End of week 32

I have been a bit quiet on the blog the last few weeks.

However there has been plenty going on at our build!

My last post was about our bricks. To update the story we have since had the ‘acid wash’ of the bricks.

To say this has fixed our concerns would be a joke. Unfortunately like many things on this build, what should have been a step towards completion has resulted in more issues!  I’m honestly sick of it and really hope clarendon can sort it out.

As expected by us, the acid wash didn’t fix up:

• the difference between the colour of the mortar of the replaced bricks and the existing bricks. The new bricks definitely have a grey mortar as opposed to the off white mortar.
• The wonky bricks

What we didn’t expect and came as a nasty little surprise was that the ‘acid wash’ appears to have stripped off the colour of a lot of the moon dust bricks. It looks atrocious. The colour under the moondust colour is now showing through on so many bricks – I’m really at a loss at how they are going to fix this!

We did a bit of a search on the PGH Bricks website to see what could possibly have caused this. The website states that the bricks should be cleaned within ‘2 to 14 days of being laid’. Unfortunately the ground level bricks were laid back in December and not washed until late March! The only other way they get ruined during the clean is if the water pressure is excessive. (http://www.pghbricks.com.au/~/media/pgh/cleaningguide/pgh018-a4-cleaning-guide-page_hr-pdf.ashx)

We have again left this in our SS’s hands. An email from him this week said he had met with ‘an expert in matching mortar and colouring bricks’ to rectify brick issues on Tuesday. I will do a drive past this evening and see if anything has been rectified.  I don’t hold much confidence in some miracle fix but am hoping this can be turned around!

Ok so the short version – bricks are still not up to scratch.

Moving on.

As I mentioned at the start we have had a lot happening on our site.

Painting – Its now been painted!  Yay! The colour was Winter Ice and from our super quick look it looks great. Of course there are a few touch ups to be done but that I guess is to be expected.

Electrical – all our lights and ceiling fans and electrical appliances have been installed. It seems to have gone well. We did have to get to new bulbs for our lights that we bought way back May last year from Freedom. Freedom were really good about it, especially since it had been so long since we purchased them, and they just replaced the bulbs for us.

Fitout – fitout has continued with some of our cupboards now with shelves!

 

Pictures are better than my dribbling so here are some pics!

 

Main Bathroom

 

Ensuite

 

Downstairs Bathroom

Lights over the stairs

 

Downstairs linen

Kitchen

 

What next!

Looking at the house there isn’t much more to be done with Clarendon!

• Kitchen tap needs to be changed over to the right one
• Laundry door handle and lock needs to be changed over to the right one
• Butlers sink needs a tap
• Possibly a little bit of extra tiling / fixing some chipped and broken tiles
• Painting touch ups
• Bricks need to be addressed (this may be the tricky one).

So we are still working off a handover date of Friday 13 May 2016 given to us by the Construction Area Manager back in March. However, our SS has said he will set a Handover date this week. Hopefully it is a little earlier than 13 May!

Handover date – Update

Our Area Construction Manager got back to us on a proposed handover date. At this stage we are working towards 13 May 2016.

That is nine weeks away. Should be enough time to:

• resolve the outstanding issues
• outstanding plastering and cornice
• External Painting
• Internal Painting
• Brick Clean
• Garage doors
• Plumbing fitting of fixtures
• Electrical fixtures

Happy to finally have a light at the end of the tunnel – Hopefully Clarendon can achieve this time frame.

Week 27 complete

Another week down! This week we met up with our Site supervisor again on Tuesday to see how things were progressing. Its a bit of a funny situation in that the Area Manager has said that the SS cannot really give us updates in terms of future planning, but that said we were really just going through the list of issues.

Clarendon want us to sign off on the issues/defects we have previously raised before they continue the build. So we went through the list. We did sign off on a number of the outstanding items so there has been some progress.  Unfortunately not all issues were addressed or at least not addressed to our satisfaction. Still some work to go.

We are still struggling to resolve the architrave for our theater windows. Currently we have three sides of architrave with no top piece as the bulkhead is to close to the window. My wife says it looks like a bucket. I think it looks crap. Not sure how we will end up resolving this, but i don’t think three sides of architrave is the answer. Besides, i will have to charge Clarendon $1000 for the variation plus the 19 cents worth of architrave that they didn’t use. ha

We are also awaiting some action on the brick work that is outside of the QBCC tolerances. Only the same brick problem that we raised back in December.

Did get a bit of an update in that the pre paint preparation should be happening this week – I think that is the last of the plastering, little bits of cornice that were missed. I guess the painter must be next week.

We are really looking forward to the house progressing. We haven’t really got much to finish really – painting inside and out, roller doors, taps etc and electrical and we would be all but done. I asked for an update on when we can roughly expect handover and should hear back on that tomorrow.

 

 

 

Completion of week 26

So we are now 26 completed weeks deep into our build.

Our last meeting with our SS on 26 February was interesting as we have provided clarendon with a list of ‘issues’ we wanted addressed/advice on.

My understanding is that our AM has said that our house won’t be progressing any further until we have ‘signed off’ on all these issues. Which sounds fair enough, if they are going to address the issues in a timely manner.

What happened this week? Well it looks like a couple of bricks have been replaced and maybe a door jamb in the ensuite. Oh and they put three sides of architrave around our two theatre windows leaving the top off as its to small between the bulkhead and the window. so it looks like we have two “buckets” around our windows. It certainly doesn’t look like anything we expected and nothing like what is on display.

So that’s all that has happened since the tiler finished up two weeks ago.  Pretty disappointing really.

No idea when our internal painting will occur – ha they still have to finish painting outside as they painted about 80 per cent of it but in the wrong colour! Perhaps they are hoping that the colour grows on us and we decide to keep it. wishful thinking on their part if that is the case.

when we met our SS on  26 Feb he mentioned the possibility of the painter coming on the 7th of March (tomorrow) – I think that is just a fantasy now! There is still plastering to be done!

No idea when the electrician is coming back, probably after the painter (ha no idea when the painter is starting either!).

No idea when we can expect handover – the AM said a god rule of thumb was 8 weeks after kitchen cabinets were installed. So based on cabinet installation being completed about the 15th of Feb we are potentially looking at 11 April.  This would be amazing if it happens!

However, since our ‘rule of thumb’ conversation we haven’t been able to get even an estimated date out of them.

Well we have another meeting with our SS this week to see how things are travelling and what the plan is, so hopefully we can get a bit of news.