be fixed before any further work is done in the next stage. We've paid all our stage invoices on time up to now as progress has been OK, but the fixing stage invoice for 20% won't be paid unless we're happy with how the issues identified so far will be rectified. They're not particularly difficult to fix, but not much has been about them as far as we know!

T&T