Thursday, March 13, 2014

Scaffolding down. Place looks great. Just need render done on downstairs. Independent inspection came up with hardly any problems which I'm pleased about. Just a few minor things which should be fixed.

In theory doors should go on today and we are at lockup?!

Plaster has been pushed out to Wednesday I think as electricians didn't start until yesterday so we will see how it goes.






Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Hebel done, top floor painted

Alot is happening as usual. Place is flying along.

Hebel was all finished and concrete render went on. The house looked so much better once it was rendered, just found some shape and style. Top floor has been painted and we are very happy with the colour.

Some doors have been hung and others delivered. Electrician should be pre wiring this afternoon. Independent inspection on Thursday. Our AV guy is coming in for his pre wiring on Friday and My wife and I are going to spend all weekend jamming acoustic insulation in the internal walls and ceiling. Fun times!

Plaster is scheduled for monday! Let's hope that independent inspection doesn't find too many issues!



Friday, February 21, 2014

Update

wow, time flies!

Long time since an update, my camera broke on my phone and have just been crazily busy so haven't quite kept this updated but will try and get the ball rolling again.

The pictures will tell the story as to where it is up to.

Inspection highlighted 14 problems. I am satisfied that they are either all fixed or will be fixed. Certainly the problems I was most concerned about seem to have been rectified which is good.

Hebel should be finished this coming week in theor, so it will be nice to see the house have the walls and the shape to it finally. I'm a bit over seeing the frame.




Monday, January 27, 2014

Independant Inspection

Off the advice of other blogs we have paid for independent inspections at 3 stages of the build with the first one being frame stage.

We used New home inspections and just received the report.

A couple of comments.

The report is very detailed with both notes and photos. It refers to the exact Aus standards where appropriate and generally explains the problems very clearly.

Carter grange are from every thing I have read and experienced very good builders. They also know that we are onsite virtually daily and we are keeping on eye on things. Yet there still is quite alot of problems. There are 14 'issues' brought up on the report. I get the feeling that some will be very easy to fix but I get the feeling on others it wont be as easy. There are comments to the effect that if it cant be fixed building permits may need to be altered and approved.  God know how many problems would be happening on other places that didn't have any independent checking.

We have asked for a meeting with CG to discuss a resolution to these issues, it will be interesting to see how that meeting goes.

On a side note the Hebel is schedules to go in next Monday

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Roof is on

We ran out of money by the time it came to choosing roof options so we just went with the standard option. I'm glad we did as it looks absolutely fine. The other thing is unless you are about 30 metres away from the house you cant even see it

here it is



Communication breakdown

We haven't been happy with the communication of our site supervisor. Seems really nice when we speak to him but only ever seems to call if returning our calls and a few times we have been told by CG that he will call us for one reason or another and it never happens. So we had a meeting with our SS manager to chat about this and he was really good about it. Seemed to listen to my concerns and assured us that things will improve.

The silly part is a 5 minute phone call once a week( which we have been told they are supposed to do anyway) to tell us what has been going on or what is going to be happening would probably eliminate 99% of our concerns. Where as at the moment we find everything out ourselves.

Here is another issue I noticed on one of the new windows. The bottom has been dented/pushed in. I have been told it will be no problem to fix.


Friday, January 17, 2014

Windows starting to go in

Windows and doors on the ground floor are starting to go in



Update

I have been busy with work and away overseas so updates have been non existent. So I will try and cover off some things that have happened. There have been some issues or minor problems. They have either been sorted out or will be soon but explaining them might help others.

So just before Christmas we received the frame invoice. I dropped by and had a look around and noticed a few things that didn't seem right.

On all the door frames they use a ply wood that is much stronger than normal wood. I kinda thought everyone knew this but speaking to a few male friends they had no idea what I was talking about so I will explain it just in case.

Normal wood is strong against the grain and weak down the grain. which is why you can split fire wood only one way. With ply wood they slice up the wood in thin strips and glue them all together crossing the grain of the wood over back and forth, which makes the wood strong in all directions and much stronger than a natural piece of wood the same thickness.  here is a picture


The two pieces on the left are normal wood and the piece on the right is ply wood, which you attach the door to. 

I noticed that this ply wood was on all door frames except one bedroom. 

The second thing I noticed was that half the garage frame wasn't done and a few other areas didn't seem finished either. 

I rang the SS and asked about the ply wood missing and he gave me alot of engineering jargon before he realised I knew what I was talking about and then informed me the frame wasn't actually finished after all and would be finished in the next few days. 

He also said that the way that garage connects to the house the rest of the frame needs to be done , hebel put on and then  the rest of the frame of the garage will be completed. That all made sense to me and wasn't an issue (except for the fact that I turned up yesterday and that part of the frame is now complete without any hebel going on, so not sure that was true either)

We got an email asking why we hadn't paid and i informed them that the frame wasn't finished and i wasn't paying until it was actually finished. its seems as if the frame is now finished (we were told it was finished on the 8th January)  and the ply wood issue has been fixed on that door. All the bits that looked unfinished seems to be finished now.