Called Builder....

Yesterday I phoned Romeo for an update on my queries and to get an idea how things are going.  Our construction manager was in a meeting, so the receptionist organised for the site supervisor to call me.  He called reasonably soon.  I asked him about the sill bricks and he said he is organising for a brickie to come by and fix them up.

I asked him what was next.  Apparently plastering is booked for today and then painting to start next Friday.  I also asked when the house would be finished.  He said "as soon as possible hopefully two weeks."  Now I will believe this when I see it and given they have the following to go:

• Plastering Garage
• Plastering Alfresco
• Alfresco Decking
• Verandah Timberwork
• Walk in Robe Shelving
• Picture Rail in Master Bedroom
• Skirting in Master Bedroom Robes
• Cornices in kitchen and laundry and around man hole
• Door Handles and Locks including windows (keyed alike)
• Electrical Fit Off
• Painting
• Sanding and Painting floorboards
• Staining alfresco deck
• Tiling
• Bathroom Mirrors
• Ensuite Shower Glass
• Bathroom Shower
• Splashback 
• Plumbing Fit off
• Down Pipes
• Stained glass to front
• Garage doors
• Carpet
• Evaporative Cooling
• Sub Floor Insulation
• Ceiling Insulation
• Solar Hot Water
• Gas Ducted Heating
• Ducted Vacuuming
• Appliance Fit Off

Two weeks for that?  I would love to see it.

More plaster and picture rail

Went past this evening to see some more plaster delivered to the garage.


Also the picture rail is almost finished. Just the master bedroom to go.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Picture rail start and pier repair

Popped by at about 1:00PM today. It looks like the carpenter has been there. All I could see was one section of picture rail installed.


Also it looks like the cracked piers have had an attempt at repairs.


They've added a bit of extra timber around the piers which should help to stabilize them. It seems like a reasonable idea. My only concern is that this could cause an issue with termites. Apparently they like a path to the yummy timber and if they can hide that path inside timber it is harder to check if they are attacking the rest of the house.

I have a similar concern about how the have left the piers for the alfresco


Termites like wet timber too and I plan to fill with soil around these making it even harder to check to make sure we don't have a termite problem.

I think I may be using my conservative powers as an engineer against me though. The builder is taking other precautions. I think that they are using type B termite protection which I think is alchemical barrier around the perimeter of the house. Also I'm hoping that the piers used for the alfresco are made of hardwood which apparently termites don't like.

As you may have noticed from all of the above "may"s "I think"s and "apparently"s I am not super confident in my opinions about termites. I think I'll have another read of the termite protection code just to try to clarify my opinions.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Timber delivered into garage

Went by last night. All that seems to have happened is the delivery of a out 12 90x45 pine timbers. Our thought is that these may be to finish off the alfresco decking. It is supposed to have a border around. However it appears that our carpenter didn't allow for this. Hopefully now that the timber and the picture railing have arrived there is nothing else that the carpenter needs to wait for. Bring on fixing invoice?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Picture Rails Delivered

Her indoors has just been past the house and apparently the picture rails have been delivered.  I also received a letter from Romeo today stating that extra nails have been put in the floor boards, the overhang has been fixed and the other items from our letter are being looked into.  I will have to double check that these have been done.

Gas underground

It looks like our gas supply has been installed underground.



We had a lovely chat with our neighbors about our fence. They said that nothing had happened on Monday however they did notice a truck pull up but when the driver noticed that no one was around they just drove off.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Whose bare feet are these?

Had a look around inside yesterday to see if anything else had happened. Nothing seemed to have been done inside however I saw these footprints.



There was a lot of mud at the entrance so I thought maybe someone had come in to have a look around and were kind enough to make less mess. However these footprints went everywhere throughout the house. Even right up to the toilet window. It seemed as though someone may have been doing a detailed look at everything. Being optimistic I am assuming that it may have been the site supervisor back from leave.

The builders office opens on Wednesday so we will see how they respond to my queries from before Christmas.

I also took a few photos of the completed garage floor.



This is looking from the wip door.



The finish looks pretty good and I think that they may have sloped it slightly to the front. The also put a good little slope near the back roller door.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Garage (warning male nudity)

We are currently trying to figure out what to do with our fences.  Our poor neighbours to the South have had to cope without a fence along their property for almost a year now and we want to try to alleviate this before the end of the build.  So we have been talking to fencers to see what is best.  Following this her indoors phoned our neighbours this morning to talk about fences which I will post about later.  They told us though that concreters were at the house doing our garage.

Immediately her indoors packed the kids into the car and headed off to site.  As she left it started to pour with rain.  This is the only photo she managed to take on her iphone.

As you can see the inclement weather has forced the concreters to take action.  They have finished the garage, however apparently in a clothing optional way.  As her indoors was leaving, however, apparently they got a little tired of someone taking photos of them so they wrapped themselves in garbage bags.  Unfortunatley her indoors was too embarrassed to take photos of this but the garbage bags were quite large and the poor guys ended up looking like they were wearing dresses.

I'll post more about the garage and the fences later.

Record of Progress

I have started to put together a page on this blog to track what happened on every day. I will start to back date it when I next get a chance (and also when I can get my spreadsheet off her indoors laptop).

This will be very useful for the upcoming argument on inclement weather.  Anyone in the process of building, I would thoroughly recommend undertaking this, hopefully it will just be an interesting thing to review when you move into the house rather than something necessary for having a fight with your builder.

Tracking progress? Use a blog.

If you are building a house I strongly recommend that you blog about it. The other day I reread the whole blog. This was with an aim to compare the rain records from bom with what I had recorded as happening. It seems to me as though they only really worked when there was a lot of rain and the site sat idle during clear and dry weather. This is awesome evidence in a fight about inclement weather.

Also in my review I learnt a lot about some other aspects which I had forgotten about. An example was when I took a photo of the lintel delivery slip. I commented back then that I thought that they didn't have enough of a certain length. The brickie eventually discovered this and they had to order more. Now we have a few spare angel sections sitting around.

Yesterday I popped by twice. The first time I thought I saw a car leaving the site but I had a quick look around.


They had cleaned up a lot inside which may mean they are getting ready for painting. Also the bulkhead above the fridge cavity has been installed.


There is a lining for the roof access in the laundry.


The linen cupboard now seems to have the facia piece added and is now much stiffer.

The chippy now just needs to finish off the walk in robe shelving and inside is all done. He then needs to finish the deck and then the verandah.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chippy working on a public holiday

Her indoors went past today and saw that the chippy was there. This got me thinking about the number of days allowed for in the contract for weekends and public holidays. The contract allows for 51 days of weekends, rostered days off and public holidays. My first thought was that if they do work on a public holiday does this mean that contractually they should take one day less? Unfortunately her indoors pointed out that 51 days hardly even allows for the number of Sundays. In the 330 days of the contract there are about 48 Sundays. Given that we have just had three public holidays in the last week the 51 days doesn't seem to have been calculated any method I would understand.

Shelving started

We were away for a few days from Christmas to New Year (Merry Christmas and happy New Years by the way) and returned on Sunday via the house to find that the shelving had been done. It looked like about a days work.


This is my wardrobe.



This is the work in progress on her indoor's walk in robe.



This is the long shelf in the bedroom with the triple slider cupboard. I was a little worried when I tested the strength of this shelf using my well practiced, structurally attuned, shake and bend technique. Luckily however I noticed that there still needs to be another section of timber added as a sort of facia.


Linen cupboard. See the extra bit of timber yet to be added.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone