23-9-08 Bows and Dots

Hi All, sorry for the long breaks between posts and the lack of replies to the comments (which are very much appreciated), but not much has happened to the place in the last week. Work is currently underway to rectify the defects found during our PCI inspection on the 12th. 'F' has been busy scheduling tradies to fix up the defects and has the chippy and plasterer scheduled for this week and the Plumber and Sparky visited last week to do some minor fix-ups.
We are not exactly sure when the place will be ready for the next inspection and are just playing it by ear at the moment.
In response to some of the comments received, I have have included some photos to show what some of the walls looked like after we had checked them for defects. Each red dot represents either a scratch, dent or dag (technical term for raised crap on the wall/surface which was not sanded off before painting). Some defects, actually a lot of them were nails that had not been filled and sanded appropriately.
It amazes me that the tradies take no pride in their work and the even sadder part is that all of this disappointment and frustration falls back onto PD as they are the Face of the tradies. No doubt the tradies get hauled back in again to rectify their work, but you would think that if they get it right the first time they wouldn't need to come back, we would be satisfied with the result, they would be paid sooner and we would get our keys sooner - see, everyone's happy then!!

Here is a shot of the Rumpus room... 'K' picked up that the right hand corner of the bulkead needs to be lifted as it's sagging.


...and the master bedroom...


...the staircase - this area needed a LOT of work.


Once again, common sense played no part in the original location of the light switch for the stairwell. Similar to B&Ps place they had located the light switch behind the hand rail. As shown below, this has now been moved up the wall to a more practical location.


As part of the inspection you are required to sign that you agree that there are no scratches in the cabinets, bench tops windows etc. In the powder room we found several scratches in the bench top. We have been told by 'F' that there is a special team who come out and rectify these scratches and once finished will not be visible. Can't wait to examine the finished surface.


As mentioned in the previous post there are a couple of bowed walls which were picked up not only by 'K', but some of them also by us. This is in one of the cherub's bedrooms.


These next 2 photos show the non-squared walls in the kitchen - it doesn't quite follow the grout line does it?

30-08-08 Lights, render and bobcat

Another week has passed and they have been getting a lot done. Our plumbing has been connected with all the toilets installed.


The 'bobcat man' has been out and tidied up the yard and removed all the plaster and other building materials, which has made a vast improvment across the site.

The moulding has been installed across the front facade...


...and the Render has also been applied to the balcony and looks Fantastic. We LOVE the colour. They have done a very neat job too.


Looking at the house from the outside now, it looks almost complete!


We have however run into a few more issues with the sparky. Things like the installation of downlights as mentioned last week and the one shown below. They seem to have made the hole too large and patched around it and the light fitting itself has sunk into the bog/ceiling. They have now fitted the downlights in the kitchen cabinets (previously in the ceiling) and also fitted the ranghood.


It appears they had some major problems with the wiring of the house too. Speaking with 'F', he said it would appear that someone has messed with the wiring and helped themsevles to some of it. As you'll see below, the Sparky has had to cut multiple sections out of the upstairs flooring to access the wiring to make repairs. Not happy Jan :-(
Here you can see that they have had to cut a hole in the plaster to access a junction box near the front door.


This is the section they had to remove in the Games room.


This is looking into the cut away section.


Here you can see the sections removed in the Master bedroom...


...and more in the same.


This is the area near the stairs.

And this is in one of the cherubs' bedrooms.


Yet again we have come across issues which exist beacuse of poor communications between the builder and the tradesmen. We spcified in the contract that we wanted 3 light fittings in the stairwell, each 300mm of the stair treads for us to install low voltage lights to illuminate the stairs at night. It seems that the tradesmen just get a plan diagram to work off and that's it. It merely shows a location from a plan view with no description of height and subsequently they mounted the light around 6 foot off the floor. After bringing this to 'Fs' attention, they have relocated the 3 fittings. I have indicated in the photo where the original holes were placed.


The rumpus room has finaly been finshed off, after they ripped down the wall and bulkhead, and the paint looks pretty good.


Our gas meter has also been installed and when we arrived today there were three blokes installing our ceiling insulation (2.5 batts). Chatting to one of them he was saying how tight it was in the ceiling due to all of the heating and cooling ducts. I don't think I'm gonna have much storage space up there. The tiling has not progressed at all this week but I assume they will be back next week to finish it off. I can't wait till the cleaner comes and gives the place a once over. As everything is covered an a layer of dust, nothing looks new.

23-08-08 Splashback, vents and wires

We went up to the house over the weekend and met up with the concreter, 'A', to plan the driveway. We have decided on exposed aggregate for the drive, path & will also have this at the front entrance which will include a step up. While 'A' was there, we also talked landscaping ideas with him. Haven't discussed prices yet, but just thought we'd suss it all out. Where possible we would like to have someone do the landscaping for us this time. Yeah I know there is the whole thing of feeling satisfied & a sense of accomplishment if you are doing it yourself, yarda, yarda, yarda, but we really have achieved that with the house that we are currently in & I basically have busted my kahoonas always building this & fixing that & quite frankly, I need a bl@@dy rest! We figure that if we can get someone to do it for us ‘where our bank account allows us of course’, then why not? We have 2 beautiful little cherubs & we really want to enjoy this precious time as a family while we can.

Upon inspecting the house we found that the Sparky had returned and the electrical fit-off has commenced. Shown below are the 'Chinaman Hats' that come standard with PD light fittings (unless otherwise specified). These have been fitted on the lights upstairs and in the rumpus as these are the areas where we will be getting our own sparky to install the downlights post handover.


Our heating and cooling vents have also been installed across all the rooms. In the photo below you can see the larger vent used for the cooling and the smaller one for the heating. The square heating vents are used in the larger areas and the small round vents (not shown) are used in the smaller rooms like the bedrooms.


And here is couple of photos of the infamous bronze mirror splashback, now installed to every one's surprise, even PDs!! Mummy will be able to see all now!!

You'll notice there are a couple of wires hanging down in front of the overhead cupboards in the kitchen. We had asked for downlights to be fitted in the overhead cabinets to shine down onto the benches. Seems like the sparky has misread the plans and thought they were to go in the ceiling - whoops. More patching to be done for the plasterer. They're gonna have a devil of a time wiring the lights into the cabinets from there....

Here is shot of the ensuite vanity at the correct height AND with the correct basins - YEA!!


They have also installed all the exhaust fans above the showers and in the powder room. These include a self closing system with retractable blades to stop warm air escaping or smells/cold air coming back in.


Some of the wall switches have been installed as well, including the powerpoint and aerial outlets.



PCI has been set for the 12th of September with H/over on the 19th - one week later. Hmmm, things that make you go hmmmmmmmm....... Happy to take any bets?? Offering good odds ;-) Finger's crossed!!

Last but not least...
We were very happy, excited & intrigued to have contact from our neighbours on lot 716. Wow - how strange, (like you said) to have found us through our blog & not at the front of the house. J & S, thanks for making contact with us & we look forward to meeting you ‘& the assorted hangers on’ sometime soon ;-) Must mention that we were also contacted by another nearby neighbour Kirsty, who had found our blog & we will be introducing ourselves to her also, (thanks)! J & S - Good luck with your new building ventures too. :-)